The Rise of Neutralism:
HAHN, WALTER F.
The Rise of Neutralism By Walter F. Hahn WHILE ALL EYES have been focused on the. crisis-to-crisis atmosphere of Paris in recent weeks, a more portentous, though less flamboyant, development has...
...Their exhortations generally center upon the four major burning issues in the German political mentality: the desire for reunification, war-weary opposition to rearmament, resentment against the conquering powers, and the desire for Germany's international freedom of action...
...The potential strength of this phenomenon is unquestionable...
...Its apostles are eminently resourceful, as evidenced in the person of former Ambassador to Moscow Rudolf Nadolny, whose phantom-like missions between the two Germanys bear an unmistakable Soviet imprint...
...The religious motive is less implicit in the Deutsche Volkspartei (German People's party) headed by Dr...
...An analysis of the movement separates two major areas of purpose, if not of content...
...In simple political terms, this means that Adenauer is calling upon all possible reserves for the anticipated clash with resurgent nationalism...
...Any veils obscuring German neutralism, however, have been torn aside in recent weeks...
...Pastor Martin Niemoeller, for example, who has lashed out against Adenauer almost as viciously as he did against Hitler, combines this pacifism with a consuming hatred for the Roman Catholic hierarchy...
...A good part of the Chancellor's desperation to avert total failure of the EDC project can be attributed to an acknowledgment of these signals...
...And affirmation by such irreproachable personages as the brilliant theoretician Hermann Rauschning and ex-Chancellor Heinrich Bruening gives the historical-political approach tremendous weight among leading political and intellectual circles...
...Because this program is in perfect harmony with current Soviet objectives vis-a-vis Germany, it is here that the Communist hand has been heaviest...
...WALTER F. HAHN is now a research fellow in international relations at the University of Pennsylvania...
...Rapallo gave Germany the necessary tactical independence of the West, the economic benefits of the East, and a general resurgence of strength derived from the new balance of power...
...One general observation must be made before we leave the "neither-nor" adherents of German neutralism, and this touches strongly upon the Dr...
...As seen by the Niemoeller group, a reunified Germany would mean a Protestant Germany and a neutralized Germany would mean independence from the predominantly Catholic countries of France and Italy...
...The main precepts of this argument are simple in their essential outline...
...The landslide victory in last September's elections has surrounded the Bonn coalition with an aura of strength which, it has been commonly believed, nothing short of the Chancellor's death or an unexpected internal cataclysm could dislodge...
...Gustav Heinemann, a former Cabinet minister who broke with Adenauer over the rearmament issue...
...Heinemann nevertheless exercises a strong appeal to interdenominational pacifism...
...We have little reason to assume that this sentiment has dwindled appreciably since 1951...
...Along with Frau Wessel, until 1951 co-chairman of the Center party, Dr...
...As early as the summer of 1951, the EMNID Public Opinion Institute of Bielefeld asked a representative cross-section of West Germany this question: "What do you personally think is more important: that we Germans should side with the Americans, side with the Russians, or remain neutral between the two...
...It advocates a reunified Germany, neutralized by common accord among the four powers, and holds that neutralization can, in fact, serve as the only basis for reunification under present circumstances...
...It was this same idealism which formed the strongest springboard for the resistance against National Socialism...
...When the former West German security chief outlined his belief in a neutralized Germany under the klieg-lights of an elaborate East German press conference on August 11, the reverberations shook Bonn to its foundations...
...Its ranks are composed of a motley conglomeration of elements, ranging from Communists and fellow-travelers to neo-Nazis and militant adventurers...
...The sum total of all these parts represents sinister storm warnings for the Adenauer Administration...
...It stems, instead, from a movement in Germany which has gained relentlessly in volume and velocity...
...These exhortations fall upon fertile ground: the captains of heavy industry with their only slightly tarnished dreams of Eastern markets and Eastern raw materials, the survivors of the military with their grudging respect for Soviet manpower and organization, the militant adventurers of the lunatic fringe, and many other past and potential beneficiaries of a rapprochement with the East...
...A convinced European, Adenauer appears to believe sincerely in establishing Western solidarity on the most efficient scale possible...
...crisis-to-crisis atmosphere of Paris in recent weeks, a more portentous, though less flamboyant, development has been taking place in Germany, where Chancellor Konrad Adenauer is standing at the threshold of his most critical battle for survival...
...We are banking on the continued life and power of an octogenarian, who has given essential proof of the sincerity of his intentions...
...But these illusions are abruptly giving way as the European debate over German rearmament is approaching the final showdown...
...But, to state the obvious, Adenauer is also a convinced German to whom the Defense Community means not only a return of virtual German sovereignty, but also a means of containing the dangerous predilections discussed...
...The first of these is the school of "neither-nor" neutralism, best characterized by the slogan "ohne mich" ("leave me out") about which a good part of German opinion has rallied...
...They set forth that Germany, situated in the main concourse of Europe, has been able to maintain its national character only by traditionally reserving for itself more than one course of action...
...The only factors preventing its mobilization on the part of organized German neutralist groups have been the ideological and tactical divergences of these groups on one hand, and the personal popularity and successful domestic policies of Adenauer on the other...
...Its proponents blithely disregard the fact that the present power relationship is a far cry from 1922, when the Soviet-German pact was characterized by the late David Lloyd George as a handshake between "the two pariahs of Europe...
...It is within this context that Adenauer's latest offer of the olive branch to the Social Democrats must be interpreted...
...Important also was his exhortation that the German people must find a modus vivendi with Communism because "Communism, whether you like it or not, is a reality...
...The movement goes under the name of a bevy of organizations and personalities, but collectively its name is neutralism...
...This explains not only Dr...
...Ostensibly, the SPD is to be admited to coalition standing for a truly "national" appraisal of Germany's alternatives...
...We stress this one common denominator because there are few other stretches of homogeneity in the German neutralist movement...
...It is the more dangerous, moreover, because it seduces the nationally conscious German with an argument to which he is most susceptible—the argument of "historical-political necessity...
...It is this group which poses the gravest danger in Germany today, because it welds neutralism and nationalism into one inseparable entity...
...John affair...
...Of the 88 per cent who reportedly expressed an opinion, 36 per cent were pro-American, 3 per cent pro-Russian, and 50 per cent favored neutrality...
...It is no coincidence that many of the present neutralist leaders had been prominent in the resistance movement against Hitler...
...His political party started last year, the Bund der Deutschen (League of Germans), has nestled close to the Communist party line and has been devoid of real political significance...
...After an early honeymoon of cordial relations with East German leaders, Noack was harshly disavowed in March 1950 for his criticisms of the single-slate electoral method adopted by the Communists...
...The strongest characteristic of this sector is perhaps a profound pacifism, upon which a variety of personal motives are superimposed...
...The major contribution of this school is its concept of an armed and neutralized Germany, much in the manner of Switzerland...
...First came the defection of Dr...
...There is, for example, the rather pathetic figure of ex-Chancellor Josef Wirth, who has donated a fading respectability and faltering mentality to a questionable coterie of elements...
...John, but also many occupants of the neutralist bandwagon...
...There is more to this phenomenon than just the explanation that these men collaborated with Communists and Soviet agents in the underground and simply continued these associations after the war...
...We have already noted the deeply religious, almost mystically humanitarian strain which pervades a good portion of neutralist thinking...
...This touched upon the lowest common denominator of German neutralist agitation, namely the contention that arriving at an understanding with the Soviet Union is not only possible, but necessary...
...But postwar Germany redressed this mistake with the Treaty of Rapallo of 1922, which inaugurated a long period of cordial relations between the young Soviet Republic and the even younger Weimar Republic...
...Competent observers of the German scene have, in fact, invoked the latter two reasons to account for the Chancellor's electoral landslide last year, rather than his foreign policy...
...The tragedy of World War I descended upon Germany when the Iron Chancellor's successors shortsightedly discarded his system...
...This is also what we must keep in mind in our own search for "alternatives...
...His closely-knit circle, catering to the intellectual and boasting a number of prominent political names, has maintained a shadowy influence in West German politics...
...Wirth, a devout Catholic and leader of the Center party's left wing during the Weimar period, has been motivated perhaps as much by personal vengeance against Adenauer, who frustrated his postwar comeback attempt in the CDU, as by the new convictions assimilated during a trip to the East Zone in late 1951...
...The one discussed most frequently in recent weeks—that of granting unconditional sovereignty to Germany—opens many new vistas...
...John's charges of secret EDC clauses, West German renazification and American preparations for a "preventive war" gave the German neutralists their first substantial shipment of ammunition...
...Close behind Wirth and slightly less tainted by Communist influence is the so-called Nauheimer Kreis (Nauheim Circle) of Professor Ulrich Noack of the University of Wuerzburg...
...Unlike other European countries where neutralism, despite its nebulous tenets, has achieved a certain measure of political identification, the German variety confronts us with an intricate labyrinth of thought which extends the entire length of the West German political structure...
...Drawing its strength from two of the forementioned popular impulses—the desire for reunification at any price and the rejection of remilitarization in any form—this school believes that Germany can survive only through a complete withdrawal from the explosive-laden global interplay of power politics...
...But precariously around the corner is another Germany, the elongated shadow of which is only too frighteningly familiar...
...Add to this a response mechanism acquired in years spent in Nazi torture chambers and you have the essential profile of the resistance-fighter-turned-neutralist: the prospect of a new march of uniforms—the sight of a former National Socialist back in high office—and the mechanism is triggered into action...
...They hammer away only at the fact that Adenauer is committing the cardinal sin of traditional German policy by seeking an irrevocable attachment to one side of the global scale...
...Otto John, the full impact of which still defies description...
...The same criteria do not apply, however, to the other major area of neutralist thought: the advocates of an "either-or" policy of watchful waiting...
...And—so runs the implied suggestion—is not the acknowledged "indispensability" of West Germany to the Atlantic Alliance proof of her potential bargaining strength...
...It has been able to accomplish this—so the argument proceeds—only because the Germans, through long association, have succeeded in penetrating the enigma of the Eastern mind...
...Bismarck established German hegemony by skillfully playing off East against West, all the time consolidating his country's position between the two spheres...
...Contrary to popular surmise, the threat to Adenauer does not emanate solely from the "loyal opposition" of the Social Democratic party...
...The remainder of the "neither-nor" category is popularized by a wide zone of converging elements...
...This is the nostalgia underlying current demands for a return to the "Spirit of Rapallo...
...We have paid relatively less attention to Herr Adenauer, largely because we have taken his position too much for granted...
...No political party, least of all Adenauer's own Christian Democratic Union, has escaped neutralism's impact...
Vol. 37 • September 1954 • No. 39
