Germany on Election Eve
KOHN, HANS
No matter who wins, democracy's chances seem brighter than at any time since 1848 GERMANY ON ELECTION EVE By Hans Kohn On September 15 the voters of the German Federal Republic will go to the...
...Partly because of this, the last elections, held on September 7, 1053, gave him quite a large majority...
...After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Germans faced, in the Soviet-occupied zone, a similar regime of complete alienation from the West...
...But most of them are moderate and circumspect in their editorials and are free of that virulent nationalism which poisoned the minds of readers of the provincial press before 1933...
...This alignment was largely the work of one man...
...the unity and welfare of Germany...
...Though the Germans do not like to remember the situation of ten years ago, the lesson of the intervening experience has not been lost upon them...
...Berlin is often longingly referred to as the future Reichshauptstadt, Reich's capital...
...A German army integrated with the West is the best guarantee of democracy in Germany and ultimately of peace on Germany's eastern borders...
...The latter was not unknown in the euphoric years of the Weimar Republic, but life in the Reich, as the Weimar Republic insisted on calling itself, was then replete with a feverish nationalism...
...Both were eager for power...
...Few voters will think back to the German situation of ten years ago...
...In point six, the party came out for securing free competition by restricting cartels and trusts, a program familiar to Americans...
...Rut there is good reason to believe that the coming elections will in no way reverse or even affect this trend...
...they regard it as desirable to have alternating parties in power in a democracy...
...the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), gained more than 45 per cent of the vote...
...and, finally, by the new and in itself healthy dislike, among post-1945 Germans, of military service...
...one would be unthinkable today...
...Whenever Romano Guardini preaches in the Ludwigskirche near the University of Munch, the large church overflows with students...
...Though the scars of the war are still visible, many cities are emerging from the rubble more beautiful than before...
...he became the "Continental sword of the United States...
...In view of this, there would seem to be no reason for the fear felt by some Americans of the consequences of a Social Democratic victory in the coming elections...
...On June 12, her birthday, a memorial tablet was unveiled at the house in which she was born in the Ganghoferstrasse in Frankfurt-am-Main...
...At heart they know that these negotiations can lead nowhere...
...For a short while they hoped for a general change in Western policy resulting from a successful outcome of the London disarmament negotiations...
...But the large majority and the party leader, Erich Ollenhauer, in no way demand a policy of socialization or large-scale planning...
...The plebiscite of October 1955 in the Saar gave the three "German" parties a majority, but the "separatist" Christ-liche Volkspartei under Johannes Hoffman showed appreciable strength, and one year later, in the elections of December 1956, gained more votes...
...Thus foreign policy became the battleground between the two competitors for leadership of postwar Germany...
...He was aided in this by the deeply ingrained distrust, among German Protestants, of the Catholic clerical influence...
...Adenauer carried the day...
...There are still many older Germans who believe that National Socialism was, on the whole, good but made some grievous mistakes, and even many who still see the Jews as the root of all evil...
...Both were equally anti-Nazi and anti-Communist...
...The division of Germany into the German Federal Republic and the Soviet-controlled zone carries a lesson visible to all who wish to see: The Federal Republic, cooperating closely with the West, has achieved a remarkable degree of prosperity, while the zone supported by the Soviet Union is lagging far behind...
...But the German Democratic Republic, as the zone is officially known, can in no way stand comparison with the German Federal Republic...
...It demands only the abolition of conscription, trusting that the call for an abandonment of the draft will have a popular appeal, an argument not unknown in the Western democracies...
...A recent inquiry into those figures regarded by German students as models and guides brought forth names like Albert Schweitzer, Romano Guardini and Martin Buber...
...Franco-German wars seemed an almost "normal" occurrence in the past two hundred years...
...Many Germans, as a result of these experiences, turned resolutely toward the West...
...Konrad Adenauer...
...It threatened to oppose Adenauer's foreign policy together with the Socialists, with whom it has less in common in economic theory than with the CDU...
...The German people today is more prosperous than it has ever been...
...Adenauer threw in his Hans Kohn (cut at left) is professor of history at (he City College of New York...
...For the stability of German democracy, a closer cooperation between the CDU and the SPD might be beneficial in the long run...
...The same holds true whenever an eloquent Protestant theologian like Professor Helmut Thielicke preaches...
...Looking to the future, the leaders of the USSR can see no conceivable reason to abandon their hold on important parts of Germany...
...Then there was no German state...
...Benefits given under old-age pension and social security arrangements have been increased, thus bringing relief to the only indigent part of the German population...
...It is true that the SPD has a "socialist" left wing represented by men like Herbert Wehner and Willi Eichler...
...But on this point there is no discrepancy with Adenauer's avowed policy...
...This new sobriety also distinguishes the press of the German Federal Republic in comparison with that of the Weimar Reich...
...practically all the cities were in ruins...
...It is brighter than it has been at any time since 1848, when most German liberals decided in favor of national power in preference to liberal self-government...
...This change in temper impresses the student of German affairs even more than the economic prosperity...
...Future historians may well compare Adenauer to Bismarck, but Adenauer had to fight against much greater odds than did Bismarck, and his work might last much longer than the short-lived Bismarckian empire, the collapse of which was partly due to its consciously anti-Western foundations...
...Ollenhauer is a middle-of-the-road man, ideal for holding the party together, but not a personality of sufficient color and strength to stand by himself against Adenauer...
...Intellectually and morally, the majority of the German Social Democrats are as dedicated to Western ideas as are most of the members of the CDU...
...This will take some time...
...In reality, the leaders of the SPD know that they have to stress their party's reliability as the West's partner, and Ollenhauer did so in his opening campaign speech in Dortmund on June 16, 1957...
...Schumacher had to develop another platform...
...The inadequacy of Communism as an economic system has been revealed in Yugoslavia and Poland, but there its glaring insufficiencies could be explained by a general backwardness...
...They wish to draw the Social Democrats into constructive and responsible participation in national affairs, instead of relegating them to sterile opposition...
...What was at dispute was not the end but the means...
...The rift between Adenauer and the Socialists in foreign policy has more historical than factual justification...
...There is as little bridge possible between liberty and Communism as there was between liberty and Nazism...
...But, on the other hand, in no other country has The Diary of Anne Frank made as deep an impression...
...He has many fervent adherents, but a large part of the press and of educated public opinion, who are in no way opposed to his policies, would be glad to see him replaced...
...In the name of efficiency, proposals are made to weaken the federative character of the present Republic, with its emphasis on local self-government, and to restore the centralizing features of the Reich...
...The contrast in foreign policy and its practical consequences are vastly overstated by both sides in the heat of the electoral campaign...
...From the middle of the 19th century to the end of the Hitler regime, the temper of German nationalism in foreign affairs could be judged by its attitude toward France and Poland...
...After World War II, Western Germany could count only two strong personalities able to appeal to, and fascinate the imagination of, the masses—Konrad Adenauer and the late Kurt Schumacher, the passionate and powerful leader of the SPD...
...and Germany had no voice and no weight in the affairs of the world...
...And nobody can know for certain what the Kremlin really wants or will want in a few years...
...But the SPD forgets that a professional army is less trustworthy, as the experience of the Weimar Republic has shown, and more expensive than an army based on universal military service and closely supervised by public opinion...
...This cleavage reached its extreme limits under the Nazis...
...Adenauer and Heuss may be considered representative of this trend, which, however, has not vet struck deep and definitive roots in the German mind and society...
...It was not so in 1914 or in 1939...
...However, it is significant that the entire membership amounted to less than 750, none of them under 30 years old, and that a proposed Bundestref-fen, or national convention, had to be canceled for lack of funds...
...The progress made since then is truly astonishing...
...His party...
...lot with the Americans...
...Today, most observers are agreed that he has regained his popularity and that he will again carry the elections...
...It may be that its leaders themselves do not know...
...The outlook for the future of the German Federal Republic today is bright, perhaps because it is a federal republic and no longer a Reich...
...There are no newspapers in Germany today comparable to the New York Times, the Neue Ziircher Zeitung, London Times or Le Monde...
...At that time, the roads of Germany and of the West separated...
...Domestic prosperity and financial stability are too great to offer electoral issues in the economic field...
...All German papers, perhaps with the exception of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, are today local or provincial papers...
...The USSR would fear a united democratic Germany—as both Adenauer and the SPD insist upon a Western-type democracy—whether it be for the moment armed or not, allied or isolationist...
...and Germany is on the way toward becoming the strongest state after the two superpowers...
...The last years of the Nazi regime sobered German youth...
...Thus, for all practical purposes there is much reason to believe that an electoral victory for the Social Democratic party would not involve a fundamental change in German foreign policy...
...There are plenty of old-fashioned German nationalists and un-regenerated Nazis around, but they are hardly to be found among the youth...
...The chief opposition party, the Social Democratic party (SPD), received less than 29 per cent...
...They have lost the former fanaticism and Germanocentrism which typified the youth twenty and thirty years ago...
...They know that the Communists have always reserved their most implacable hatred for democratic Socialists, both in Russia and in the West...
...In 1956, Adenauer suffered a loss of prestige and popularity in Germany...
...The Bismarckian spirit of unity above liberty then asserted itself throughout...
...The strong and prosperous Germany of today, closely integrated with the West and much more secure against the internal dangers of Communism and Fascism than France or Italy, is his work, as far as such an achievement can be attributed to a single man...
...SPD posters proclaim that Germany faces the alternative of being a bridge or a battlefield between East and West...
...Though the SPD officially hopes for a "neutral" Germany, it has abandoned its initial resistance to a German army...
...At present such a cooperation, as has been established in Austria, is hardly in sight for Germany...
...In many of their attitudes they resemble the youth in the English-speaking countries...
...Their arguments are familiar to democratic voters everywhere...
...Both were, above all, interested in foreign policy...
...Naturally, remnants of this spirit still survive...
...If it comes at all, it will come only after Adenauer's time...
...in both parts, of course, the human material is the same in resourcefulness, energy, organizational discipline and technological skill...
...No matter who wins, democracy's chances seem brighter than at any time since 1848 GERMANY ON ELECTION EVE By Hans Kohn On September 15 the voters of the German Federal Republic will go to the polls to decide the composition of the third postwar German Parliament and thus to select for a third time the Federal Chancellor, the highest executive officer of the country...
...Instead of socialization, the Socialists stress stable prices...
...An authority on nationalism, he has written some 20 hooks, among them Revolutions and Dictatorships, Prophets and Peoples and the recently-published American An-tionalism...
...Such an alternative has little to do with reality...
...by the then widespread suspicion, among Socialists, of American capitalism and the "inevitable" cycle of capitalist depression...
...security against the dangers of Communism...
...The economic potential there is better than in the other Communist countries...
...In 19th-century Germany and in the Weimar Reich, the academic youth was, as in many Eastern European or Asian lands, the chief agitator for a militant nationalism...
...This is not the case in the Soviet zone of Germany...
...INext week's j\Yw Lk.vdek will contain a forecast of the German election by our Bonn correspondent, F. It...
...A ten-point platform, proposed at the beginning of the electoral campaign in June, upheld private enterprise...
...But this hope, shared by some circles in the Western democracies, is as unrealistic as are similar hopes regarding any lasting agreement with the Communist leadership...
...The alignment with the West has paid off well for Germany in economic prosperity and in individual liberty...
...After the Polish October of 1956, German spokesmen have stressed the necessity of preparing the ground for negotiations with Poland and a peaceful, neighborly relationship...
...The history of the last thirty years has proven that collective security, and not neutralism, is the way to prevent war and to avoid becoming a battlefield...
...Since Schumacher's death, no opponent of equal stature and mass appeal has appeared to challenge Adenauer...
...They point out the danger of placing all responsibility in one man...
...The mutual distrust is too great...
...Yet it even seems doubtful whether the outcome of the elections could endanger the stability of German foreign policy, or bring about a fundamental change in it...
...The newly founded Evangelical Academies, of which the one in Loerum near Hanover is the most famous, have become centers of intellectual discussion to which not only Protestants are attracted...
...The German Federal Republic has ceased, for the foreseeable future, to be a critical neuralgic point of world policy...
...Alleinann...
...Many of them, both Catholics and Protestants, are much interested in religious issues...
...Three minor parties, among which the Free Democratic party (FDP) is the most important one, joined Adenauer's coalition...
...Franco-German relations have improved in the last ten years beyond recognition...
...For there are hardly any economic issues involved...
...But Prussia will not be restored in any foreseeable future, and the creation of a German army, though accepted as a necessity, has in no way been welcomed as desirable...
...Last June, a neo-Nazi youth group was discovered in Diisseldorf and quickly suppressed by the authorities...
...Though the leader of the Saar "Democrats," Heinrich Schneider, tried to inflame the nationalist passions of the people and to reproduce the atmosphere of 1935, when the Saar population overwhelmingly voted to join the Nazi Reich, Adenauer stressed that one should not imply that those who did not vote for union with Germany in 1955 were "bad" Germans...
...But it is German foreign policy which supplies the main issue for the approaching elections...
...the immense majority of the people lived in abject poverty...
...Nor is there much sense in the slogan that the unification of Germany is the pre-condition of European peace...
...The "separatist" Christliche Volkspartei (Christian People's party) may still play its role in the Saar, a situation unimaginable in the Weimar or Nazi Reich...
...The level of prices has been kept under control lately...
...Since then the FDP has split, and a large group has abandoned Adenauer...
...Both desired the same end: a democratic Germany in the Western sense of the word...
...Many Germans —and not only Germans—talk about the desirability of negotiations with the USSR...
...True, Germany has today no first-rate paper as it had in the Frankfurter Zeitung before Hitler...
...But there appears no prospect of such a victory...
...They are less subject to sentimental reminiscence about the past than are many of their elders...
...Even German-Polish relations, which so much exacerbated German nationalism in 1848 and in the Weimar Reich, have recently improved...
...Whatever the future holds, Adenauer, the Rhineland Catholic, together with Federal President Theodor Heuss, a Protestant from the old, liberal southwest corner of Germany, will deserve the credit for turning Germany away from the Prussian militarism and anti-Western nationalism to which it had succumbed more and more since 1848...
Vol. 40 • September 1957 • No. 35
