Germany on the Move

...But, though the population is overwhelmingly hostile to the regime, the "failure of NATO to give help in East Berlin in 1953 or Hungary in 1956 has destroyed all illusions that rebellion might be supported by the Western alliance...

...Adenauer's recent visit to London...

...But, once Germany has her own atomic weapons, the situation on both sides of the Iron Curtain will change so fast that, whatever happens, the other Western powers will have lost their ability to decide the nature of the settlement...

...Is it really possible to hope that simply by remaining strong and united behind their bastions the Western Allies will eventually reap the reward of Russian concessions...

...Now that the thermonuclear stalemate has increased the importance of conventional forces in being, this represents a bewildering shift in the balance of military power...

...But he is 32 years old, and his control of his own party is already wavering...

...No leading figures of any party have yet publicly cast doubt on the indispensability of free elections, but in private they will all admit that this is a bargaining counter which would lose its diplomatic relevance if the Red Army could be negotiated out of Eastern Germany...

...With exports nearly triple prewar, she has 17 per cent of world trade and by far the biggest gold and dollar reserves of any country outside the United States...

...For this reason, it is still open to the West to reverse the trend by seeking agreement now with Russia on a general settlement in Central Europe...

...There is only one field in which Germany has made no progress since the war—and that is the field which many Germans consider the most important of all...

...Germany on the Move Pressure in Bonn for a deal with Moscow mounts as Adenauer fades By Denis Healey London The essential fact of the situation is that, whether the word Germany does or does not figure on the agenda of a summit conference, it is about Germany that the men at the summit will be talking...

...To them, the division of Germany is an occasion for ritual regrets whenever they think the Germans are listening...

...In some ways, national unity seems further away than ever...

...Adenauer's successor...

...That will depend on the Russians as much as the Germans...

...The remarkable and encouraging thing is that this fear is, if anything, even stronger in Germany than elsewhere...

...Indeed, for practical purposes, her twelve divisions will be stronger than all the other West European forces put together...

...Second, the idea that any German government could recognize the Oder-Neisse line as a permanent frontier with Poland...

...Without compromising the principle of strength and unity, it would be more realistic to admit that both the West and Russia have new cards in their hands that were not there when the present pattern for Europe was drawn five or more years ago...

...They are used to waiting...

...Most of the special factors which produced this "German miracle" are now disappearing, and with them the economic curve is flattening out...

...Britain has so far made no real attempt to give reality to the larger European framework...

...It will then be possible for the Germans to negotiate from strength with Russia—and, unlike their allies, they know very well what they want to negotiate about...

...But John Foster Dulles and Dean Acheson are united in believing that a realistic Western policy for ending the division of Germany is neither necessary nor desirable...

...These are all key members of the West German cabinet...

...Her output per head is almost up to that of Britain...

...And NATO seems hell-bent to remove the last possible restrictions over Germany's military sovereignty—indeed, the Eisenhower Administration's haste to give Germany atomic weapons is embarrassing even to the Adenauer Government...

...The extremist parties of both Right and Left have steadily been reduced to splinters...

...And this is happening at a time when not only Germany's NATO allies but the Russians, too, are drastically reducing their troops in Europe...

...But, so long as he remains Chancellor, the Russians will hesitate to make any serious attempt at an accommodation with West Germany...

...Even so, there is no doubt that, unless the West tries to reverse the present trend of the cold war in Central Europe, NATO will ultimately find it impossible to refuse Germany atomic weapons...

...This is a hope which Russia is doing her best to encourage...

...The Minister of All-German Affairs, Ernst Lemmer, in an appeal to Russia to bring about a more liberal policy in East Germany, let it be understood that, if she did so, negotiations between the two German governments might become possible...

...Thus, more and more Germans on both sides of the Iron Curtain are wondering whether Germany might achieve unity by her own unaided efforts...

...For practical purposes Germany has a two-party system—and the two parties have enough in common in both home and foreign policy to make their rivalry productive rather than destructive...

...It is just ten years since West Germany began her uninterrupted climb to recovery...

...For a limited period ahead, the interests of Germany, her Western allies, and her Communist enemies may be close enough to make possible some form of disengagement...

...There is only one man who has rigidly set his face against any shift in current Western policy—Chancellor Konrad Adenauer himself...

...That is why there is growing fear in Europe about the consequences of present NATO policy...

...The third aspect of Germany's recovery has had far less notice than one would expect...

...Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano has several times hinted at recognition of the Oder-Neisse line as the price to be paid for unity with the Eastern Zone...

...Even more impressive to those who know her past is West Germany's success in eradicating Nazism and establishing solid bases for Parliamentary democracy...

...The Communist regime in Eastern Germany has recently made economic progress in many ways as striking as that in Western Germany...

...Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, generally regarded as the next Chancellor but one, recently suggested that the West German Army should be used as a bargaining counter to obtain a united but neutral Germany...

...In spite of heavier damage to her industrial equipment than was suffered by any other belligerent, her production is now 80 per cent above prewar...

...Can Germany's allies count on the same single-minded pursuit of a common policy from Dr...

...It is possible to hold that this is the best way to achieve German unity and that, if all Western Europe has atomic arms, America will be able to withdraw in safety...

...No one can say today whether a future West German government will be able to make its own deal with the Soviet Union against the will of its allies...

...Within a year or so, West Germany will be the strongest military power in Europe—including Britain—in anything but all-out global war...

...Third, the idea that any formal diplomatic contact with the East German Government could be permitted—even to Germany's allies...

...Finally, the idea that Germany could regain her unity by any means but free elections in the Soviet Zone...

...The Christian Democrats and Social Democrats won 82 per cent of the votes between them at last September's election...

...In the past ten years, there have been four major taboos in West German diplomacy...

...The fact that they appeared in the most cautious and orthodox of all the newspapers in Europe illustrates the gulf which has opened between the two sides of the Atlantic on the most critical diplomatic problem of the present age...

...The purely Continental institutions like the Common Market and the Schu-man Plan are dominated by Germany —La Petite Europe is simply the French euphemism for Gross Deutsch-land...

...Opposition spokesmen have been much bolder in making such suggestions...

...These words come from a long lead editorial in the London Times on Dr...

...Yet, after granting Germany these weapons, NATO will lose all radson d'etre so far as Germany is concerned...

...And the rigidity o£ Western diplomacy offers no hope of peaceful progress...

...The best proof of the new confidence in Germany's strength is that each of these taboos is rapidly disappearing...

...The leading American spokesmen of both the Republican and Democratic parties seem completely unaware of the great dangers and opportunities which present themselves now that West Germany has fully recovered her strength and her self-consciousness as a sovereign state...

...Disengagement, disarmament—by whatever name the first move is called, it comes back to the partition which runs through Germany and on either side of which the rival forces stand...

...But, with an industrious and highly trained population of 50 million and a modernized industrial machine, West Germany is economically stronger than all the other Continental countries put together...

...But no one with a sense of European history can face such a prospect without grave misgivings...

...First, the idea that even a united Germany could afford to break its military ties with the West...

...When he was last on vacation, there was an immediate outbreak of ministerial speeches in opposition to his line, which was brought to a halt only by his return and by the staging of a set battle with the Social Democrats in Parliament...

...Indeed, Western intelligence sources put the strength of the Red Army in Eastern Germany today at 350,000—• the figure which the West German Army will reach in 1961...

...But one is justified in predicting that none of the Western framework within which Germany is now embedded will be capable of exercising any restraint over her actions if the Russians make an attractive offer...