The Illusion of German Neutrality

...Dealing with symptoms, however, is no more effective in politics than in medicine...

...No Soviet speeches or inspired editorials have ever made this offer...

...Abandonment of Ulbricht and the DDR would mean the loss of a strategic springboard in the center of Europe and a highly skilled labor force to the consolidated economic plan, not to mention the uranium deposits of the Erzgebirge...

...would be a hard question to answer...

...It was, as it turned out, not a big price—not one, in any case, to be compared with the loss of the Soviet Zone of Germany...

...Communism, one should note at once, does not even figure in this calculation...

...And it is perfectly proper to state that the German problem, arch-symbol of the conflict between Soviet Communism and Western freedom, cannot be solved by war—which means that a solution within the predictable future will require Soviet acquiescence in peace...

...All this notwithstanding, why should one not offer to neutralize Germany and let Moscow bear the onus of refusing...

...The German Social Democrats have worn this scheme on their sleeve for years without getting the slightest satisfaction from Moscow...

...Their belief was reaffirmed at the NATO summit meeting last December...

...The SPD's appeal to the nation has harped on the choice between reunification and Western alliance...

...The Germans are not afraid of an attack from the West...

...West Germany's allies do not want a neutral Germany either...

...However, as the Kremlin gives every sign of regarding it now, it is the entering wedge of Soviet domination...

...What the Kremlin would, in truth, cordially welcome—and of this it has made no secret—is a turn of Western policy disemboweling NATO and casting West Germany adrift...

...However, when and if a genuine East-West agreement on Germany is possible, the need for it will have disappeared...

...It is possible that the Germans may one day demand and proclaim a status of neutrality...

...German neutrality, literally and honestly meant, might conceivably be the key to a broad detente...

...Either event would find the United States powerless to refuse...

...The hard language of facts provides a blunt and conclusive answer...

...There is no need to clutter the situation with sacred cows...

...Concretely, the neutral Prussia or Germany of the past has been either an adventurer or a neurotic, driven by greed or fear or a combination of both to exploit its central position against its neighbors...

...The average German realizes that the atomic yardstick has reduced Germany to a second-rate power...

...They are afraid only of Soviet power, and the ready realization that they could not withstand it alone would force them to submit if they had to face it alone...

...The conflict has entered or been dragged into such debates as the European Security treaties, rearmament, relations with the West, the Saar problem and membership in NATO, not to mention the incessant discussion of reunification...

...A neutral Germany—that is, one not bound to either side and standing on equal terms with both, economically viable, politically stable and capable of defending itself—could come about and be preserved only through East-West agreement...

...Political leaders are horrified at the prospect of this vital territory, with its immensely productive people, turned into a political vacuum...

...Neutrality vs...

...Why should this neutrality be nebulous...

...There is a time to act and a time to talk—and also a time to take stock...

...Yorck von Wartenburg could easily change sides at Tauroggen, Bismarck juggle a policy of reinsurance and Stresemann gently work both sides of the street...

...The German electorate's decision is fully in harmony with history...

...In the abstract, we see the trend of history eliminating national boundaries and amalgamating large economic and political areas...

...And it was true at the Summit Conference in Geneva in 1955, where the Western statesmen offered Khrushchev and Bulganin the most sweeping assurances against a German military threat, only to be fobbed off with the same old evasions...

...Given this view prevailing in Germany, even the serious suggestion that the West would neutralize Germany against its will could upset the psychological balance...

...Despite all the economic determinism and rarefied theory that has crept into political analysis in the past generation, there is still no stronger force than the psychological appeal of sheer survival...

...And the little people who, in the same frantic summer, bought picture postcards of Stalin (to preserve themselves should the Red Army come) would also probably have their eye cocked to the main chance...

...At a time when the Western nations still hopefully sought the philosopher's stone of general settlement with the Soviet Union, Secretary of State James Byrnes offered the Soviets a 25-year treaty to demilitarize, and in effect to neutralize, Germany...

...They need no alliance against France and Belgium...

...In fact, on past performance the odds are that Soviet propaganda, having thoroughly confused the issue in endless palaver, would go on to pin ultimate failure on the West, as it did last year with the disarmament talks in London and at the UN...

...When and if that peril subsides, NATO can be filed away in the archives...

...Nor would it be enough to replace American divisions and NATO's guarantees of automatic assistance with the feeble assurance of the United Nations Charter or some dubious European Security Treaty that brought the Soviet wolf right into the front parlor...

...As the inimitable Khrushchev explained to Guy Mollet in the spring of 1956, he would rather keep the 17 million East Germans under his thumb than have 70 million Germans neutral against him...

...Again, the serious proposal alone would raise the most urgent doubts about Allied solidarity...

...Without Western soldiers in Berlin to underscore the four-power agreement on free access and provide a casus belli, the "German Democratic Republic" (DDR) could employ the treaty rights it has acquired from the Soviets to strangle the city...

...If the course of the postwar period alone, beginning with Stalin's solemn pledge to honor the right of self-determination in Eastern Europe and on through the murder of Hungarian freedom, was not enough to embarrass the Kremlin, a complicated dispute over neutralization is not likely to make Khrushchev blush with shame...

...One need only recall Kurt Schumacher's epithet, "Allies' Chancellor," flung at Konrad Adenauer...

...A neutral West Germany would, even if it were willing, be unable to mount an airlift or to browbeat the Communists into retreat...

...Remove this shield and the picture changes...

...It would be cutting its own throat, as the case of Berlin would quickly prove...

...And there is not the slightest reason to suppose that Germany alone could wrest from the Soviet Union that measure of sovereignty and security for which the Western world has negotiated in vain...

...With the balance of power seeming to tip away from the free world at the present moment, its paramount duty is to pull itself together...

...And Moscow has far more formidable means at its disposal...

...For the overriding factor in today's political equation is that the Germans themselves do not want to be neutral...

...It is also possible that the nations of Europe may demand the removal of American forces...

...The presence of Western, and especially American, forces in Europe is not the product of mental aberration or idle whim...

...Not only is neutrality no solution of the German problem, but mere experimentation with the offer is dangerous...

...Austrian sovereignty was part of the price Khrushchev paid for the Spirit of Geneva and the reinforcement of his position after the fall of Malenkov...

...But the Soviets know better than we how to use the bare act of negotiation as an instrument of policy...

...Physical possession of a defiant Finland is simply not worth the loss of the Scandinavian buffer, and certainly not world conflict...

...However, only folly would suggest that the West could, in today's world, pursue a constructive, peaceful course which did not rest on the ample ability to fight in self-defense...

...Hottelet served as a correspondent in Germany from 1937 to 1941, and for most of the period from 1945 to 1956...

...Seen historically, German neutrality can hold little appeal for the West...

...Most recently, thinking along these lines has explored the variations of German neutrality...

...There is, for instance, nothing holy about NATO...

...It could not possibly be anything else...

...Strength, military or otherwise, is not a policy but a prop...

...However, circumstances alter cases...

...Since the rape of Czechoslovakia and the Berlin blockade, it has been the solemn conviction of the Western nations that Soviet policy threatens their security...

...It is an alliance formed to meet the clear danger of Soviet expansion...

...In analyzing so complicated a problem, one must avoid two pitfalls...

...When Moscow refused, he raised the limit to 40 years...

...A much more practical threat to Soviet plans in 1946 than a highly doubtful revival of German militarism was a treaty that would have committed the United States to remain in Europe for 40 years...

...Observers whose stature entitles their arguments to sober consideration have lent their support even though the weight of history, together with available fact, stamps the thesis of neutralization as a dangerous illusion...

...The process would be more subtle...

...They argue that, since what has been tried has not succeeded, resort should be had to devices as yet untried, although such feverish experimentation would in the long run eliminate only formulas unacceptable to Moscow...

...There is broad room for discussion, however fruitlessly it may drag on...

...It has dominated political thought since politics began again in 1949...

...If the Western powers were not on guard, they would find themselves thus formally recognizing the existence of this satellite and the status quo in Europe...

...Since Stalin promised at Potsdam that Germany would be restored to democracy as an economic and political unit, Soviet policy has aimed at the opposite...

...In the last two Federal elections, when the choice between NATO and neutrality was argued up and down the land, the voters resoundingly endorsed Adenauer's view that Western solidarity is necessary for survival, let alone reunification...

...The other is the laziness which insinuates that the solution is always to be found midway between opposing positions...

...Here Richard C. Hottelet of CBS (cut at right) continues our discussion on the advisability of neutralizing Germany, a proposal recently revived by George F. Kennan in his Reith Lectures in London...

...A Carlo Schmid who could declare, in the Korean hysteria of 1950, that one would fare better Bolshevized with bones intact than pounded to pieces in a foxhole might find a wide market for his fatalism...

...The Kremlin has rejected feelers on this score at conferences high and low, public and secret...

...The everpresent, grim example of the Soviet satellite in East Germany has reduced to a lunatic minimum the number of Germans who, for whatever reasons, might conclude a marriage of convenience with Moscow...

...The Soviet aim is not a neutral, united Germany, but an isolated West Germany which would soon feel the fearsome weight of Communist pressure...

...A Western proposal to neutralize Germany against its will (and that is the only proposition that has any relevance until the German people vote the other way) would at once compromise Chancellor Adenauer and his supporters...

...There is nothing shameful about neutrality, as this country, which repealed its own Neutrality Act in 1941 with agonizing difficulty, should have no hesitancy in affirming...

...If talk, through diplomatic channels or at international conferences, is regarded primarily as probing, it need not tax emotions any more than does drilling for oil...

...Following them, inevitably, would be diplomatic, propagandistic, political, economic and subversive pressure by one side or both to redress the balance...

...Some people, overwhelmed by the implications of the stalemate in Europe, are gripped by a desire for action— any action...

...In some circles it has become almost a reflex to ridicule the West's so-called "policy of strength"—and with some justification...

...They take refuge in some partial scheme like the mutual withdrawal of troops or the establishment of a demilitarized or denuclearized zone...

...Let no one maintain that the Soviets have not been sounded out on the subject of a united, neutral Germany —or that the Kremlin is only playing hard to get...

...He has also covered Moscow and Washington...

...This millennium may indeed come, but until there is reasonable proof of its arrival one would better be guided by the facts of life...

...Unhappily, an onus is something that the Kremlin bears lightly indeed...

...There is nothing frightening or reprehensible, either, in negotiating with the Soviet Union at whatever length on any level, provided that the attendant circumstances do not in themselves give the Kremlin a substantive advantage...

...The DDR would also be rung in as a negotiating partner...

...At the root of Soviet strategy has been the intention first expressed with unmistakable clarity in 1946...

...German neutrality is valueless as a negotiating counter because no country wants it...

...Some intellectuals and newspapers have loudly applauded this thesis, but public opinion has repudiated the alternative as false...

...And the Western world would hardly rush into a war to make good the Germans' mistake...

...French leaders may have this in mind when they sav that German neutralization means Communization...

...So apparent are the drawbacks of neutralizing Germany that the more sophisticated rationalize themselves away from any such direct proposal...

...All nations would be single, sovereign and neutral in the broadest sense, specially bound only by ties of economic interest and cultural affinity...

...It should be remembered that Germans are just as much prey to the suspicion that the West will sell them out as vice versa...

...Germany's departure from NATO as the price of reunification, withdrawal of Soviet and Western forces from Germany, creation of demilitarized or "denuclearized" zones down the middle of Europe have been suggested...

...The more or less stormy sequel would bring to the fore those elements which had all along advocated cutting Western ties and coming to terms with Moscow...

...The Social Democrats, who would be the main vehicles of compromise in the early stages, have been as consciously and consistently antiCommunist as any political group in the Western world...

...Western alliance has been the most exhaustively argued issue in recent German history...

...Moscow did— and still does—wave the bloody shirt of the German Menace on every suitable occasion, but without taking it seriously...

...The sequel to the withdrawal of American forces from Korea before 1950 is not yet so remote as to leave the people of Europe unmoved...

...The Soviet Union knows very well why it pursues a policy of fragmentation and divisive nationalism...

...Austria and Finland are occasionally cited as proof that neutrality can be a modus vivendi for Germany, too...

...Assurances that a neutral Germany would remain fully associated with the free Western community, maintaining un-weakened economic links and enj oying protection against aggression through a United Nations guarantee or an amorphous European Security Pact, come mainly from geographically distant statesmen or from opposition parties...

...But it was Hitler who burned into German consciousness beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Reich, in full possession of its faculties and more, could no longer be an independent power factor...

...If past performance is a criterion, Moscow will insist on the present zonal boundary in Germany as the line from which the belt will extend east and west...

...One may talk, and perhaps even profitably, about economic, scientific and cultural cooperation, about disarmament and security...

...Confusing action with progress, some quarters have slithered into the absurd proposal that the Federal Republic neutralize itself as a down-payment on unity...

...Were they to prevail, the United Nations Charter would have universal validity at last and regional defense pacts would be superfluous...

...One is the intellectual arrogance which basks in self-delusion and is blind to opportunity...

...A self-proclaimed or questionable status of neutrality would merely precipitate recriminations and charges of favoritism, real or false...

...The responsible statesmen, including those of countries which suffered keenly under Nazi occupation, regard the withdrawal of Germany into a state of nebulous neutrality as an unmitigated disaster...

...Withdrawal from Germany on terms other than Western surrender would appear so obviously as a Soviet defeat that it would profoundly shock the satellites and probably the Soviet party itself...

...Why die for Berlin...

...Those who would risk German neutrality could do worse than recall the pressure that Hitler was able to bring to bear on France in 1939 and 1940...

...Military leaders count Germany as the keystone of NATO defenses in Europe...

...Even as late as 1939, an Adolf Hitler could mobilize all the resources of the pre-nuclear age and run amok over Europe...

...On the contrary, Moscow has methodically popped myriads of trial balloons blowing over from the West with this idea...

...Indeed, the samples could provide a better insight into the adversary's motives...

...One thing should never be lost from view...

...Moscow has always known how to ask for what it wanted, even when it had to grovel, as it did before Hitler in the spring of 1941...

...To suggest, in the light of this belief, that reducing or withdrawing the means of protection would lessen the danger would be to stand logic on its head...

...Every device, from mischief to the terror of the Berlin blockade, has been applied to extend Soviet control over the whole of Germany...

...These include the Soviet Union's refusal even to negotiate effective disarmament, its massive history of treaty violations, and—with direct bearing on this case—its recent record on Germany...

...Without success...

...Denied direct success, Soviet diplomacy has now concentrated on consolidating the status of two German states...

...The SPD has never expressly advocated neutrality, but if the "pactlessness" (Biindnislosigkeit) and other steps it has proposed do not add up to neutrality then words have lost their meaning...

...Had the Kremlin seen the German problem essentially in terms of security, there could have been no refusal, but it did not...

...Soviet subjugation of Finland would at once drive Sweden into NATO and perhaps precipitate war...

...Exploration of Soviet strength and intentions should never cease...

...But if either were to come before a general settlement on common-sense terms with the Soviet bloc, or before the nature of Soviet power had changed, it would spell unmitigated disaster for the Western world...

...Why then, since all else has failed, is German neutrality not a suitable gambit, since it takes into consideration that neither side can be expected to capitulate...

...In all the notes exchanged on the subject in the past twelve years, the Soviet Union has never suggested that it would permit the reunification of a neutral, free Germany...

...Frederick the Great's father could advise his son that "he who holds the balance in the world can always profit thereby...

...In a free country, there can be no more conclusive proof of where the people stand...

...A neutrality which cut Germany off from the Western world, as it inevitably would, would strike at the heart of Western unity...

...Plainly, there could be no foreign troops on the soil of a neutral Germany...

...Stable though German democracy has proved itself, the development of the Federal Republic has taken place in the shelter of Western unity...

...That was true in 1952, when Stalin nakedly offered the Germans a war machine and renewed glory if they cast in their lot with the Soviet Union...

...The West must guard against being lured into the quicksand of German neutrality...

...The conditions for a compact on Germany are basically the conditions for a general reconciliation...

...A historical imperative today compels Germany to choose sides, and experience decides the choice at once...

...Neutrality in the future implies a dangerous vacuum or a Germany armed to the teeth, a sad alternative for all concerned...

...The so-called Rapacki plan of an atom-free belt in Europe, although extremely vague about means and assurances, holds the kind of concealed trap that could make the mere negotiation a tactical success for the Soviet Union...