German Overture to Spain
ALLEMANN, F. R.
In this provocative article, F. R. Allemann, our regular correspondent, who also is editor of the German magazine Der Monat and contributor to the Swiss paper Die Tat, examines what he calls Bonn's...
...But the West German authorities have gotten cold feet because of the violent reaction abroad and would like to rid themselves of the affair by a harmless, face-saving device...
...Two basic facts increasingly trouble West German defense planners: one, that their country is narrow and overpopulated ; two, that practically all of it is in the front line of any possible military conflict...
...They adamantly oppose the revision of the admittedly preposterous command situation in the Baltic area for fear of being placed under a joint command with German units in Schleswig-Holstein (perhaps even under a German commander...
...The aim of the campaign is sedulously and systematically to equate the Adenauer regime with the Nazi regime and to brand it as the natural, though shrewdly disguised, successor to the Third Reich...
...The visions which playing footsie with Franco were bound to conjure up in a world which has not yet forgotten that this same Franco came to power with the help of German troops and bombers apparently never occurred to Bonn...
...The Danes are a typical example...
...Though the Germans were urged to discuss the matter inside NATO before taking any action, they sent a general and two staff officers to Spain on an exploratory mission— allegedly because they wanted to see if there was any point in pursuing the matter...
...In short, the Germans observed the formalities without demonstrating a trace of savoir-faire, and are now dumfounded and offended that their loyalty could ever be questioned in the English-speaking countries...
...German Overture to Spain By F. R. Allemann BONN THE uproar over the West German Army's plans to set up Spanish supply bases is gradually dying down and it looks as if the episode will remain only an episode...
...Out of political ineptitude, Bonn floundered into an affair which turned out to be a most profitable propaganda windfall for its enemies...
...The greater their consternation when they discovered the egg was rotten and that in their elation at having found a solution to a delicate military problem, they had overlooked the political complications of such an arrangement...
...long ago established bases and supply lines on the Continent...
...Even strategic planning is affected by this feeling...
...Yet even where the pact with Bonn is unequivocally affirmed, distrust and resentment are always just below the surface...
...They point to General Lauris Norstad and U.S...
...The Bonn Defense Ministry, therefore, has had to look abroad for the space which Germany simply does not have...
...And Denmark is certainly no stronghold of irrational anti-German feeling...
...Also, the West German staging area is by no means at the sole disposal of the Bundeswehr...
...But the excitement over this secondary controversy should serve as a warning to what might happen if the Germans get the impression that the West is preparing to write them off...
...On their part, the Germans apparently listened with only half an ear to the diplomatically involuted misgivings of their partners...
...If this was really the British intention it succeeded wondrously well...
...True, Bonn is hinting that it will pursue the bases, and that it can convince the North Atlantic Treaty Organization they are both essential and innocuous...
...There is reason to believe that the British Embassy in Bonn wanted not only to torpedo the Spanish plans but also—because of British fears about the summit meeting and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's "obstruction"—to undermine West Germany's international reputation...
...All this explains why the plan to establish supply depots and perhaps subsequently training grounds in Spain probably appeared to Bonn authorities as "the egg of Columbus...
...Conditions are particularly crowded in the narrow strip west of the Rhine, the only territory suitable for rear-area bases...
...The Continental Allies, particularly the French, have greeted German requests with reserve...
...Supplies can only be guaranteed, therefore, for three weeks at best...
...This dilemma illustrates West Germany's ambiguous status within the Western alliance...
...The editors of THE NEW LEADER consider this German initiative more significant than an escapade...
...Outwardly correct, they "informed" their partners of the step but apparently at so late a date that the Western powers were unable to protest the mission...
...They are beginning to compare the strong reaction of their allies to their Government's blunders with the equanimity which has greeted the self-willed Charles de Gaulle...
...For the first time, many Germans who have so far felt at home in the Western community are beginning to feel that even their 'partnership with the West does not rid them of their traditional role as outsiders...
...Consequently, we plan to have other articles on this subject in the near future...
...They have become more or less accustomed to a united front against the East, but nothing could be more unwelcome to them than to receive German troops and military depots where less than two decades ago the Nazis stood as conquerors...
...This point has not yet been reached, but the devil about whom the West likes so much to talk, and so prematurely, might one day suddenly apear on stage—life-size...
...Though Germany is a member of NATO and the UN, its acceptance in the community of free nations remains conditional until events over a longer period have given force to German professions of democracy and reliability...
...The political atmosphere in West Germany has become so volatile that, for instance, a compromise on Berlin at the summit meeting—which only last summer would have been accepted relatively calmly—might this year unleash a wave of violent nationalism...
...Neither the Germans nor their critics have emerged creditably from the Spanish affair...
...We think, therefore, that articles inquiring into the military validity of the German request for Spanish bases, the political wisdom of such an appeal to a former Nazi ally and still Fascist country, and the methods used in approaching Franco should be explored further...
...particularly those in the East...
...Its installations, chiefly American, are so jammed that it is questionable whether such concentration still makes strategic sense...
...Instead of countering this propaganda by political means, the West German Government played right into its hands, and is astonished to find more and more people in the West showing themselves receptive to Eastern demagogy...
...Bonn says it was encouraged in the venture by its Allies...
...Apparently Western politicians and military men who were consulted by the Germans showed more understanding for Bonn's strategic and logistic arguments than they were later willing to admit...
...Ambassador Walter Dowling as witnesses for their invariably correct behavior...
...They are also beginning to realize that the Atlantic Alliance, notwithstanding the "equal rights" guaranteed them, serves to keep a tight rein on them...
...Briefly, the British were eager to wield the Spanish stick on the Germans for their mulish attitude over Berlin...
...This means that the West German Army would need more than two-and-a-half million tons of supplies, barely half a million of which can presently be stockpiled on German territory, and the facilities so far granted by France can accommodate little more than 100,000 tons...
...In this provocative article, F. R. Allemann, our regular correspondent, who also is editor of the German magazine Der Monat and contributor to the Swiss paper Die Tat, examines what he calls Bonn's "Spanish escapade...
...American, British, Canadian, French and Belgian troops all compete for available installations...
...Some hope that NATO will find a less explosive method of solving the German supply problem...
...But West Germany joined the Atlantic Pact only five years after its inception and only gradually, as its army grew, realized its military needs...
...The various rear-echelon services required for a modern army can hardly be set up on West German territory and installing them in Allied countries faces a multitude of obstacles...
...For if West Germany must provide its own strategic supply depots, it is in a far less favorable position than its allies...
...American, British and NATO authorities assert that, on the contrary, they warned Bonn of the political consequences of such a step...
...On the other hand, it seems to be a fact that the incident was not made public accidentally but by deliberate indiscretion...
...To enter military pourparlers with Franco under such circumstances is a sign of truly phenomenal stupidity...
...At least that much can be said, though even today the political background of the entire incident remains obscure...
...In pressing for this "integration," the Germans are motivated more by military than by ideological considerations...
...they even hope that their move will at long last bring about the devoutly wished-for integration of NATO's supply system...
...Even worse are the consequences in Germany itself...
...Hence, it encounters great difficulties, both on its own territory and on that of the NATO powers, in finding strategic space for supply depots, training grounds, base hospitals, etc...
...But a people's deeply felt sufferings in the past cannot be made to vanish overnight, though increasingly, modern strategy erases national boundaries—which is the raison d'?tre of the Atlantic Pact...
...Admittedly, this process has little to do with the Spanish adventure...
...The result is that the very specter which the West (so rightly) fears most is conjured up and given life by the Western reaction to this Spanish peccadillo: that German nationalism whose roots lie deep in the German inferiority complex...
...The alliance needs German military potential and politically occupies more or less common ground...
...Naturally, the East German press, which for weeks has accused Bonn of arming for another blitzkrieg, has triumphantly seized on this godsend and presented it to their readers as irrefutable evidence of the shady machinations of "Reich War Minister" Franz Josef Strauss...
...Bonn, it seems, did not have the slightest idea how much alive the memory of the Spanish Civil War still is in the United States and Western Europe, where it was never viewed merely as an incident but as the prelude to World War II...
...And this demonstration of their inferiority leads many Germans to feel misunderstood and perhaps even humiliated...
...The whole thing occurred at a time when West Germany has become the target of a vast campaign by Communists and fellow travelers to create distrust of the country, a campaign abetted by a large section of the British press and not exactly discouraged by the British Foreign Office...
...Both accounts probably contain a kernel of truth...
...France and Italy can build the necessary installations on their own territory, and Great Britain and the U.S...
...NATO headquarters requires that each combat unit have three months of supplies available...
Vol. 43 • March 1960 • No. 12
