West Germany Looks Inward

...Both Germans and foreigners who were opposed to change felt, and with good reason, that Erhard's policies would be merely a more reasonable and less autocratic version of Konrad Adenauer's...

...Fearing that the American-sponsored doctrine of a "pause" before a nuclear response to a Russian attack on Europe means either that Germany would be sacrificed without a fight or that it would become a cockpit for contending armies, the Germans are seeking an alternative...

...Largely cut off by Communist rule from their normal cultural and economic hinterland of Eastern Europe, the West Germans feel themselves neither the citizens of a compact, united state nor the inheritors of the greater German-speaking Reich, which was a compelling ideal long before Adolf Hitler's appearance...

...Torn between two goals, both unlikely of attainment, the Germans have almost instinctively turned to the traditional goal of reunification...

...Half-sated by their unprecedented material prosperity, Germans of all ages, but particularly those under 40, are in search of new values...

...For the moment, the pro-American policy is certain to continue...

...As the steward of Germany's era of flux, Ludwig Erhard is in many ways an anachronism...

...Above all, the sheer excitement of the image of de Gaulle as a knight on a white horse is highly attractive to a nation which long exalted the Ritter (knight) and the noble Minnesaenger (troubadour)—and, in modern times, the Prussian officer and the poet-thinker...

...For the first time since the laborious process of rebuilding a nation began in 1946, the Germans are questioning their basic concepts on a host of issues ranging from the East-West conflict and the nuclear deterrent to relations between the sexes and the preparation of food...

...Yet because they neglected the political and intellectual intangibles, their creation seemed to many a homo Germanicus novus—an economic man who is neither swayed by spiritual passions nor dedicated to anything but ever-increasing material gratification...

...The 66-year-old Erhard accomplished this prodigy primarily by allowing the laws of supply and demand to operate with as little interference as possible in a nation amply provided with technical skills and, for a long period, bountiful American economic aid...

...Germany has never really become a united nation with a common purpose...

...Since both German goals evoke as much frustration as inspiration, the Germans cannot avoid a reaction against the champions of the status quo...

...We are finally looking beyond both the Weimar Republic [19181932] and the Adenauer Era of reconstruction [1949-1963...

...would actually sacrifice San Francisco to nuclear rockets in order to defend Lubeck...

...The future, however, is beginning to look more and more open...

...The new German hunger for more than complacent prosperity has already produced noteworthy results...

...But above all the Germans wish to be accepted as proper Europeans by the other Western European nations...

...West Germany is at once too small and too diversified for the federal system to offer much spiritual satisfaction...

...Today, though, the generation scarred by the War is beginning to pass, and so too is the excitement generated by the challenge of reconstructing a modern nation from the wilderness of broken bricks and twisted machinery that the Germans started with in what they call "year zero" (1945...

...But, beyond that, de Gaulle's utterances touch Germany's latent fears and awaken its deepest aspirations...

...It is these nations, they feel, that have always tended to regard them as Teutonic savages in badly-fitted lounge suits and inept facsimilies of Paris frocks...

...Many who deplore the excesses of former Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss agree with him that the French nuclear deterrent, though militarily weak, is nonetheless more credible than the American deterrent...

...The new European feeling, intensified by the old grievances, today gives rise among intellectuals—and among a number of practical politicians—to resentment of continuing dependence on the United States...

...Until recently it appeared that Erhard and Konrad Adenauer, who retired last October, had shaped a new kind of German...

...nuclear deterrent and, secondarily, on the presence of large U.S...

...The frozen situation in Central Europe limits the possibilities for either a rapprochement with the Soviet Union or a resurgence of German ultra-nationalism...

...While still myopic in world affairs to the point of hardly ever seeing beyond the tip of their own immediate interests, the Germans are at least developing a sense of Europe...

...Even within the limited area which is today the Federal Republic, acute distinctions tend to divide the natives of one region from those of another...

...It is, above all, his style and the excitement his panache generates," one editor explained...

...A number of intelligent Germans are therefore prepared to argue that the swashbuckling French President's line holds out much more hope for eventual reunification than does the cautious American approach...

...In the past, this last has found its best expression in men like Goethe and Bach, and its worst expression in Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler...

...Erhard's supreme creation, of course, is the present German economy-the 20th-century miracle which showed the other nations of Western Europe the way to prosperity and which, along with other factors, is now producing a new approach to economic and social problems in Communist Eastern Europe as well...

...By the same token, it is not likely that German romanticism will result in another attempt to find Germany's identity and its soul through new acts of aggression against its neighbors...

...Robert Elegant, a frequent New Leader contributor, is Newsweek's Central European bureau chief...

...West Germany has long had a particular bond of emotion, as well as of selfinterest, with the United States— the prototype of the affluent, 20thcentury industrial society which, until recently, was the goal of practically all Germans...

...Above all, they are seeking a way out of the cultural and spiritual isolation in which the country has been locked since 1933...

...psychologically, it continues to be what it was for so long politically: a conglomeration of duchies, principalities, and city-states speaking dialects of the same language, but never joined by a common moral concensus, or for that matter a common style of life...

...There is, moreover, no question that shifting attitudes in Germany, which in so many ways remains the heartland of Europe, will have the broadest effects throughout the ContinentEast as well as West...

...Thus, only a year ago Germany appeared to have settled down into an immutable pattern, marked by vulgar prosperity, highly paternalistic democracy and distressing complacency, all of which was underlaid by insecurity...

...Although de Gaulle has made it clear that he is by no means enthusiastic about German reunification, his independent and aggressive policy is emotionally stirring...

...But for the moment the continuing EastWest confrontation, with the overriding necessity for continuing American protection, severely restricts Bonn's ability to strike out on its own...

...De Gaulle's claim that Europe must assert its own political individuality appeals greatly to the vague though strong yearnings of the Germans...

...During 1963, West Germany saw a number of dominating figures pass from the scene-including Chancellor Konrad Adenauer by resignation, and Social Democratic leader Erich Ollenhauer, former President Theodor Heuss and actor-director Gustav Gruendgens by death...

...At the same time, many Germans are disturbed by the restrictions that the cold war imposes on their freedom of action and fearful that the present American shield may be withdrawn or may prove inadequate...

...These new yearnings are being partially satisfied by increasing communication and familiarity with Germany's neighbors...

...But Germany, as well as France, will in the long run shape its policies in accordance with the growing demand for something more stirring than Volkswagens on the Autobahn and American jets overhead...

...As one theorist put it: "The Americans are too reasonable...

...Erhard, a conservative by instinct, training and conviction, has been compelled by circumstances to preside over sweeping changes in the Federal German Republic...

...No one can tell what results those yearnings will produce, but there is afoot a demand for new thinking, new policies and, above all, a new style enlivened by the panache we acclaimed in both de Gaulle and Kennedy, but feel we lack ourselves...

...if anything, it is reinforced by de Gaulle's intransigence...

...A leading Bonn politician, a man who only last year privately discounted the intensity and political significance of the feeling for reunification, is today publicly associating himself with that demand so strongly that he runs the risk of being labelled "soft on Communism...

...and the romantisch, or the compulsion for mystical fulfillment...

...When the prospect of a united Europe began receding a year ago, the idea of reunification with Communist-controlled East Germany became an emotional surrogate for a rapidly increasing group which, quite surprisingly, includes a disproportionate number of younger people...

...The acceptance Germany has already gained in the West—and its growing power to influence the course of the European community —are heady draughts to a nation that has long felt itself deprived...

...In short, it is becoming clear that the Germans are not content to live by bread, sausages and Volkswagens alone...

...Their interest in Europe is spurred by foreign vacations, student exchanges, widespread translation of books, television programs, plays and movies...

...CHALLENGES AFTER AFFLUENCE West Germany Looks Inward By Robert S. Elegant Bonn When Ludwig Erhard, who was treated as scornfully by his predecessor as King Edward VII was by his, finally inherited the chancellorship of the Federal German Republic, the country's "stable elements" heaved a sigh of relief...

...The caucus of newspapermen, lobbyists and hangers-on who sit in Parliament House's drab basement restaurant, like a particularly voluble Greek chorus, feels that whatever one may say of the man's morals his political instinct is right...

...But everyone—including the Russians—knows that de Gaulle, with his mystique of la gloire, is irrational...

...We cannot expect them to start shooting missiles at Moscow when the first Russian squad crosses the Elbe...

...And his view that Europe must ultimately depend only upon itself for defense has an even more potent appeal to a people who wonder whether "the U.S...

...conventional forces in Germany...

...Consequently, the new emotional attitudes are unlikely to affect German policy immediately...

...From the charwoman to the general, all Germans are very much aware that the Federal Republic's continued life during a period of tension depends primarily on the U.S...

...Both men had honorable records during the Nazi era, and both concentrated on good relations with the West and on economic development in order to make Germany respectable...

...Yet the laissez-faire approach of the former professor of economics may turn out to be the best possible policy for a period when the two chief elements of the German character are coming into conflict: what the Germans refer to as the buergerlich, or solid bourgeois concentration upon material enjoyment amid stability...

...Although their forms are still not wholly clear, the changes are already well underway...

...CHARLES DE GAULLE, who in 1962 was received in Germany with almost as much acclaim as John F. Kennedy in 1963, has thus come to exercise a remarkable fascination on German intellectuals...

...They were right as far as the temper of the man was concerned, but they were wrong about the course of events...

...There exists today, for example, a more independent German foreign policy toward both the Common Market and Eastern Europe, which alternately gratifies and dismays Germany's various allies...

...One scar, of course, remains...

...As the radio commentator Paulheinz Mitteldorfer put it: "The frightened men, the men interested only in security and prosperity, are giving way...

...Everyone, therefore, feels that he would use his atomic bombs...

...Yet, hard-headed German practicality is still very much in the ascendant...