Germany's New Politics

...One of the drawbacks of democracy is that it embraces every voter -the untutored dunderhead as well as the intellectually and politically aware...

...AFTER PROSPERITY WITHOUT POWER Germany's New Politics By Kenneth Ames Vienna The protracted government crisis in Bonn produced such a bewildering succession of convolutions and maneuvers that even today, after settlement, nobody seems quite certain how the new Germany will look...

...to drop its demand for $1.4 billion in offset payments owed toward the upkeep of U.S...

...Adenauer has insisted Bonn would have to face up to the fact that Americans are interested first and foremost in the safety of their own country...

...The truth is that the Russians will never leave East Germany unless events in the Far East force them to withdraw their huge armies from the German borders...

...Against insignificant opposition, Konrad Adenauer persuaded a stunned people first to accept the path of cooperation with the Western allies and then to support the idea of a unified Europe that would include at least the western half of the forner Third Reich...

...In recent years, two of the major foreign expenditures in the huge West German budgets have been defence spending, largely in America, and foreign aid, mainly at the urging of the old colonial powers...

...This, too, is hardly surprising, since Russia is the one power that can bring about reunification and previous policies have failed...

...The defeat of the Third Reich- the most devastating physical defeat ever inflicted upon any nation- convinced the Germans that for them there could be no more national existence, no more independent national action...

...Given the present state of international power politics, it is not quite possible, but the Germans do not recognize this because they have rarely been told the complete truth...

...The national heroes in those days became Winston Churchill-briefly a loud advocate of a United Europe-Belgian Foreign Minister Paul Henri Spaak and German Social Democrat Carlo Schmidt-the two leading proponents of West European union...

...Adenauer's premonition became painfully real when Erhard visited the U.S...

...Reunification remained far away, even farther than it had been in 1945...

...But to understand the full implications of his downfall, one has to go back to 1948-50 for historical perspective...

...We cannot react in horror when they put it to the test...

...There have been cries that "the Nazis are back...

...What we are witnessing in West Germany we will have to get used to...

...These are the events which precipitated Germany's new phase, which to date has involved three major developments...

...This system is not ideally suited to every society...

...Those suggesting other courses-and they were very few-were easily put down with a gesture toward the oppressive occupation in the East and the warning that if intransigent, the West could expect the same...

...It is by no means likely that Moscow would be interested in giving up the large industrial complex of East Germany on any terms...

...Despite official denials, even the most ardent American supporters in Bonn saw the U.S...

...After the fajlure of Pan-Europeanism, which the Germans supported most enthusiastically and saw as a substitute for their forbidden nationalism, they took comfort in their special relationship with the United States...

...The third development, and surely the one that has aroused the greatest fears outside Germany, has been the sudden rise in support for the Right-wing National Democratic Party (NDP...

...West Germany always considered Britain an essential part of the foundation for a new European structure...

...Kenneth Ames, formerly of Newsweek, now reports European politics for the London Economist...

...last September...

...As the major military and industrial power in Europe, West Germany had been so assiduously wooed by Washington that it was firmly convinced it had finally found the way to its future salvation...

...more concerned with its problems in Vietnam than with an apparently stable situation in Europe...

...Politically, it did not pay off at all...

...forces in Germany, he also failed to convince Washington that Germany could not and would not agree to pay still more heavily for the privilege of having 220,000 U.S...

...Thus economically, Germany's new view of the world paid off big and fast...

...troops stationed on its soil...

...De Gaulle took advantage of the situation to rebuff his old friends, whom he could never forgive for holding out when France fell or for allegedly treating him as a poor relative during the War...

...when a very small percentage of the population-and mostly those over 45 years of age -opt for a party that is urging a form of nationalism we find distasteful...

...There was also widespread disillusionment as another pillar of the Christian Democratic foreign policy collapsed...

...Germans are no longer willing to go cap in hand to anybody...

...But if the drift toward radicalism in the West German body politic is to be stopped then the respectable parties must attempt to deal with the Russians or at least provide the voters with a convincing reason for the continued stalemate over reunification...

...The liberal wing of the coalition refused to agree to higher taxes (Germany already is the heaviest taxed nation in the world), insisting instead on reductions in government spending that would help bring the budget closer to balance...

...The big difference in the country is simply wealth, but this brings the desire for status...

...The first, of course, was the fall of the Erhard government, with its total commitment to the U.S...

...Perhaps more important, though, few seem to recognize that after 17 years of Parliamentary democracy and 11 years of total sovereign independence, the German Federal Republic has moved into a new phase of political development...

...Clearly Washington had put a heavy price on its special relationship with Germany and was determined to exact that price...

...Erhard's Cabinet fell over the budget, which is not unusual in modern states...

...It is the transition of a country whose foreign policy rested in the hands of its former enemies to a vigorous nation embarking for the first time on an independent course...

...Erhard not only failed to persuade the U.S...

...Britain, of course, cannot be altogether absolved of blame for the turn of events...

...There was widespread agreement that Washington fully intended to make heavy reductions in its military commitment to Germany...

...But it is the system the Western powers imposed on the Germans, almost against their will in the first fuehrerless days...

...In the prosperity of Federal Germany today a repetition of the 1930s is highly unlikely, even if the rather ludicrous NDP resembled the Nazi party...

...Moreover, even if it were interested, its terms would probably be too prohibitive for the West Germans...

...And when, as is currently the case, their public expenditure threatens to make the Deutsche Mark unstable, then the recurring fear of inflation, penury and hunger-which every German over 50 has experienced twice in his lifetime-raises its ugly head again...

...For an occupied country this seemed inevitable...

...Germany did not turn to the Nazis simply because of the advent of Adolph Hitler, however, but because of the appalling economic, financial and social chaos that threw up Hitler from the gutters of Munich...

...indefinitely...

...Meanwhile, Ludwig Erhard produced a blueprint for prosperity within this political framework...

...It had been clear since the "Generals' Revolt" against the government last summer-which was aimed against civilian meddling in military affairs-that the regime of Ludwig Erhard ("Ludwig the Good" for historical purposes) was running into stormy weather...

...and a United Europe...

...It worked so well that the western parts of Germany became really prosperous for the first time in history-an astonishing fact little known abroad...

...Indeed, not a single major foreign policy objective has been achieved by five successive governments under Adenauer and Erhard...

...So today West Germany cannot point to much in the way of having achieved its political goals over the past two decades...

...Years of comforting speeches have trained the German public to believe that reunification is possible, sometime on some terms...

...When neither Europe nor American friendship provided them equality and respect among their associates that far lesser nations take for granted, they began to feel something was wrong-either with their policies or with their "friends" who remain cold and aloof...

...It is not really surprising that the German voters are asking themselves why they should generously spend their money when they have been receiving nothing in return on their investment...

...The second is the apparent decision to deal directly with the Soviet Union where German interests are involved...

...And the dream of a United Europe was exploded by General de Gaulle when he struck off on his own course...

...Ever since Erhard assumed the Chancellorship in October 1963, however, the wily old statesman Konrad Adenauer (who will be 91 on January 5) and Bavarian leader Franz Josef Strauss have warned against putting the country's very safety and defence in the hands of the U.S...

...The new German Mecca became Strasbourg, just across the Rhine...

...Unfortunately, the British didn't seem to realize the importance of their position until too late...