Germany and the East
SHANOR, DONALD R.
PRESSURE FROM THE RIGHT Germany and the East By Donald R. Shanor Bonn The date was set for more practical reasons, yet it was fitting that the German Federal Republic's (gfr) largest political...
...Substituting slogans for thought and silencing dissension at its rallies with beatings administered by hel-meted "ushers," the npd has gained steadily...
...Any renunciation of this territory betrays the interests of the German people . . . . We refuse to accept the 'realities' of the Communist conquests since 1945...
...But an analysis of the last two state elections suggests a different conclusion...
...Since the cdu is the party furthest to the Right, the general asumption is that it will provide most of the npd votes...
...What the Socialists and most of the Free Democrats have in common is a greater interest than the Christian Democrats in coming to terms with the Communist governments of Eastern Europe...
...Economists and plant managers in all other bloc nations look enviously on Rumania, which since becoming the first success of Brandt's diplomatic campaign in the East has received half of a billion dollars in West German credits...
...It is now up to the Federal Republic's voters later this month to decide whether they will be slowed down or speeded up...
...PRESSURE FROM THE RIGHT Germany and the East By Donald R. Shanor Bonn The date was set for more practical reasons, yet it was fitting that the German Federal Republic's (gfr) largest political party, the Christian Democratic Union (cdu), chose to open its electoral campaign on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II...
...The real potential danger of the npd, though, lies in its ability to pressure the major parties to move to the Right, and the role it might play in the formation of a new coalition...
...Third Reich's National Socialist party—is endangering the chances for a negotiated settlement...
...But none of this is very new, and in any case, until lately the Polish regime dismissed such indications of German flexibility as merely disguised imperialism...
...In the huge Dortmund municipal auditorium Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger and the other cdu leaders concentrated on the task at hand, winning the September 28 balloting, not on the historical significance of the day...
...In private conversations Russian officials say a Little Coalition would please them most...
...Of course, Soviet attempts to influence Bundestag elections have become as traditional as the Munich Oktoberfest, and there are many Socialist and cdu politicians who place little faith in the blandishments of the USSR...
...But the quarantine does not apply to business...
...The most convincing augeries come not from the Russian capital but from Warsaw...
...The reasons for the Gomulka offer and subsequent actions are matters of some conjecture among diplomats in Warsaw, but general East-West moves toward detente, the preparations for a European security conference, which Poland wants badly, fear of being isolated if the Soviets warm to Bonn, and the desire for secure Western borders-all seem to have played a role...
...The extreme Rightist party is particularly effective in the sensitive field of Ostpolitik, where Establishment figures must proceed carefully, remembering that 15 million refugees and expellees from the East make up one-fourth the gfr's population...
...Nevertheless, some courageous statements are being made...
...But after 1966, when the Grand Coalition was formed, the outsiders turned elsewhere, and the npd has been the main beneficiary...
...Unlike the politicians trying to steer between charges of "revan-chism" from the Soviets and "sellout" from their own constituents, National Democratic chief Adolf von Thadden has no doubts, reservations or responsibilities...
...This view is confirmed by the recent attitude of the Soviet press...
...All these trends toward normalization are already in motion...
...In the most recent state contest, in Baden-Wurttemberg, despite full employment and a local tradition of good political sense, it won 9.8 per cent...
...Even the most optimistic npd predictions anticipate capturing only about 10 per cent of the vote, and some pre-campaign polls show the party being shut out of the Bundestag altogether...
...There is, of course, no prospect that West Germany's more than 40 million voters will elevate von Thadden to a position where he can personally carry out his policies...
...True, the Soviets and their allies are so fearful of the penetration of German "counterrevolutionary" ideas these days that they round up German students in Prague and confiscate German magazines in Sofia...
...The most significant omens involve Poland, where the Wehrmacht guns at Wes-terplatte fired the first shots in 1939...
...Some of these factors are peculiarly Polish...
...Kiesinger, in contrast, has made it plain he does not intend to travel to Moscow until after the election, and not even then unless there are concrete reasons to expect a successful trip...
...Indeed, not since the formation of rival German states in Bonn and East Berlin 20 years ago have there been stronger indications of movement on the great complex of questions exacerbating the gfr's relations with its Eastern neighbors...
...The current consensus among journalists and political scientists in Bonn is that the National Democrats will clear the 5 per cent required to win representation in the Bundestag, albeit with few votes to spare...
...These figures indicate that a considerable part of the normal Socialist electorate is motivated by considerations other than Marxism or working class solidarity...
...Where once all gfr politicians except a few fringe peace groups were condemned as militarists and re-vanchists, there is now a great deal of differentiation...
...Since Party chief Wladyslaw Gomulka's offer in May to open negotiations for the settlement of the Oder-Neisse boundary, informal diplomatic activity between the two nations has increased...
...These voters backed the spd in previous elections because it was anti-Establishment...
...In the city-state of Bremen in October 1967, and in Baden-Wurt-temberg in April 1968, npd gains paralleled heavy Social Democratic losses...
...The plunder of the ancient territory of the German people and the division of Germany are the result of an act of force," he says...
...In the Baden-Wurttemberg contest there was a Socialist drop of 10 percentage points, a Christian Democratic loss of 3 per cent, and an npd increase from 2 to 9.8 per cent...
...Free Democratic chairman Walter Scheel and spd parliamentary leader Helmut Schmidt have both visited Moscow in recent weeks, returning with sober but fundamentally optimistic reports of Soviet willingness to talk...
...This means that Foreign Minister Willy Brandt's Socialists may not only lose their edge in the early polls, but could finish far behind the Christian Democrats...
...Yet one that applies to the rest of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, is the advantage of doing business with Western Europe's greatest industrial power at a time when it is seeking new markets for its products and licenses...
...In any case, until the Soviets recover from the shock of Czechoslovakia, the kind of East-West cooperation displayed in Rumania and sought in Poland is about the best Bonn can expect...
...If the next West German government is willing to make some sort of concession to Gomulka on the Oder-Neisse line, and adds to this a large package of machinery, industrial plants, and licenses, it should be able to get diplomatic relations in exchange...
...Nevertheless, along with the doubts this time there is a feeling that the Communists now genuinely wish to reach an understanding with Bonn...
...West Berlin's Socialist Mayor Klaus Schutz, for example, warned an audience of refugees that hopes of recovering the lost Oder-Neisse territories in what is now Poland were unrealistic...
...As for the npd's weight in coalition bartering, that will naturally depend on the number of notes it receives and the party from which it draws most of them...
...Kiesinger, for instance, has already declined to label the npd neo-Nazi, and the cdu Parliament president, Kai-Uwe von Hassel, saw fit to praise "the worthy people among its members who are concerned for order...
...With Poland in line, the other bloc members will feel safe in following, even though East Germany is bound to resist on all counts...
...While the difference will probably not be enough to permit the cdu to govern alone, it could end hopes for a Little Coali-ion between the spd and the Free Democrats—a loose association of industrialists, old-fashioned liberals, and non-conformists...
...In the last national election, in 1965, it received 2 per cent of the vote...
...Polish officials say the change was caused by the evolution of the Federal Republic itself: the spd participation in the government, the continuing war crimes trials, and a new attitude toward the lost territories by the gfr's young people...
...At the same time, however, the growth of the National Democratic party (npd)—whose policies, tactics and manners are a replica of the Donald R. Shanor, a previous contributor, reports on East European affairs for the Chicago Daily News...
...The Bremen spd total fell from 54 to 46 per cent, the cdu remained about the same, and the National Democrats rose from nothing in 1963 to 8.8 per cent...
...But West Germany's next government, far more than the previous five, will have to come to terms with the consequences of Hitler's misadventure...
...Gomulka's proposal culminated a recent reevaluation of Polish policy toward West Germany...
...After all, the late Christian Democratic Chancellor Konrad Adenauer went to Moscow in 1955, established diplomatic relations, but was able to move no further...
Vol. 52 • September 1969 • No. 17
