THE CHOICE IN EUROPE

...A British-led new Europe would support not only the democratic forces within Germany and the rest of Europe: Such a policy would also avert the danger of growing totalitarianism within the United States...

...This time the United States is on Germany's side, and they both have a common enemy—the Soviet Union...

...West German Defense Minister Franz-Josef Strauss speaks a much more crude and aggressive language than does Chancellor Konrad Adenauer—a language which has changed within a few years from a position opposing any arms at all to the assertion that Germany cannot defend herself without nuclear weapons...

...in Germany 15,599,000...

...If Britain now enters the Common Market as an inferior ally in the throes of economic difficulties, the Adenauer-de Gaulle axis will set the conditions for her admission...

...Today Britain finds herself in a position which is economically vastly inferior to that of the Common Market powers...

...What will Strauss' language be when Germany is still stronger...

...This poses an almost insoluably difficult problem for all genuine friends of freedom, yet any other course would lead to the destruction, rather than to the liberation, of Central Europe...

...Even now it is questionable whether Germany could be stopped, considering the military force she has already acquired...

...For example, steel production in 1913 in Britain was 7,787,000 tons...

...No doubt economic unification of Europe is desirable, and it is so logical from an economic standpoint that it can not be opposed...

...While it is not planned, at the moment, to abolish national sovereignties, a common and unified foreign policy is clearly the next step, which could lead in a few years to the formation of a Federated Europe, and, perhaps ultimately, to a United States of Europe...

...Furthermore, the military restrictions decided upon after the last war could be enforced, rather than continuously relaxed...

...It binds the United States to a nation which has twice gambled on victory with at least her own population at stake, and which is gambling again on victory, this time with the life of the whole of humanity at stake...

...Yet by 1938 Germany had overcome the results of her defeat, and the Soviet Union had started on the road toward becoming a first class industrial power...

...The stronger West Germany becomes as the head of a federated Europe, the more aggressive will be her irredentist demands for the recovery of the former German territories...

...What are the conditions for such a new development...

...Russia had been ravaged by the war and by internal strife...

...This argument is not convincing...

...But she does not have nuclear weapons yet, and she certainly could be prevented from acquiring any, even under the formula of a NATO- or United States-controlled "key...

...the generals who were loyal to Hitler are cooperating with those who helped to organize the 1944 plot to destroy him personally, united in their attempts to create again a militarily strong Germany...

...Britain, and, to an even greater degree, France had not been able to stem the tide of change in European leadership, a tide which had been swelling from the 1890's to 1914...

...Britain is the only reliable democracy among the big powers in Europe...

...But the chance for an economic and political renaissance of Europe seemed even more irretrievably lost after World War II...

...Five—The neutralization of Germany is possible only if the United States arrives at an understanding with the Soviet Union and ends the cold war...

...The central questions are: What will be the face of this New Europe...

...The principal one might be that Britain give up her role as a mediator between East and West, and join without reserve the anti-Communist crusade led by Germany and France...

...Even political unification of Western Europe may be desirable...

...In 1920 steel production in both countries was about equal, at 9,000,000 tons...

...In 1959-60 the increase in its combined production was twelve per cent, while that of Britain was only 6.5 per cent...

...The economic success of the Common Market is fabulous...

...But even if this were not the condition for Britain's admission, what will become of her political independence when the Common Market has become a political as well as an economic unit...

...Another argument against the pessimistic evaluation of a new Germandominated Europe, depends upon the assumption that Germany would be curbed by her allies, especially France and Italy...

...This argument carries little conviction...

...This question leads us to the heart of the problem...

...It seemed clear that Europe had ceased to be the center of the world's stage...

...In contrast to the agreements of Potsdam and to the postwar mood of the German people, West Germany was encouraged to rearm, and eventually to enter NATO...

...Three—Another aspect of the nature of the new Europe is the difference between Britain, on the one hand, and France and Belgium, on the other, with regard to their colonial possessions...

...German economic expansion and a dominating role in Europe were the aims of both the first and second World Wars...

...From economic unification, the Common Market countries have begun to proceed toward political unification...

...policy of a firm alliance with Britain, and the pursuit of a peaceful modus vivendi with the Soviet Union...

...France and Belgium have colonial interests in Africa for which they not only need German political support, but the defense of which makes France practically nonexistent as a military power on the continent...

...Given all these premises, why is not even a German-led and dominated New Europe a high-road toward achieving the interests of the United States, and even of world peace...

...In summary, I suggest a return to the F.D.R...

...The first is that Germany has peaceful intentions and has declared that it will not try to reconquer the lost territories by force...

...Have not the French already accepted Charles de Gaulle as their protector, and by that decision renounced some fundamental features of their democratic tradition...

...This new development seems to be desirable in many ways...

...the majority of Frenchmen may even prefer junior partnership in the New Europe, rather than expose themselves to a third and more formidable attack by a rearmed Germany...

...France is much weaker than Germany, even when combined with Belgium and the Netherlands...

...The new language speaks of "a unified Europe with an integrated Germany," instead of the old language which spoke of "Deutschland uber Alles...

...But there is danger in an alliance with a country which is developing a growing desire to recoup her lost territories...

...It ignores the hard fact that in an alliance the economically—and hence militarily—strongest partner dominates the weaker ones, and that it takes only cleverly-used ideology to hide such domination...

...Historical events are not determined by even the honest intentions of a political leader speaking here and now, but by inherent historical trends, which change the language of the leaders...

...The United States-German alliance (or, rather, the United StatesGerman-led European alliance) undoubtedly adds to American military strength...

...Such a policy, implemented by military neutralization of both Germanies, and followed^ by universal disarmament, would strengthen the democratic forces in Western Europe and the United States, reduce the danger of an aggressive China, and offer hope of ending the fatal arms race...

...In addition, Germany still has the same military tradition which, together with her industrial potential, created the dynamic mixture which led to explosions in 1914 and 1939...

...This hope, however, seems to neglect certain fundamental facts...

...These new conditions created new opportunities for Europe...

...Italy is notoriously weak economically and militarily...

...Four—A British-led new Europe is possible only if Germany is blocked in her rearmament...

...she also lost a large part of her territory and population— East Germany, Silesia, East Prussia, Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Sudetenland...

...Whatever the causes (undoubtedly mutual misunderstandings and suspicions played a considerable role), the result was the development of Western fears of a Russian attack on Western Europe, and the consequent launching of efforts to organize a defense against such an, attack...

...Hence the arms race will continue with the increasing likelihood of an evermore destructive nuclear war...

...Germany was not only defeated in the last war...

...West Germany has resumed the trend of economic growth at the same rapid rate as in the beginning of its flowering as an industrial nation about seventy years ago...

...It proceeded to the formation of the Common Market, a vast economic alliance excluding only Britain, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal...

...President Franklin D. Roosevelt's foreign policy was based on this assumption...

...This is not the place to offer the considerable evidence for the thesis that Nikita Khrushchev needs and wants peace, that he is afraid of a nuclear-armed Germany, that he is afraid of China, and that he is attempting to resume AmericanSoviet cooperation as it existed before the outbreak of the cold war...

...It would mean ending a situation where—in reality, although not in formal language—the United States has exchanged its friendship with a weakened Britain for a friendship with a strong Germany...

...Unification of Western Europe began with the integration of military forces for defensive purposes...

...The Germans, in their turn, are realizing a goal which both the Kaiser and Hitler failed to achieve...

...the cold war began...

...Today, even though the social basis for the Junker class has disappeared, the military tradition has not...

...These conditions wilL be not only economic but political...

...An economically vigorous, democratic new Europe, with no ambitions to hold its colonial possessions or to regain lost territories, could become one of the world's strongest forces for peace and democracy...

...The growing acceptance of the Adenauer-Strauss course is dramatically revealed by the political opposition: the Brandt-led majority of the Social-Democratic Party, seeking success by imitating the Adenauer line, sometimes even outshouting Adenauer in the shrillness of aggressively nationalistic speeches...

...eventually, it would seem to create a new multi-national power, allied with the United States, and thus an important addition to U.S...

...The support of the present German-led new Europe would in the long run lead to an increase of strength of those reactionary, totalitarian tendencies within the United States—which are rallying strength even now under the banner of antiCommunism...

...Roosevelt, and presumably Josef Stalin, intended to transform the wartime alliance into a lasting political compact, hoping to stabilize the world, and to create a lasting peace under joint AmericanSoviet leadership, with Europe in a secondary role...

...Germany was half destroyed, and the victors agreed that they would prevent her from rising again as a powerful nation...

...defensive strength...

...It permits most of Europe an economic development blocked by the antiquated structure of separate national markets...

...Considering the need for European economic unification, considering that this unification is taking place under the leadership of an irredentist, expansionist West Germany, and is thus speeding up the arms race, the question is whether anything can be done to change an obviously dangerous course...

...Because political power depends upon economic power, turning back to Britain would require a close U.S.-British economic collaboration that would permit Britain to overcome her economic difficulties...

...ERICH FROMM is the distinguished psychoanalyst who has embarked on major researches in the field of foreign policy in recent years...

...There are reasons to believe that such a change could be effected if Britain, instead of Germany, became the effective leader of a New Europe...

...An Inquiry into the Facts and Fictions of Foreign Policy," will be published soon by Doubleday in hard cover and by Anchor Books in paper cover...

...Today, West Germany is the dominant power...

...One—It would require that the United States return to her traditional position of considering Britain her main ally...

...Several objections may be made to this analysis...

...German nationalism and the clamor for the return of the "stolen territories" has become not less but greater with the growth of German strength...

...The economic potential inherent in the German industrial organization, which has proved to be a factor stronger than two military and political defeats, has not lost its momentum...

...Eventually, one could imagine that the United States, together with Britain and the Soviet Union, could enforce the demilitarization of West and East Germany, and create a neutralized Germany, even if unification is ruled out for the immediate future...

...Something else happened in West Germany: the "Wirtschaftswunder...

...Even if he were willing to give up his sphere of interest in Central Europe, he cannot at the moment relinquish any territory acquired by Josef Stalin without losing his political position...

...If her traditional political rivalries could be overcome, if her trade barriers were abolished, a United States of Europe, an area with more than 300,000,000 people, with vast natural resources, and with a highly disciplined and skilled working class, could be organized as a power equalling in strength, or even superior to, the United States or the Soviet Union...

...Anyone who, instead of mistaking words for realities, is sensitive to trends which occur behind those words, observes in Germany a mood of nationalism, suspicion, and fear, reminiscent of the last pre-Hitler years...

...In Roman law such alliances were called "societas leonina," a society formed by a weaker animal with a lion...

...It is supported by the United States, which is shifting its position from reliance on Britain as its most important ally to dependence upon the Federal Republic...

...West Germany is now, economically and militarily, the strongest power in the Common Market...

...the Common Market's exports were four times those of the United Kingdom...

...Can one expect that an economically weakened Britain will be able to check the German-French nationalist-and-reactionary bloc in the New Europe...

...economic and military power had passed to the United States and to the Soviet Union...

...Britain, together with the United States, are the only two great Western powers which are free to conduct a non-colonialist policy, and thus to stem the tendencies which have sometimes seemed to make Russia—and, even more, China —the natural leaders of the colonial revolution...

...Only a few years after a war which had destroyed half her cities and a peace which had deprived her of one third of her territory, Germany— now "West Germany"—began to rise again, just as she did after World War I, and became economically the most prosperous, and militarily the strongest, power in Europe, with the sole exception of the Soviet Union...

...Europe might blossom again as a great power, provided it was a united Europe...

...Twice the Germans failed because their generals and politicians did not perceive that they could not win a war in which the most powerful country in the world, the United States, would join Germany's chosen enemies...

...France, led by a gifted but romantic general, is concerned with her gloire and the preservation of the remnants of her African Empire...

...We talk about the protection of freedom, yet we support the formation of a militaristic, totalitarian new Europe, while the Russian Communist bloc, since Stalin's death, is moving in the direction of liberalization...

...But shortly after the war ended, this new alliance began to crumble...

...Europe was further weakened by the postwar colonial revolution which deprived the European powers of most of their overseas possessions...

...A German-French-led New Europe would be a reactionary, totalitarian Europe...

...Since, on the other hand, the Soviet Union is not, and will not be, ready to relinquish any of her postwar conquests, she has grounds to fear increasing German strength...

...Which power, or powers, will be its head and provide the dominating influence...

...Britain, in spite of the Suez adventure, has an excellent record in Asia and in Africa of having accepted the realities of the colonial movement toward political independence...

...Of first importance, it gradually does away with national rivalries, especially FrenchGerman rivalry, which has led to three major wars within seventy years...

...Germany, economically the strongest power, was thoroughly defeated...

...Is the addition to the defense of the United States as valuable as the threat to peace is dangerous...

...Two—A new Europe led by Britain, the Scandinavian countries, and Holland would be a democratic Europe...

...What will be the language of his successor...

...By 1938 German steel production was more than double that of the United Kingdom...

...There is no way to end the arms race at the moment other than by AmericanBritish-French recognition of the Oder-Neisse line as part of a peace treaty with East and West Germany which stabilizes the status quo...

...His new book, "May Man Prevail...

...France, and Belgium (like Portugal), on the other hand, follow an intransigent colonial policy, one which fosters increasing aggressiveness in the leaders of the national revolutions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America...

...There remains one last hope: If Britain would join the Common Market, she, together with Italy and Holland, could form an effective counter-balance to German domination...

...Is the threat from the Soviet Union as real as is the threat to peace by our new ally...

...The German federal government has explicitly declared many times that it does not recognize the borders fixed provisionally in 1945...