WASHINGTON AND GERMANY
OF the numerous questions—Persia, Korea and Egypt among them—which the Foreign Ministers of Britain, the United States and France are discussing this week, the one which touches Europe, and therefore this country, most closely is the future of Western Germany. As to Eastern Germany, there is nothing to discuss or decide. That now Sovietised region is out of the reach of the Western Powers, including West Germany itself. Germany, as it is practically convenient to speak of it, means those Lander falling within the area still occupied by the Allied forces. It is with the inhabitants of that area, represented politically by Dr. Adenauer and his coalition Cabinet at Bonn, that the Western Powers have to concern themselves. It is quite time they did that. It is more than six years since Germany's defeat and surrender, and in the last three, since the currency reform of 1948, the Western zones have made remarkable progress, both economically and politically. A sense of capacity to stand on their own feet, with the help of the Marshall Aid-which they enjoy in common with other European countries, has fostered political consciousness and stimulated the desire to be rid of the symbols of defeat, whether they be the presence of occupation troops or compulsion to export a certain quantity of coal. It is not only politically expedient but morally important to recognise the reasonableness of Germany's impatience at continued restraints, and it is because that is so that the Foreign Ministers are discussing the future of Germany in detail this week.
It has to be recognised that no long-term solution is possible yet. That must await the day, if it ever comes, when, as part of a general settlement with Russia, West and East Germany, at least as far as the Oder-Neisse line, are reunited. But Western Germany can, and should be, carried forward several stages towards full sovereignty and independence. If there had been any disposition to obstruct that, the signature of the Japanese Treaty would have settled the matter. You cannot confer independence and sovereignty on the former enemy in the East and refuse them to the former enemy in the West. The transition will not be carried through without difficulty, but the main lines of advance are clear. Western Germany, her hopes of being merged in an independent and undivided Germany frustrated, is increasingly reconciled to being merged, less completely, in a united Western Europe. That is not Merely a question of joint military defence, though it involves that among other things, but of an aspiration, prevalent particularly among the younger generation, which should be unreservedly welcomed and encouraged. In the main it is being. General Eisenhower, to whom plans for German military co-operation in Western Europe are largely due, has approached the problem from the other, the political, end and expressed the view that the creation of a European Army offers the best chance for reconciling French and German interests and forging another link in the chain of European unity. It is in fact immaterial from which end it is approached. The conclusion is the same, and the extent to which it is now accepted in Bonn and in London, in Paris and in Washington, is of good augury for the future of Europe.
There are, of course, difficulties, both technical and psycho- logical. The French, in their resolve to countenance no move overt or covert towards national rearmament in Germany, are obdurately opposed not merely to the formation of any German army, but to the embodiment in a European army of German units large enough to coalesce rapidly into a national force. While their stipulation has been that individual German units should be limited to 6,000 the German Government has insisted, not unnaturally, that Germans must come in, if at all, on the same basis as everyone else, e.g., with divisions of 12,000 men. Two questions are involved—the first, whether Germany is to con- tribute at all to European defence. Since European defence is her own defence, since she can hardly expect Britain and America and France to fight Russia on German soil while Germans stand neutral, since her own self-help may make all the difference whether the line of resistance is the Elbe or the Rhine, the answer to that question can hardly be in doubt. In fact it is not. The Germans accept the principle of contribution to a European Army, including the financial burdens involved, and further action depends on the answer to the second question, whether the technical form of the German contribution can be agreed with the French. It seems probable that the British and American Foreign Ministers will be able to convince M. Schuman that there is in reality no greater risk in units of 12,000 than of 6,000. In any case there comes a point when a venture of faith is needed. Trust can be actually safer than mistrust. That principle has been accepted, if not without misgiving, in regard to Japan.. It cannot be rejected in regard to Germany.
The new development, if it materialises, will mean some adjust- ment. The American troops in Germany will not be part of the European Army. Nor will the British, at present, at any rate. Whether they will later is a question which can and should be left open. What is clear is that the French and Germans will form the backbone of the Army, with the Benelux countries and perhaps Italy making their proportionate contributions. General Eisenhower will be in command of all North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in West Europe, the Germans becoming members of N.A.T.O. as soon as may be, possibly when its Council meets at Ottawa this month, more probably at the further meeting at Rome in October. Simultaneously, if the new settlement with Germany. proceeds as hoped for, what are now the Occupation forces in Germany will be transformed into allies of a virtually independent Germany, stationed where they are primarily to defend her soil. That should, and it is to be hoped will, change the psychological atmosphere materially. All sorts of minor difficulties—about barracks, the housing of dependants, damage done by manoeuvres—are bound to arise, but the spirit in which they are discussed with partners should be very different from the spirit governing discussions with victorious Occupying Powers. But this still lies some months in the future, and they are months in which considerable restraints and statesmanship may be needed, particularly at Bonn. There can be no definitive treaty with what is only a part, though the greater part, of the Germany which surrendered in 1945, the Germany to which the Potsdam decisions referred. The status of Western Germany can be raised ; the Allied High Commis- sioners can become Ambassadors and Bonn can appoint its own Ambassadors abroad. There is no doubt that the existing Occupation Statute will disappear, and be replaced by some new contractual relationship the details of which have yet to be worked out. But there is a sharp difference about the amount of occupation costs, and that has got to be settled before various other questions are decided. The issue is largely in Germany's hands. It is manifest that sincere and wholehearted co-operation with the United States and with other Western European Powers is both to her interest and theirs. Her survival in the event of a European war, indeed, depends on it. Germans are prone temperamentally to be diffi- cult in negotiation and to bring a long string of grievances to the conference-table with them. Dr. Adenauer is, fortunately, his own Foreign Minister, and if his moderate and reasonable views can prevail a general settlement satisfactory to all parties °on. cerned should be attainable. But the Chancellor has critics in his own party as well as outside it, and a cry that Germany's interests are being sacrificed may involve him in serious danger. The Allied Foreign . Ministers need to be firm as well as generous. If Allied troops are needed in Germany as part of the Allies' defensive plan they are needed in Germany still more for the defence of Germany herself. That fact must never be lost sight of in the discussions, however anxious the Germans may be to slide past it. The difficulties of the situation are patent. Exactly the same difficulties arose in 1919 and 1920. Men who were schoolboys in 1939 can claim that they had no responsibility for Hitler and his aggression, and should not be made to pay for the price of it. It is convenient to forget that a nation is an entity that does not die, though its individual citizens may, and that within measure one generation must atone for the misdeeds of another. But the Allies are not disposed to press that doctrine beyond a point. If moderation on one side is met by moderation in the other the integration of Western Germany, militarily and politically, in Western Europe should soon be an accomplished —and a very reassuring—fact.
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