Germans and the Treaty
By ROBERT POWELL
Bonn.
THE convention signed here last Monday between the Foreign Ministers of U.S.A., the United Kingdom, France and the German Federal Republic marks a definite step toward German sovereignty, just as the European Defence Agreement signed later in Paris brings Western Germany into the community of Western nations. The convention, which has been referred to as the Contractual Agreement, the General Treaty and the Deutschland Treaty, has been evolved from long-drawn-out negotiations between the three Allied High Commissioners and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, in his capacity as Foreign Minister.
This new agreement replaces the Occupation Statute, of April 10th, 1949, and the Charter of the Allied High Commission, of June 20th in the same year. It is the fulfilment of a clause in the Statute which states that " after twelve months, and in any event within eighteen months of the effected date of this instrument, the Occupation Powers will undertake a review of its provisions in the light of experience with its operation, and with a view to extending the jurisdiction of the German author- ities in the legislative, executive and judicial fields."
The former relationship of Occupier and Occupied has ceased to exist. The fear of Soviet interference in this part of Europe . at the beginning of the Korean- War, and the necessity of seem.- ' ing a West German force on the-side of the democracies, have speeded up considerably this new development. (The conven- tion must, of course, be taken together with the European Defence Agreement.) 'Only such Allied restrictions on the sovereignty of the Federal Republic are continued as are required to protect legitimate Allied interests until the signing of a peace treaty, and to ensure the security of Allied troops stationed on German territory.
Such an agreement might have been expected to be greeted with jubilation by the vast majority of the Germans in the Federal Republic. But, as most readers probably know from Press reports during the week, this has not been the case. Rarely has any treaty been received with such apathy by the people most concerned. At the- signing ceremony in the chamber of the Federal Senate very few representatives of the Lander Governments and no members of the "Social Democratic Party (the second largest party in Parliament) were present. Through- out most of the Lander the request of the Federal Minister of the Interior that buildings should be beflagged, that teachers should tell their pupils of the importance of this convention and that the schools should be given a holiday on Monday last was rejected. How, Lander Government spokesmen asked, could such things be done, when nobody knew how this convention would affect them ?
Resignation rather than voluntary acceptance describes the general German attitude. There has been nothing to indicate that this marks the beginning of a new era. The Social Demo- crats, in particular, speak as if nothing has been gained through the new convention—in fact complain that the Germans con- tinue to be treated as a " second-class " nation by the Allies. Dr. Kurt Schumacher's 'vituperative • comment against those Germans who signed such an agreement came as a shock to many of his own countrymen. But it clearly revealed how wide is the gap which separates Government and Opposition today. Now that the convention has been signed, the important question is whetter it will be ratified by both Houses of th;:, Federal Parliament. The text of the convention and of its annexes has still to be made known. How deputies and senators will react is still uncertain. For, though many members of Parliament accepted the standpoint that the Chancellor had the right to sign the convention before consulting Parliament, they still appear to have doubts about some of the conditions laid down. It is therefore not going to be easy to give the simple " yes " or " no " answer which will be demanded of them. This difficulty is increased by the fact that the European Defence Community agreement has to be also approved in a similar way. It is, of course, this linking up of the benefits conferred by the new convention with the duties laid down in the E.D.C. agree- ment which produces the embarrassment.
Chancellor Adenauer is known to favour immediate ratifi- cation of the two treaties. But the High Court of the Constitu- tion has yet to deliver its judgement on an appeal from the Social Democrats as to whether ratification requires a simple or a two-thirds majority in both Houses. This will depend upon whether the Court decides that this act involves a change in the Federal COnstitution. If it does, then the larger majority will be required. Few people here today would be willing to risk a prophecy that the Government could succeed under such conditions.
Even ratification does not automatically mean full acceptance of these treaties by a large section of people in West Germany. To them `re-unification of their country and the change in the Eastern frontiers are the most important and immediate aims of the Federal Republic's foreign policy. The extent to which the new treaties are seen as helping to that end will probably be the measure of the genuine support for the West by such Germans. In this connection, the Soviet reply to the second Allied note has not been without its influence in some quarters here. Its plausible references to immediate German re-unification, the U.S.S.R. offers to negotiate with the three Western democracies on this issue, etc., make an appeal, despite past experiences of Soviet unreliability in such matters. In fact, the division among Germans in the Federal-Republic today appears. to be most • marked _between those who feel that -some kind-of compromise can still be worked out with the Russians over the future of this country and those who believe that such a development is pos- sible only through a strong western community of nations of which the free, democratic part of their country is a member.
It is at the moment impossible to see clearly what construc- tive policy the Social Democrats have to put forward. They earlier appeared to support a " yes—but " attitude, which accepted the necessity of co-operating with the Western demo- cracies, provided that certain changes were made in the new convention. Later this developed into a " no—but " attitude, which has expressed itself in violent outbursts against the new treaties, both in and out of Parliament. Yet, the Social Demo- crats themselves are strongly opposed to the Communists and unwilling to take them and their offers at face-value. The Opposition will certainly fight ratification to the end. But it difficult to see what alternative they can propose now that things have gone so far. This confusion in German policy must be cleared up before it can be claimed that the Federal Republic is really on the Western side.
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