GERMANS ARE NOT OVER ANXIOUS TO ADOPT DEMOCRACY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 39, 16 September 1949, Page 6

GERMANS ARE NOT OVER ANXIOUS TO ADOPT DEMOCRACY

(By A. G. Parry, 1949 Kemsley Empire Journalist) London, August 30. Western Germany has its own freely elected Parliament now. But let no one think that she is ready to steer a democratic course alone. Let no one believe that four years of occupation have caused her to turn over a new national leaf; that she is ready to line herself lip with the Western Powers; that the military and cultural enemy of yesterday is mysteriously transformed into the ideological ally of today. The ‘‘love our enemies” advocates are as far from the truth as the “hate the Hun” fanatics. Send Allies Packing

Full of arrogance and Marshall Aid,' the Germans are living for the moment when they can send the Allies packing. Only necessity keeps them within the boundary line of civility. There is little gratitude for the pouring-in of U.S. dollars, no appreciation at all of the hardlyspared food from Great Britain. “The British fight bravely, but when it comes to peacetime economics they are just fools,” a German industrialist told me. His view is bv no means original. British sympathy has been construed as weakness, tolerance as stupidity. Germany is a country with a greedy, outstretched hand, a whining voice alternately clamouring for more and criticising the administration.. Where, then, is Western Germany heading? The answer is- all too apparent. Bolstered up by • four years of help, financial and moral, she seeks to become an economic force in Europe, a self-contained and prosperous nation. By next year, in spite of all restrictions, her production in most lines will be up to 1936 level. Already the Germans are demanding the right to build bigger and faster ships. Soon they will ask for airlines.

The country has not learned her democratic lesson, but the Germans, impatient as always, feel that they have served their apprenticeship. They have the temerity to ask for equality in the European structure. They have, admittedly, worked hard and they are now asking to see the fruit of their labour. Germany will, undoubtedly, soon be a serious rival to Great Britain and the rest of Europe, on the export market—and her competition is coming at a time when unemployment is increasing and the seller’s .market has vanished.

With typical German shrewdness the leaders of the people are exploiting the possibility of catastrophe in Berlin. War is-a word shunned ,by the victorious Allies, but it springs readily to the lips of the “conquered” Germans. They have not overlooked the tactical importance of Western N Germany should there be a showdown with the Russians. They are prepared to point out at length the advantages of having Germany as an effective military partner should the need, arise.

Nol Love It is not love of the Allies which causes them to adopt, this line of thought. Nor is it primarily hatred of the Russians. The hidden motive is the desire to regain control of Eastern Germany—a desire which was expressed by every German I met. Daily hundreds' of refugees pour into the Western Zones. These refugees—there are now 10,000,000 of them complicating the German economy—are treated with dislike, even loathing, by their kindly West German brothers. But they are welcomed by many politicians who think of them in terms of a powerful pressure-group which may assist the cause of a united Germany. With almost incredible determination—and almost limitless financial help—West Germany has forced its way back into the European picture. Winston Churchill has said that the Germans are either “at your feet or at your throat.” They show no signs of being at anyone’s feet today. They are critical, ungracious, often obstructionist in their tactics—although always ready to accept help. The new German Parliament at Bonn represents an important step towards independ) : ence, but the Allied touch will remain oil the wheel, the .Allied foot will hover over the brake-pedal for some time to come. In the interests of Germany, in the interests of blurope, it is well that it should be so.