Debate Across The Elbe

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31081, 9 June 1966, Page 16

Debate Across The Elbe

Although West Germany’s governing Christian Democrats are to take no part in the exchange of views between the Social Democrats and the East German Communists, they have given the proposed dialogue a kind of qualified blessing. The three Bonn parties, Dr. Erhard’s Christian Democrats, the Free Democrats (his coalition associates), and the Socialists have lately been. trying to find common ground on the question of German reunification; but Dr. Erhard’s party continues to reject the Moscow theory that it can be achieved only through a confederation negotiated by the two Germanys. In any case, while the debates are to be welcomed, even with limited West German participation their usefulness will need cautious assessment. An exchange of views after two decades of division should not be allowed to create the illusion of a new dawn. The Social Democrats and the Communists have agreed merely to consult on matters of common interest; and it remains to be seen just what common interests they have.

It is a gain that the debates, alternating between Eastern and Western venues, are to be fully reported, including television coverage; but Germans on both sides of the Elbe will remember that reunion, in law, remains a matter for agreement among the four Powers which occupied their country after the last war, and that the obstacles are as real now as they were 20 years ago. Bonn, for instance, does not accept the Oder-Neisse line, which put large areas of the old Germany into Poland and Russia. Russia, moreover, appears resolved that partition can be ended only on her terms, which would include German neutralisation and the departure of the Americans; and that would mean the end of the N.A.T.O. defence system, already weakened by the defection of France.

It has long been apparent that East and West Germany would like freer trade relations and possibly cultural relations as well. Russia has appeared to encourage efforts in that direction. Both Bonn and Paris are now following the Anglo-American example of seeking to improve trade and other contacts with Eastern Europe. East Germany’s position seem? to become increasingly equivocal. The East German Government has been determinedly seeking wider recognition—its diplomatic relations, as yet, are confined to other Communist States—and even membership of the United Nations. Yet success in either of these endeavours might merely underline the permanence of German division. The East German leader, Mr Ulbricht, has lately seemed to echo the Kremlin in suggesting that a major purpose of the East-West debates could be to pave a “workers’ way” towards reunification through a provisional German confederation purged, of course, of all former Nazis, capitalists, militarists, and nuclear weapons, and recognising all the existing frontiers in Europe! Mr Ulbricht’s canvas is impressively comprehensive but it reveals only the Communist view. Closer contact across the Elbe might be expected to emphasise, on the Bonn side, flat rejection of a German confederation which would put the People’s Republic on the same legal footing as the Bonn Republic.

At another level, arrangements for the debates will have to include guarantees of safe conduct for East German spokesmen entering western territory. Since there is no recognition of East Germany, all the Bonn laws technically apply there. The shooting of refugees from the East could be an offence punishable in the West. Such complications will require special adjustment of laws before the suggested debates can even be started. Yet if contact is to grow both sides will have to take the risks involved—risks of spreading Communist activity in the West, and an equivalent risk of the propagation of democratic ideas in the East. t