Bonn

on the World Today

THE Adenauer regime is marking time politically until the West German Federal election in October. Meantime, it has been confronted with a series of economic problems, which materialized at a most unpropitious time. In December Dr. Adenauer was once again struck down by influenza, and, as at the beginning of 1960, showed that it is becoming increasingly difficult for him to shake off the effects. His Minister of Finance, Franz Etzcl, was ill for most of January and February. Over the Federal Cabinet still hung the clouds of the Adenauer-Erhard dispute, which has been soft-pedaled, mainly in order for the government to present a united front in the key months prior to the election.

The three principal economic problems which are absorbing public attention in West Germany are German economic assistance to the underdeveloped countries, German financial aid in helping the United States to solve its balanceof-payments difficulties, and the growing tension between the six-nation European Common Market and the “Outer Seven" group led by Britain. A few years ago the Federal Republic would not have played the part of a principal in problems of this sort. But facts like last year’s 10 per cent increase in industrial output and the growth of the German gold and dollar reserves have emphasized the Federal Republic’s position as the strongest major economic unit in Europe. West Germans have been confronted with the thought that prosperity can bring new responsibilities with it.

Aid for the underdeveloped countries

West German good will in the question of economic assistance for the underdeveloped countries has existed for a long time. German politicians are well aware what the alternative to generous help for these countries means; no other national press, for instance, has been so full of data and diagrams of Communist economic penetration into countries which are politically uncommitted or have lately been created out of former colonial domains.

German businessmen have, in addition, regarded investment in the underdeveloped countries as sound long-term policy. If they needed any outside stimulus, it has been provided by the frenzied activity of the Communist East German regime. East German government officials, technicians, and trade unionists have been incessantly on the move in Africa and Asia; the story is already a stale one that Cairo taxi drivers always take West Germans seeking their own embassy to the buildings of the East German trade mission.

The West German public, too, has gained an interest in the underdeveloped countries, especially those that are excolonial. With confidence tempered with modesty, Germans will explain to other Europeans: “Well, you took the Cameroons and Togo from us in 1919. So it is only natural that former colonial populations have no grudge against ns today. Perhaps we have a role to play as the uncommitted European partner in the Western alliance.”

In January the Federal Government was completing the details of its four billion mark program of aid for the underdeveloped countries. Roughly 40 per cent of this sum, or 1.5 billion marks, was to be raised by West German industry (after initial hesitation, the Federation of Industry was able to guarantee this sum). Another half billion marks was to come from Laender budgets, and the Federal Government would secure the rest from various sources. As an indication of its intention to spend this money, the Federal Government promised long-term aid to both Pakistan and Tanganyika in January.

The visit of the Foreign Minister, Heinrich von Brentano, to Washington in mid-February carried German plans a big step further. Brentano promised that German aid to the underdeveloped countries would not be a once-only affair; his government would provide for around 4.2 billion marks (a billion dollars) to be available each year. The size of the German contribution would, of course, be dependent on the budgetary position. This meant that the Federal Republic was accepting, in principle, a permanent responsibility and was not merely providing a shot in the arm in a year of particular affluence.

Auslerity at home

From some quarters, the impression has been put forth that the Federal Government, with its moneybags jingling and spilling over, was shamed into making this offer. This is less than fair. Once aware of their new responsibilities, the Germans are likely to fulfill them with scrupulous loyalty, as they have done in the difficult field of rearmament within NATO. It has certainly taken them time to realize how affluent they are. There are obvious reasons for this. There are still gaps in the streets of every big town, which have been left by war bombing. There are still hefty payments being made as restitution to victims of Nazism. There is an annual federal subsidy to West Berlin of 1.5 million marks. There are 200,000 East German refugees arriving each year who must be rehoused and resettled.

Furthermore, there is what can Host be described as a lack of domestic wealth. Over eleven million refugees have arrived in West Germany since the war. Most of them brought next to nothing with them. The homes of many of these people are still a trifle bare. Another three million West Germans lost most of their possessions when Allied bombs or shells dropped on their homes. Many German homes today bear no comparison with their counterparts in, say, Britain. It would be impossible to find in any German village the degree of domestic wealth of a village in, for instance, the Cotswolds or East Anglia.

Facts like these resulted in a great many Germans’ being genuinely surprised when the problem of easing the American balance of payments arose. To them, the need of Nigerian natives or Arab tribesmen was easily understandable. But the idea that America faced real financial difficulties was bewildering. To most Germans, the Federal Republic’s offer of nearly a billion dollars’ worth of aid seemed generous. This was why they were honestly upset by the dissatisfaction of the Kennedy Administration.

Aid to America

This is not the place to examine the intricacies of American-German negotiations over this problem. But it is appropriate to point out one or two of the thoughts which animated the Germans. The first was West German unhappiness about an American approach to them alone. America’s defense burden, it was admitted after reflection, might have become too great. But, then, surely it would be best to reapportion the defense burdens of all NATO powers. Why should countries other than the Federal Republic not help the United States too? Was there only one country in which an “economic miracle” had occurred?

The second thought was that America’s financial troubles were purely temporary. America, it was argued, has been passing through a recession, but the Eisenhower Administration had taken great pains to conceal this fact, prior to the presidential election. It might now be the policy of the Kennedy Administration to exaggerate economic difficulties which, Germans thought, would pass away in a new springtime of American economic growth. This was why the Federal Government had strong popular backing when it maintained that aid to America should be offered for 1961 only, that it should come from gold and dollar reserves and not from budgetary resources.

The third thought was that the American approach to Bonn — especially with regard to the way the Anderson-Dillon mission initiated it at the end of 1960 —carried a hint of “occupation thinking.” As an ex-occupied country, the Federal Republic has more than once negotiated from a position of weakness. As a result, its final installments of support costs for Allied troops on German soil fell due only in March, 1961. West Germans were naturally allergic to the thought that their government might be put under pressure, simply because this used to be done by victorious nations.

One illusion which should be destroyed is that there was in Bonn a faction that was bitterly opposed to offering adequate help to the United States. This was not the case. The reputed leader of this faction was the Finance Minister, Franz Etzel. But Etzel is like any other Finance Minister — preoccupied, to the point of obsession, with balancing his budget. He is now intent on lumping the financial aid for the underdeveloped countries into his 1961 — 1962 budget. To Etzcl it is immaterial that West German defense spending represents only 3.6 per cent of the national income (against 8.5 per cent in America, 7.2 per cent in Britain). For him, a reallocation of the Western defense burden is far less interesting than balancing the budget.

A free European market

The question of aid for America has produced friction and a residue of unhappiness. The question of relations between the Common Market Six and the Outer Seven has. on the contrary, offered the Federal Republic a chance of playing the part of honest broker in an incipient dispute which could seriously damage European stability. But over this question there are, indeed, warring factions in Germany itself.

One group contains Professor Walter Hallstein, the German signatory ol the Treaty of Rome, which laid down the terms of the Common Market; Franz Etzel, who used to serve on the Coal and Steel Community; and leading members of the Federal Foreign Office. They want economic integration of the Common Market pushed ahead at all costs, in order to pave the way for political union. This group is supremely anxious, too, not to offend France — more so than ever now that General de Gaulle is likely to strike out a line of his own.

The second group, led by Erhard and including the leaders of the Federation of Industry and the bulk of the West German press, is highly alarmed by the possibility of a trade war between the Six and the Seven. Its members would always have preferred a larger, more loosely bound European customs union to the tightly bound Common Market. This group has won one success: it has impressed on Adenauer the vital need to associate members of the Seven, especially Britain, as closely as possible with the Common Market. In a sense, this group has been helped by De Gaulle’s digression from orthodox ideas on European political integration. His plan for a Europe des patries has induced a new wariness in Adenauer toward France.

It would be a great achievement were West Germany, through the medium of Erhard’s pragmatism and common sense, to lead Europe toward a free market for 300 million people. This might do more to resolve European mutual doubts and jealousies than the creation of political institutions.

Adenauer’s worries

The Adenauer government continues to worry about Berlin, to cogitate inconclusively over the chances of establishing relations with Poland and other Communist satellites. It is continually harassed by misrule in East Germany, especially by fresh evidence of Communist pressure on the Christian churches there. It has its worries about the Kennedy Administration, the chief one being that too-hasty formulation of a more flexible policy toward the Communist bloc may bring a deterioration of the situation in Central Europe.

To such frustrations are added specters of the past. Adenauer’s Secretary of State in the Chancellery is under fire for his past anti-Semitic activities. Hardly a week goes by without a new war-crimes trial starting. Sometimes a shaft of humor lends an even more macabre note. In the biggest of all Rhineland carnivals, at Cologne, this year, a certain Theodor Esser was chosen for one of the three principal parts, that of the “maid.” This is always played by a man, for the “maid” must join in three weeks of carousals.

Esser, with a strong head and a gift for clowning, filled the part well. But when he appeared on a television program of the Cologne Carnival, he was recognized by an Essen police inspector as the man who had denounced him to the Russian secret police when they were both prisoners of war in Stalingrad nearly twenty years ago. The “maid” had to surrender his post at the head of the revels, out of “indisposition.” The West Germans have for twelve years been trying to make a fresh start within the European community. Such brutal reminders of the past can hardly help them.