ON THE WORLD SCENE
MOSCOW'S NEWEST WORRY: GROWING TIES BETWEEN EAST AND WEST GERMANY
For more than a year, West Germany and Communist East Germany have been moving closer together. Despite ideological differences and the fact that the two nations are members of rival military blocs, officials in Bonn and East Berlin have been intensifying mutual contacts, dictated, according to an East German source, "by a concern for peace. "Simply put, both German states want to pursue the fruits of detente — increased human contact across the Wall for Bonn and continued access to sources of economic assistance for East Berlin — which are endangered by the new cold war atmosphere between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Nervous Moscow sees the professed "concern for peace" otherwise. The Kremlin was particularly unhappy about two recent developments: a new $330 million extension of credit from Bonn, and the announced intention of East German leader Erich Honecker to visit West Germany in late September.
Finally, by late July, Moscow had had enough. An editorial in the party newspaper, PRAVDA, took both German states to task. It charged that West Germany was using financial levers to "gradually erode the foundations of the socialist system" in East Germany with the ultimate aim of achieving German reunification.
PRAVDA also chided East Berlin for accepting the loan, the second big one in about a year's time. Although it didn't say so directly, a clear impression was also left that it would not be a good idea for Honecker to visit West Germany — the first trip ever by an East German leader there.
At first the East Germans dutifully translated and reprinted the PRAVDA attacks in the official party newspaper NEUES DEUTSCHLAND. But at the same time the paper defended its efforts to improve relations with Bonn, stating: “Our Socialist German state sees as its task above all to cooperate so that war does not start again on German soil." Reinforcing its position, NEUES DEUTSCHLAND also reprinted a Hungarian article that praised Honecker's efforts to make new contacts with the West. Then, on August 3 and 4, the editors chose not to reprint two other PRAVDA broadsides — an act of unusual defiance.
East Berlin had reason to believe it had support in some East Bloc quarters. For the second time, the official Hungarian news agency came out against the Soviet hard line, instead praising Honecker's foreign policy and stressing the need for improved East-West relations in order "to bring back detente." Meanwhile, top ranking East German officials, reported one West German newspaper, reassured leaders in Bonn that the Honecker visit was still on and that Romania, Hungary and even Bulgaria backed it.
For its part, Bonn officials tried to downplay the Soviet attacks. Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher dismissed the charges, saying "German-German ties are part of a European peace policy." He said "the time is ripe" to relax tensions.
Continuing East Germany's independent mode, the monthly magazine HORIZONT, reflecting the views of the country's foreign ministry, declared that the Communist parties of different countries should have the right to "follow their own paths and to arrive at their own conclusions." Moreover, editorialized HORIZANT, the German Democratic Republic was "autonomous in matters domestic and diplomatic."
"I can't ever recall an instance of such defiance," responded a West German expert on East German affairs.
What is the significance of the new thaw in East-West European relations, reflected in the main by the inter-German "honeymoon"? Teddy Taylor, a conservative MP in the British Parliament, expressed his views in the August 5 SUNDAY EXPRESS in an article "Are We About to See the Break-up of the Eastern Bloc?"
Something very strange and unprecedented seems to be going on behind the Iron Curtain.... Suddenly, things have been changing. Look first at Rumania.... Not only did it fail to join the [Soviet Olympic] boycott, but it actually sent a team to Los Angeles.
Perhaps even more significant has been the recent activity of the East German rulers. East Germany has for many years been regarded as the Soviets' most loyal ally. But its Communist boss...intends to visit West Germany next month.... Last year an official PRAVDA rebuke to any East European nation would have been more than enough to bring about a change of policy....
While the Russians have been gnashing their teeth, the Hungarian Communist Government has sent an open message of support and solidarity to the East Germans....
While these moves have been watched closely by the diplomats, we have all seen for ourselves on television what has been happening in Poland.... Last week, for example, around 10,000 Poles took part in a great march to the memorial erected to the countless citizens of Warsaw who were slaughtered by the Nazis while the Red Army watched from the other side of the Vistula....
What is the real significance of all these signs of new independence in the Eastern Bloc?... George Orwell has warned us in his book 1984 about the dangers of a controlled media producing a race without any independent thought. But that doesn't seem to be happening, and instead of Marxist robots the people of Eastern Europe after 40 years of suppression are still as fiercely independent as ever....
It may be that the Russians have bitten off more than they can chew — particularly in Afghanistan where, despite the use of massive weaponry and means of destruction the battle with the Mujahideen is still going on....
Whatever the cause, something very fundamental and important is going on. That something could well prove to be a threat to peace if the Russians, desperate to preserve their empire, decide to lash out in the same way as they did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia years ago.
But the same "something," if sensitively used and developed by the West, could equally lead to the restoration of freedom in half of the Continent of Europe.
In the August 6 FINANCIAL TIMES of Britain, journalists Rupert Cornwell in Bonn and Leslie Colitt in West Berlin analyzed the inter-German thaw in an article entitled "The Flirtation Worries Moscow." They point out that the Soviets themselves are largely responsible for supplying the East/West German momentum they now deplore.
A ghost has slipped forth from a long locked diplomatic cellar. Flitting on the edge of the European stage once more is the German Question, the quandary of the identity and boundaries of the German nation, after the miseries it has caused this century.
For confirmation, one need look no further than the reverberations set loose by the present warming of relations between Bonn and East Berlin. Their new agreement, a DM 950m bank credit guaranteed by the West German Government, against some distinctly modest humanitarian concessions from its eastern neighbour, seems hardly the stuff to change history.
Yet the reactions it has already drawn — above all from the fastnesses of Russia — have been reminder enough of an obvious but awkward truth: that the post-war order of Europe and the balance there between East and West, are crystallised around the unnatural division of the German people....
The true target [of PRAVDA's attacks], of course, has not been so much the capitalists in Bonn, but the hitherto client Communist leadership in East Berlin. And the warning to Herr Erich Honecker, the East German leader, about threats to "undermine the Socialist order in the German Democratic Republic" is one of the most serious in the Soviet arsenal....
And it should not be forgotten that the West too has been quietly satisfied at the post-war answer to the German Question. It was after all an eminent Frenchman in the 1950s who remarked: "J'aime tellement l'Allemagne, je suis heureux qu'il y en a deux." ("I'm so fond of Germany I'm delighted there are two.")...
From the Russian viewpoint, it is a case of a once tolerated flirtation which has got out of hand. Control of East Germany has always been the key to Moscow's ability to manipulate the mood of West Germany, in the pursuit of its long-term goal of luring Bonn free from NATO.
From early 1983 on, on the instructions of Yuri Andropov the late Soviet leader, and with the full agreement of Herr Honecker, the siren song was duly sent forth. The bait of better relations with the East would be used to increase opposition within West Germany to the planned deployment of new NATO nuclear missiles. Despite that, the missiles were approved by the Bonn Parliament in November 1983. But by then East/West German affairs had acquired a momentum of their own which a policy vacuum in Moscow, as Mr. Andropov slipped towards death, did nothing to impede.
A first loan of DM 1 billion had been agreed in the summer of 1983: even the Soviet walkout from the Geneva arms talks, in retaliation for deployment, scarcely interrupted the great thaw....
East Berlin needed Western hard currency to help reduce its debt and press on with economic overhaul; the centre right coalition in Bonn under Chancellor Helmut Kohl could point to its inner German policy as an indisputable success at which few could cavil. Trade between the two Germanys jumped 8 per cent in 1983, far faster than West German trade as a whole.
The permission for an unprecedented 27,000 East Germans to emigrate to the West in the first six months of 1984 also served the interests of both sides. The deal enabled Herr Honecker to... rid himself troublesome opponents of the regime. The East Germans also received payment from Bonn for the emigres.... Then on July 25 came the announcement of a second credit, this time for DM 950m....
Whatever their innermost leanings, officials here accept realistically that reunification is a dead issue — at least until the two blocs are dissolved.
True Chancellor Kohl is fond of saying that partition "is not the final word of history." But until such time as history permits, the emphasis remains on "doing what is feasible," to make division more tolerable in human terms. East and West Germany, in the words of spokesmen for both, have a Verantwortungsgemeinschaft, a "community of responsibility," to see that no war ever again starts on German soil....
But Moscow sees the problem in different terms, indeed almost as a mirror of the problem of West Germany in the eyes of the Atlantic Alliance. The West fears that Bonn might yield to ancestral tugs from the East and slip away into a neutralist yonder: Moscow is frightened the same fate could overtake East Germany, but from the opposite direction.
Not that that is a serious proposition, with 360,000 Soviet troops stationed on East German territory, and East Berlin wholly dependent on Moscow for energy and raw materials. But the country is, if possible, strategically even more vital for the Warsaw Pact than is West Germany for NATO.... Above all it represents the western prong of the pincer which holds volatile, recalcitrant Poland to heel.
Given all this, the Kremlin — and, as most suspect, Mr. Andrei Gromyko the ascendant Foreign Minister in particular — have done their sums and calculate that the stick is a more sensible bet currently than the carrot. There would be several factors contributing to the change, which hotted up a month ago with the astonishing abuse piled upon a supposedly "revanchist" West Germany after the West European Union (WEU) had lifted remaining theoretical curbs on conventional weapons production by Bonn....
Entangled with these considerations, almost certainly, was the instinctive Russian fear, for historical reasons, of anything which might portend a reunited Germany. The spectre, moreover, is a useful one to conjure up when "Fortress Russia" is the order of the day, and preparations are under way for huge celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the defeat of Hitler next spring....
More tantalizingly,...there signs that the Russians themselves might be split on their German policy. PRAVDA on August 2 accused Bonn of employing economic ties as a means of meddling in East German affairs. Be that as it may, the Government paper ISVESTIA, just 24 hours earlier, had gone out of its way to emphasise the importance of East-West trade, and implied that the DM 950m credit was a quite unexceptionable event. Such divisions would do much to explain why East Germany has found the courage to stand up to the Russians — so far at least. In permitting his party paper NEU DEUTSCHLAND to defend his dealings with Bonn, Herr Honecker must feel he is not without friends in the East.
The NEW YORK TIMES' outspoken columnist William Safire also probed "The German Problem" in his August 13 column specifically the future big issue of reunification, which, he professes, may be in the "plotting stage" now. Only in the last three sentences of his analysis does Safire's argument break down.
LONDON — The superpowers have at last found common ground. Each is worried about The German Problem.... Moscow originally approved of [East Germany's approaches] to the West, as part of its campaign to seduce Europe into rejecting the American-made nuclear missiles. When that seduction failed and West Germany began to put in place the West's answer to the huge escalation of Russian arms, Moscow expected East Germany to fall into its new hard line — the present supersulk that is supposed to help defeat Ronald Reagan in November.
But the East Germans, normally most subservient to orders from Moscow, are pressing ahead with their Western contacts, testing the limits of Soviet ire or exploiting a division in the Kremlin's constantly moribund inner circle. The Soviet leaders suspect that the East and West Germans are plotting "revanchism" — a movement to restore the old German borders and take back areas that the Russians chopped off after World War II.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, the State and Commerce Departments are trying to get a grip on The German Problem: the near-billion dollar credits extended by West Germany to the Communist regime in the east, and the transshipment of the most sophisticated American technology to East Germany.
Two years ago, while the State Department was caving in to European demands that U.S. equipment be used in the Soviet-European gas pipeline, America was assured that West Germans would guard against the transfer of U.S. industrial secrets to the Communist bloc. But it turns out that Secretary George Shultz was snookered: the West Germans are preparing laws forbid their companies from going along with U.S. export restrictions. Thus, West Germany sticks its thumb in the eye of the Western superpower...while East Germany apparently sticks its thumb in the eye of the Eastern superpower....
Why are these events taking place at the same time? The answer should be obvious: 40 years after the war, two generations after the division of the Third Reich by the victorious allies, German leaders of East and West are beginning to put on the pressure to reunite their country. Nobody wants to admit this, of course. Germans talk only of "ultimate" reunification in some happy time of universal peace, because they know that the very prospect of one Germany soon erodes their credibility as allies to opposing sides.
The Russians, if this goes too far, will crack down on East Germany as they did on Poland: 20 Russian divisions are present on East German soil. The Americans, if Chancellor Helmut Kohl continues to finance technologically bolster the Communist regime, will react, by passing the Nunn amendment, and the withdrawal of U.S. forces will begin. [The legislation introduced by Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia nearly passed the Senate in June.]
That is why East Germans are talking to Moscow merely of detente, which is occasionally in favor, and why West Germans talk to America of the virtues of trade and human communication, which Americans are usually for. Their game is to begin the reunification process without ever calling it that.
German nationalism seems to mean more to Mr. Honecker than continued subservience to Moscow, and more to Mr. Kohl than the present generation's method of defending Western Europe. A decade from now we will learn of the secret negotiations in these years that took place between Germans who put Fatherland ahead of ideology. It should not be a surprise; it is only natural.
Would a reunited, neutralist Germany be a useful buffer between superpowers — or a way for the Russians to get the Americans out of Europe? Would it revive the nationalist spirit that led to two world wars? Bonn's leaders are deluding themselves.... Reunified, Germany would be stripped of its Western protection. It would be at the mercy of the superpower that is unafraid to impose its will.
To balance the views of Mr. Safire, Josef Joffe, writing in the August 16 LOS ANGELES TIMES, downplays any possible conspiracy between the two Germanys. Yet one is reminded of the age-old piece of advice: "Never say never." In this case, never say that reunification is "impossible" or that the Berlin Wall — which recently "celebrated" its 23rd anniversary — won't come tumbling down some day. Unless stopped, this is the end product of the momentum which has been set in motion.
Nevertheless, this is what Mr. Joffe, a former editor of the West German weekly DIE ZEIT, had to say in an article titled "East Germany Is Edgy, but Won't Stray Too Far."
Last year the United States worried about "its" Germans: now it is the Soviets' turn to worry about theirs.... Yet this new Gemutlichkeit does not add up to a silent conspiracy against the European status quo. Twenty-three years ago this week the erection of the Berlin Wall destroyed the last illusions about reunification, leaving sober realism to prevail. Since then the two Germanys have embarked on a competitive/cooperative coexistence that takes due note of the realities of power in Europe. These realities were nicely put by the editor of HORIZONT when he told a visiting West German colleague the other day, "Nobody wants reunification — neither your nor our own allies."
The West Germans paid their dues when they joined the boycott of the Olympic Games in 1980 and when they took the missiles in 1983. Erich Honecker has been even more careful not to provoke Big Brother. When the Pershings went into West Germany last year, he dutifully accepted a new generation of shorter-range Soviet missiles on East German soil. During the Warsaw Pact economic summit in May, Honecker promised to sacrifice hard-currency earnings by bartering more goods to the Soviet Union. An Olympic superpower, East Germany lost a treasure trove in gold medals when it refused to show up in Los Angeles.
If that is insubordination, who needs loyalty? Nor do the Soviets have to fear their seemingly wayward allies: Both Chernenko and Honecker know that East Germany is the most crucial brace of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe. Precisely because the Soviets will not hesitate to use force to maintain their bastion between the Elbe and the Oder, Honecker and his comrades will always act with the kind of circumspection that makes violence unnecessary. The process of detente in Europe will never go far enough for fear of its going too far.
The "two Germanys story is building up so rapidly and we have so many articles flooding in on it that we'll probably present more next time or in the near future.
— Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau
