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Toward a New Central Europe |
"In order to eliminate the partition of Germany, we,
in the Federal Republic, are ready to bear the burden of
substantial financial sacrifices, if summoned to do so".
Federal President Dr. Henry Lubke,
before the Congress in Lima.
"We are ready to do some spending for reunification".
Federal Chancellor Dr. Ludwig Erhard, in
the Sportpalast of Berlin. (Jan. 13, 1965)
IN the five years, 1965-70, the course of the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, will proceed through the rapids of a labile world situation. More than ever before in the past will German statecraft face up to a challenge to spell out new, formidable developments in the East as well as in the West, in the language of its own activity. She will be able to find support in the extraordinary efficiency of her economy and in the goodwill of her people, matured in adversity.
Facing the world with an open mind, permeates our cultural life and characterizes the young generation. This trait will favorably promote the development of a foreign policy rich in ideas. Foreign policy will be further benefited by a substantial increase in experience about Europe, which accumulated through cur handling of the tragic problems of Eastern Germans, who have been forced from their homeland, and through our readiness to take part in the integration of the European West.
We will not lack the benefits of availability by a reliable staff of expert civil service employees. But there is one subject which has not been touched since the time of Otto von Bismarck, and which should be revived. That is the art of a synthetic view of Eastern and Western
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developments, as seen from the level of legitimate German interests.
Searching for the driving forces which should give life to a successful home- and foreign policy, we cannot fail to notice a lack of intellectual leadership and an atmosphere of moral confusion which ostensibly prevails, at least on the surface of the West German scene. Maybe, it is unavoidable, being the consequence of a simple rule of physics, that the swing of the pendulum far out in one direction must be followed by a swing equally far in the other direction. So it was perhaps a must, that after years of an inflated ego, years of self criticism and self-analysis had to come. The leaning towards exaggeration, lurking in the character of our nation, must have had its fill during the last decades, in both directions. But then, the process of disillusion, according to common sense, should not be pushed to its furthest consequence of self-dissolution.
At any rate, it is unfortunate that the ideological controversy with the near past has suffered a sectarian distortion which led to an interpretation of the phenomena of German fascism as the falling into sin of a whole nation and its government. Such simplifications may only furnish easy proof for the false deduction that the Germans are the only sinners in a world of the just. This frame of mind, now dominant at certain universities, overlooks, with a culpably unscientific approach, the international character of totalitarian process and the appalling growth of inhumanity in our century. A sentence by Brentano's should be remembered here, who said, that practically there does not exist any grade of lowness which cannot be imposed onto men under a dictatorial regime. From such a vista it seems to be our highest moral duty to hinder the building up of new dictatorships and not to nurse the self-righteousness of a new, as yet untried, generation, growing up as it were on the ruins of already fallen dictatorships. Recent history seen in the light of a false diagnosis by our intellectual leaders. must by necessity blunt the moral persuasion and penetrating power of our newly born German democracy. New strength can only be gained from self-analysis, if it gives back to our people as well a legitimate portion of self-assertion. And if it lives up to the task of leading our youth not only toward a necessary, critical observation of its past, but also and mainly, toward an improved way of building up our future.
As long as the dominant intellectual and cultural leaders of a free Germany will fail in this, uneasiness will grow, when facing the static and seemingly frozen situation in the question of a partitioned Germany. Periodic outcries, clamoring for incentives, resulting in more paperwork will not soothe this uneasiness. Of course, symbolic gestures, to put into relief a fact of injustice, are necessary, too, as long as a real elimination of the problem proves to be impossible. Pointing out the Wall of Berlin to visitors is important. To remind the Allied that they have contractual duties is important as well. More: a continuous
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moral pressure on the powers who have brought about the state of partition, in order that they might enter into discussions about the ways and means of terminating it, is an essential manifestation of our firm determination to bring about German unity. But more important still is an honest endeavor to come to mutual understanding within the ranks of our nation itself about the possibilities of selfhelp. Such a theme, of course, does not give good material for conventional stylistic exercise. The main ingredients of a discussion about existing situations of injustice are morally founded convictions, and a living sense of what is right.
The first thing to be acquired in this respect is to overcome in the Federal Republic in foreign relations a certain form of thinking in terms of being the object of happenings. I mean a habitual looking out for the opinion of foreign powers, which became accepted in the years after the total capitulation of Germany. A country which is registered as the second greatest economic power of the free world, does not have to ask every day afresh, what the East and the West are intending to do with her. In the same way the predilection to quote foreign displeasure in the course of controversies within our own ranks, must find at last its limits in a shouldering of responsibilities by our German democracy itself.
A thriving nation of 75 millions truly represent a level of achievement and volition, even in a state of forced partition, which cannot be overlooked, when building up peace for Europe. A faith of the leaders in the independent importance of the German cause is a necessary precondition of a change from thinking in terms of seeing ourselves in the situation of an object to subject-thinking in public opinion! without which we will never attain any success in our striving for unification and the formulation of a just peace.
The necessity is really in the air to come to an understanding about the extent of possible elbowroom when acting in our own cause. Every available experience of this period after the war points toward the fact, that a free Germany should build up its role in a world of to-morrow, as an economic power and as a factor for integration. Translating this sentence into the language of policy-making, it means that the well-known good qualities of our nation have to be infused into the task of forming constructive aims for German foreign policy.
Perhaps we are allowed to enumerate our good qualities from time to time. The so often quoted "economic wonder" of West Germany was not only the result of a still unaffected ethical attitude toward work in Germany or simply the result of the principles of market-economy. Not denying these vectors, their worth, we still are allowed to insist that a more than average preparedness of the German nation toward organizational activity has been in a gratifyingly high measure a satisfying match for the requirements of the permanent industrial revolution of our times. Under the circumstances of competition
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as brought about by modern technology, the reliance on partial rationalization, which economizes the use of the available human working-force, is no more enough. Much more depends on full rationalization, that is an integration of the economy as a whole, resulting in reduction of the cost factor.
It is not to be denied that in the Federal Republic we have successfully solved the problem of a balanced functioning of economic processes and factors of production, when seen especially in the light of the economic and social integration of a mass of 13 1/2 million refugees, who were evicted from Central Germany and when contrasting our own state with the chronic bottlenecks (and disproportionalities) in the economy of the Eastern Bloc nations.
The experiences and institutions of resettling, the program of building homes for the masses, the industrialization of the flat country, the exigencies of planning for agriculture, and the developments undertaken in the territories of the Zone-boundaries, all these constitute for our Federal Republic a whole arsenal of tools for social integration, which in the same time makes extraordinary achievements possible in our economy as well.
We should not wonder therefore that the economic and financial capacities of West Germany have been called upon from many quarters. We cannot deny that there exists a real danger of splitting up our productive power too much. We have permitted that the principle be forced upon us, that aid for development should be given without strings attached, without referring to premises of political nature and satisfying human rights. There are countries which de facto burden the readiness of the Federal Republic to help, with continuous threats about their willingness to acknowledge the Zonal Regime of Pankow. (This of course is true, in spite of the attitude of Bonn, which would not suffer to make this well-known fact officially conscious). It seems so natural to ask whether one should not eradicate the embarrassment right at its source, instead of following up its repercussions all over the world. Complicated questions cannot be answered simply. At any rate perhaps it is an idea worth considering to actuate a frontal breakthrough on the petrified front lines of our Eastern European policy-making with the aid of a concentrated use of the economic potential of the Federal German Republic.
This idea is discussed here without, however, claiming that universal remedy has been found. Nevertheless, it seems to open up profitable vistas when analyzing the economically integrated areas of Eastern as well as Western Europe, and of Soviet Russia, also their mutual relationships, which have merited hitherto little attention. The problems to be solved are an intricate maze, which has economic and political connotations. The opinions of specialists only are not enough to find our way. Naturally, when planning our future decisions in policy-making for Eastern Europe, we have to take into
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consideration all available intelligence, from both sides of the Iron Curtain. Such procedure will have the interesting result that optimistic opinions, voiced about evolutionary possibilities inherent in the Eastern Bloc, emanate from Western experts who are now facing the new generation of technocrats and economic managers in the captive countries. But opinions of specialists which stand behind the logic of present article as well, are by no means misled by the illusion that the notion of a partnership between Western and Eastern Europe will at once elicit on echo of assent from the governments of the Warsaw Pact. It is much more likely to meet first with an outbreak of sentiments betraying genuine suspicion and artificial scorn. But if we are convinced that our action lies on the line of historical necessity, then we can entertain full faith in the efficacy of positive ideas.
Creative initiative is the best method for clearing the air in ethnopsychic relations. Surely it is a task, which should not be underrated, if we propose here to extend a helping hand to our Eastern neighbors with the result of creating again a positive public image of the German nation. Today, as in the past, it is still ritually repeated in the daily propaganda of the Eastern Blocóinsofar as it emanates from Moscow, Warsaw or Prague ó how the Federal Republic constitutes a forum for sinister plots and the focus of a new war. But the inhabitants of these countries are surely well aware of the war-potential of Soviet Russia in order to gain a clear picture about the real hierarchy in the field of armament. Thinking in terms of modern military strategy it is simply unimaginable that even a unified Germany should ever be able to disturb the peace of its neighbors. It should be commonsense to imagine that in case of an atomic war, territories which are densely populated, should become much more vulnerable to attack, than any other state, with a continental expansion and a much lesser density of population.1) A saber-rattling Germany no longer exists.
In Eastern Europe we can expect to find not only hatred but also old sympathies. The Federal Republic is today the broadest surface of communication between the Free World and the Western wing of the Eastern Bloc. She is the brilliantly lit shop-window of the West. Cultural emanations penetrate deep into Eastern European soil, where the vestiges of German language and cultural traditions have not vet been completely effaced. The faithful of the persecuted Eastern Churches see in her a bastion of religious Liberty. For the peasant population which has been pressed into kolkhoses, she represents a land of free farmers. In the consciousness Of the elder generation. Of workers in Eastern Europe (and also in the knowledge of their sons and daughters) there still lingers the memory of the early pioneering role of the Free German Worker's Movement of the past. Up to the first world war party platforms of German Social Democracy had been widely discussed far away in Russia and Siberia. The program
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of the Austrian Social Democrats on the treatment of nationality inspired Lenin and Stalin to formulate counter proposals. Such intellectual avenues of contact have not been entirely buried. We may see a still existing example in present-day Austria which, as one of the farthest bastions of Western Europe in the Danubian Basin, has become a shining counter-proposition to the ways of the people's republics around her. We do experience now the astounding phenomenon that the strongest sympathies offered to modern Austria emanate from those countries which in 1918 so abruptly turned their backs on her. This phenomenon gives us authority to hope, that a first breakthrough against a partitioned Europe will come to pass along the line of the Danube.
More dangerous than the psychological hurdles to be taken in Eastern Europe are misapprehensions in the Federal Republic itself, when confronted with the question of an economically oriented conception of German eastern foreign policy. If regarded only under the aspects of immediate profits the whole conception lies naturally wide open to every criticism of demagogues. Facing many needs in the homeland, it will always be most unpopular to offer, even in the form of credits, millions to foreign countries, which moreover are not of an especially friendly disposition toward us. But the real dilemma to face is the question how we could help peoples and countries of Eastern Europe, without simultaneously fortifying the Communist Governments which rule them? At the present moment we may envisage the expediency of encouraging evolutionary forces within these countries. But against exaggerated hopes for a peaceful disengagement, we may well heed the warning of the Austrian Foreign Minister Dr. Kreisky (in his address before the Catholic Academy in Munich, on the 5th of July, 1964) that we cannot buy away from Communist governments their Communist creed by simply offering credits and auspicious trade agreements. But, in spite of this, we still have to look out, living at it were, along the pressure line of opposite systems of ideologies and economic practices, for pragmatic solutions. The whole of Western Europe is vitally interested in strengthening within the Eastern Bloc the impetus of evolutionary forces. An evolution completely disjointed from its foundations it, of course, unthinkable. But surely there exist the possibility that new human forces who struggle for recognition will make an option for new alternatives.
The Iron Curtain as far as human insight goes, can be broken neither by the military power of the West, nor by the lowering of its military preparedness. An uncoordinated economic policy of Western Powers toward the Eastern Bloc would only succeed in fortifying the Communist governments without bringing essential relief to the Eastern peoples. Thus it remains only to choose between a static atmosphere of sickly hopes, or the launching of constructive ideas which would spell out new determination of the West toward action
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There should be no difficulty to opt for this device in Free Germany. The nation would have an especial readiness to carry the main load of an initiative against the economic partition of Europe, because it is only through economic sacrifices that we can come nearer to our ultimate goal of German reunification and of a just peace. Naturally, there can be no question of a "financial Rapallo" of the Federal Republic, because of considerations which should be treated separately, at greater length. Only if Western Europe as a whole will announce its readiness to answer, step by step, new features of a new evolution within the Eastern Bloc, by offering a policy of economic partnership, only then will it be possible for dynamic forces East of the Frontier to come into their own, and focusing onto clearly formulated aims, to attack the forces of stagnation.
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Toward a New Central Europe |