POSITION IN GERMANY IS REVIEWED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 97, 18 September 1950, Page 2

POSITION IN GERMANY IS REVIEWED

This is the first of a series of articles on the situation in Germany today, based on a tour of Western Germany, and including meetings with British Administration officials and German Federal Government officers and'culminating in interviews with the British; High Commissioner (Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick) and the Vice-Chancellor of the German Federal Republic. (By J. P. Kennedy, N.Z. Kemsley Empire Scholar in Journalism)

A new Germany is rising from the ruins into which the excesses of the Nazis in their mad quest foxworld domination plunged it. As Western Germany fast regains the ground that was lost, the confidence which the Germans had in themselves before the 1945 debacle and which was so, rufiely shattered is reappearing again. That resurgence is helped as the Germans realise the vital position that their Land helds, and must continue to hold in Europe, and the important part that it must play in both the recovei-y and the defence of Western Europe. Germany’s struggle for recovery is succeding because of the dynamic will to work of her people, the help that is being given to her by the Western Powers and the repercussions of the present disturbed international situation which have emphasised the need of strengthening Germany once again. The split between the East and the West and the open rupture that it has produced in relation between the Western Powers and the Soviet in their approach to German problems is fast providing the Germans with a basis for bargaining with the West. That they have realised this is clearly apparent for there have been attempts to drive a wedge between the French and the other Allies.

It is because of these factors that the German problem is so difficult today. The notions that were held before the end of the war of a long period of tutelage for the Germans whilst they were evolved into the democratic system have largely had to be abandoned. Because whilst France, Britain and the United States have been in general agreement on their approach to German problems, their policy must be conditioned to a large extent by developments in the Eastern Zone and by international considerations. Gei-mans today, knowing this, Will tell you that the Nazis were opponents of Communism, and will remind you of Ribbentrop’s warning to the Allies against Russia before he went to the scaffold. For many of them the mantle of the prophet has fallen on his shoulders.

The fact that Marshall Aid has played a large part in the recovery of Western Germany to date is conveniently forgotten by most Germans Government leaders apart—as they attribute the greater part of it to their own exertions. Consequently there tends to creep into their outlook and conversations a touch of the old German arrogance, cloaked only by a thin veneer of lip service to the occupying powers.