The Press FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1952. Germany

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26692, 28 March 1952, Page 6

The Press FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1952. Germany

A government elected by a united Germany at a free election is the essential first step to the conclusion of a peace treaty. This fundamental point is the basis of the reply by the British, French, and American Governments to the Russian proposals. Until this is settled not much progress can be made; and so far Russia still refuses the United Nations permission to investigate the possibility of holding free elections in the German zone. The points of difference between tne Western Powers and Russia are otherwise few, and not incapable of settlement. Russia wishes to prevent German participation in the European Defence Community and in the wider plans for peaceful cooperation. Since such regional security arrangements are permitted, not to say encouraged, by Article 52 of the United Nations Charter, the Russians will find it hard to make a case for such a restriction. Even if they do, Germany’s strong bargaining power with both East and West would in time probably result in freedom for the German Government to make alliances as any other nation does. Similarly, Germany’s strong position would make it difficult, ultimately, for the Western Powers to deny Germany the armaments the Russians are now willing to concede. It is this question of rearmament that will cause the greatest misgiving in the West, particularly in France, where the rapidity of Germany’s post-war recovery has stimulated fears of another German war. Whatever the outcome of the present negotiations and however a peace treaty is drawn, France’s best defence must ultimately be a good understanding with Germany, which, as Drew Middleton recently said in an article in the " New York “ Times ”, will shortly emerge from defeat and occupation as the most populous, industrious, and powerful State of free Europe. There are risks for Western Europe and France in any settlement that may be made with Germany; but they seem much smaller than those the Russians are prepared to accept to prevent the full integration of West Germany in the European community. Even the holding of free elections over all Germany would have disagreeable results for Russia. It has been calculated that in free elections the Communists would get 5 per cent of the total vote, and the leaders of the Communist minority in East Germany would be lucky to escape the wrath of the people they have governed. This sacrifice of German Communists would do nothing to help keep the goodwill of the peoples in the satellite countries of Eastern Europe. But if Russia has to go further, as the "Economist” suggested in an article printed recently in the cable news, and restore the lost provinces beyond the OderNiesse line by a new partition of Poland, popular feeling from Danzig to _ Bucharest would be angered. Even then Russia could not be sure that the cynicism of Moscow’s diplomacy would not be matched in Berlin (as it was in the tearing up of

the 1939 agreement), and that a fully restored (and, under the Russian proposals, reamed) Germany might not look again to the East. The very fact that Russia is prepared even to think about such risks is evidence not so much of the growing might of the North Atlantic Powers and of the success of th* Lisbon meeting, but of realisation of the key position of Germany. It ha* been said that there are no winners in wars nowadays; but Germany seem* to be winning the cold war.