SIGNIFICANT FACTS OF THE GERMAN ELECTION

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27149, 19 September 1953, Page 6

SIGNIFICANT FACTS OF THE GERMAN ELECTION

GERMANY

[By

WALTER LIPPMANN

in the "New York Herald Tribune**}

(Reprinted by Arrangement)

The German election figures show an increase of 6,000,000 votes over 1949: of these Dr. Adenauer’s party, the Christian Democrats, got 5,000,W0 and the Social Democrats got 1,000,000. Since all the minor parties combined got about the same total vote as m 1949, Dr. Adenauer s big plurality was drawn, it would therefore appear, from the new voters. They were not won over, as many observers had feared, to the neo-Nazis, and only one in six went to the Socialists. A most significant and encouraging result of the election is that West Germany is now so much nearer than it was to a genuine two-party system. The two big parties together had only 60 per cent, of the vote in 1949 and now they have nearly 75 per cent. As both of them are genuinely devoted to lawful government, as the Federal constitution is admirably designed to insure a stable administration, the political outlook is healthy and favourable. The great and growing power of Germany is for the time being secure against the extremists and the adventurers. There is no way of telling what part foreign policy played in the election. Does anyone know what part Korea played in our election? But what we can tell, I do think, is that in the development of his own foreign policy Dr. Adenauer displayed such a very high order of statesmanship that he left his Social Democratic opponents without a genuine issue. Until last May Dr. Adenauer was in bad shape for a contest in the field of foreign policy against the Social Democrats. Although he is a sincere believer in European unity, he was. in fact entangled in commitments which, if they were carried out at face value, meant the permanent partition and the endless military occupation of Germany. There was no future for Germany or for Europe in that, and it is safe to say that if that had been what Dr. Adenauer offered the Germans in the election, he would have gone down, as did Schuman in France and De Gasperi in Italy before him. This did not happen because he disentangled himself, withdrew from the indefensible ground, and then took his stand on a radically new ground. Foreign Policy Two events must, I believe, have played a decisive part in the alteration of his foreign policy. One was the uprising in Eastern Germany. The other was Churchill’s speech on May 11. The uprising, which was largely the work of the Social Democratic trade unionists, removed all doubt that unification is the paramount and burning German demand. Until then Dr. Adenauer’s party, which is not strong in the Protestant East, had shown a conspicuous lack of fervour for reunification. After June 17 it was necessary to have a policy that., made sense for achieving unification. It was, however, evident that Russia

would never agree to withdraw tk Red Army and let Germany be inv fled, and rearmed within the NATo military system. Since that wniiu bring the German-American militarC forces to the Polish frontier, it silly to ask the Russians to consirL such a project. Dr. Adenauer £ have known perfectly well that th Germans, who are not fools—least m all in military matters—would kn« 01 it was silly. They would know tS any German who proposed it could nn be sincerely interested in Germa unity. If Dr. Adenauer was to take a con vincing stand for German unity u had to take a convincing stand favour of negotiation with the SovS Union. But in Europe, where nennu know the facts of life, it was £ enough to call for a negotiation about unity. It was not enough to keen nn calling for free elections. It necessary to make a negotiable nro! posal—not necessarily a proposal that the Russians would now accept, but one which they could accept.

Churchill’s Influence This is where Churchill comes intn it. His great and original contribute to the problem of the division of Ger. many and of Europe was not in ths proposal to hold a high level confer ence. It was in the recognition—th* first by any Western statesmen sine* the cold war be^an—that if the Ru'. sians are ever to be induced to with draw from Europe, they will have to be given a guarantee that Eastern Europe will not became the staging area and the recruiting ground for an anti-Communist crusade. Churchill put out this crucial idea in the form of a suggestion of another Locarno Treaty. The reference was obscur* because most people, including, I be. lieve, Dr. Adenauer himself, had forgotten what Locarno was. The refer, ence, moreover, was not entirely ant But what Churchill meant was of the greatest importance: that Russia can be expected to withdraw peaceably from Europe only if her security £ guaranteed. At first Dr. Adenauer was puzzled by the reference to Locarno. But when he had grasped Churchill’s meaning. one may suppose after his visit to London, he adopted the idea as one of the cornerstones of his own policy On the Friday before the election, he proposed to negotiate with the Russians over the European Defence Community and the regional alliances of the Soviet orbit to work out some sort of general security system within the framework of the United Nations. If this was not a radical transformation of the original underlying conception of the European Defence Community. it was a tremendous addition to it. For once you suggest that the European Defence Community is a matter about which there could be negotiation with the Soviet Union and with the Eastern satellites, you have come a very long way from where you started.