A STUDY OF GERMANY

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27796, 22 October 1955, Page 5

A STUDY OF GERMANY

POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS AND TRENDS Back Into Power. A Report on the New Germany. By Alistair Horne, “Daily Telegraph” correspondent in Germany,. 1952-54, Parrish. 323 pp. There have been several good studies of post-war France, but very few of post-war Germany. This is surprising in view of Western Germany’s vital role in the balance of power in Europe today. A reliable assessment of Western Germany's remarkable recovery and her apparent political stability, in striking contrast with the instability of the French political scene, has been badly needed. This. Mr Alistair Horne, with his thorough grasp of German affairs md his equally thorough understanding of the German character, has now provided. His analysis is fair ana objective, always thorough and often penetrating. For discriminating readers, it oilers a corrective to the rail er unfavourable treatment tl.c new Germany is inclined to receive from the British press. That Germany must become once mere a major armed power is now

r-*ea d»*d ib «- According to Mr Horne’s analysis. German rearmament need not cause anxiety, for Dr. Adenauer has instilled into his Christian Democrat followers, and through them into a wide crosssection of the German people, the genuine spirit of European cooperation. Dr. Adenauer, he regards as a “towering figure.” upon whose continued health and leadership much depends, for he has no obvious successor with equal vision and authority. From his side no reemergent nationalism in Germany will come, though from the Social Democrat side there is some d_ager that a new and insidious form of nationalism might be aroused, through their highly emotional appeals to the German people for “reunification ‘uber alles’.”

The record of the Adenauer j government in the matter of atoning for the past, “denazification,” the trial of war criminals, and restitution to the Jewish community, is care- ] fully examined by Mr Horne. His < conclusions are on the whole favourable, though he remarks the tendency J of German courts to be lenient witn ] same classes of war criminals and , the readiness 'of some sections of ‘ the German public to se { 2 eagerly ] on. new “stab-in-the-back” expiana- 1 tions of why the war was lost. In i the matter of the proposed decon- ’ centration of economic power in Ger- 1 many, which was supposed to be j put into effect after the war, he is j critical both of the Allied powers . and of the Federal Government. A ; separate chapter is devoted to the history of the special case of Krupps, ‘ whose empire bids fair to become once , again the strongest single concen- . tration of economic power in Europe. Western Germany’s relations with ; the three Occupation powers, and their swings in policy, are naturally, constantly under discussion. In particular, Mr Home throws much fight on the complex subject of Franco-German relations, showing how the dispute over the Saar has played an important part in poisoning relations and at one stage brought amicable negotiations between Schuman and Adenauer, who are g*eat personal friends, to a stalemate. He also provides an assessment of general developments in Eastern Germany, and gives an account of the ruthless measures taken by the Communists in 1952 in an attempt to integrate the country completely and finally into the Russian economy, measures which resulted in the dramatic uprising of the people of Eastern Germany against their masters in 1953. His descriptions of this uprising and the tremendous sympathy it caused in Western Germany do point to one further danger of rearming Western Germany: namely, that if the German People should at any time feel the Soviet colossus to be weakening and their own strength growing, there is always the danger that once armed, they would use their arms to regain the lost territories by force. The great exodus of refugees from Eastern Germany has. moreover, provided them with a population problem which would seem Hkelv to intensify the “Drang nacb Qsten " But it is heartening in this connexion to read Mr Horne’s accounts of the “almost unbelievable” achievement of Western Germans in assimilating these millions of refugees into its already strained economy Throughout the book the dynamic energy, amazina recuperative powers and capacity for hard work of the German people are stressed. Mr Horne’s descriptions of management’< success in contenting the workers, and of the care and effort the Germans nut into their export trade and their industrial recovery contain manv lessons for British readers Tn all. it appears that the German people have earned their fight to be full participating members in a united democratic Europe and all its organs and institutions. The tragedy is that the enthusiasm of the other countries of the West for this ideal of a united sta**»s nf Europe has been less than that of Germany, itself The delays and disillusmnmcnts of the last two years have, from Mr Horne’s observation, left a deen mark, the West German’s estimation, of the West And there alwavs remains the aiarmine Poss»hi!ib» of Germanv—like the misguided Dr. Otto John taking a nationalist honeymoon” with the East if the West fails her.