Germany’s Place Among Nations: Recognition Urged

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 May 1949, Page 6

Germany’s Place Among Nations: Recognition Urged

WASHINGTON, May 17.—General Lucius Clay, the former American Military Governor in Germany, said today that a German-Russian alliance was possible if the Western Powers were unwilling to accept Germany back into the community of nations. General Clay, who returned to Washington today after retiring from the governorship, said that the Russians wanted a unified Germany to use as a buffer State with which they could bargain in future. General Clay said that there was no immediate urgency for the Western Powers to accept Germany, but it was essential that Germany be given, an opportunity to earn her return to the community of nations. lie said that he would be greatly surprised if Russia reimposed the Berlin blockade, even if the Foreign Ministers’ conference in Paris failed. Russia would consider the political implications of the reimposilion of the blockade and the effect such a move would have on world opinion. Soviet Police Force Questioned about the new German police force built up by the Soviet in the Russian zone of Germany, General Clay said that it had been reported that this force numbered between 100,000 and 200,000 men, but he doubted if they would play an imi portant role in Germany. No matter what happened, he said, this force ■would be afraid of the German people. General Clay called on the Western Powers to encourage the spread through Germany of “the flame of freedpm and democracy” which had been engendered in Berlin. “The only hope for a peaceful, stable Europe is for us to encourage that flame,” he said. Praising the fortitude of Berliners during the Russian blockade, General Clay said: “In Berlin I saw the spirit and soul of the people reborn. In Berlin 2,000,000 people were given a second opportunity to choose freedom. Few people are given a second opportunity, but the people of Berlin did not forgo it. Some of their spirit has spread through Germany.” Speech By M. Schuman There' could be no question of renouncing the military occupation of 1 Germany, which was a guarantee of ■ efficient control, said the French For- ■: eign Minister (M. Robert Schuman) I speaking at Strasbourg. I “We must pave the way to give Germany a place in the common task, -which can only be a pacific task,” he ■ said. “Nobody can think of exclud- | ing Germany from the European organisation, because the solution of the German problem must be a European (solution. j “It would be a great mistake to want ; to keep Germany under a regime of j restraint. True, we must first let pass a period of transition and observaI tion. We are not yet at the end of this ! period.” “Democracy Will Be Preserved' | He was quite satisfied that the Western Powers would not sacrifice German liberty to Russia, said Dr Konrad Adenauer, the Christian Democratic president of the Bonn Constituent Assembly. ; “We Germans must not try to purI chase unity by giving up our liberty, which we 'would do under Soviet in- ! fluence,” he told 2000 students at Heidelberg. “1 can tell you from asj surancos given by Mr Ernest Bevin. I Mr Dean Acheson, and General Sir Brian Robertson that whatever the outcome of the Foreign Ministers’ conference at Paris, freedom and democracy will be preserved for the Western zones." Dr Adenauer said that -when the Russians told Western Germany to co-operate' with them for the sake of unity, he thought of the immense difference between life in the Western zones and the Eastern zone. “No German who loves his Fatherland will ever recognise the OderNeisse line as its frontier,” he added. (The Polish frontier was extended to this line after the war). “The land bevond those rivers is German land which will return to us one day. Let us never lose faith in that.” Dr Adenauer said that another war between Franco and Germany with present-day weapons was unthinkable.