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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 19, 1983
PAGE 15
like this on the horizon," says one high-ranking State Department
official.... The unity talk may, however, be viewed not as a
maneuver by Kohl but...as a groundswell by the German people. If
you hold the latter view, a lot of evidence can be adduced to sub
stantiate it.
In West Germany today, for example, political
parties abound: the Christian Democratic Union, the Christian
Social Union, the Social Democratic Party, the Green Party, the
Free Democratic Party.
All these parties are fighting one
another on a plethora of issues, ranging from pensions to the
stationing of ground-launched nuclear missiles. But on one issue
there is no discord--reunification. This consensus1s�ll the
more remarkable given the distance between, say, the Greens and
Franz Josef Strauss's extremely conservative Christian Social
Union....
Germany has been divided almost continuously, in one way or
another, since the death of Charlemagne. Reunification now, were
it to occur, would scare the deuce out of all Europe, East and
West: Russia, Britain, France, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands,
Belgium, Denmark. "What will they do if they get together?" asks
a Western diplomat here. "They'11 try to squash the rest of
Europe. If de Gaulle were alive, he'd be firing his rockets at
Germany now, just at the talk of unification. He'd see Alsace
Lorraine as first on the German reacquisition list."
But in
fact, Mitterrand says nothing, Mrs. Thatcher says nothing, NATO
says nothing, we say nothing.
Why?
Because of West German
money, and no sense of urgency.
Yet, as an internationalist puts it, "We could be on the thresh
� of the most dramatic shift of the West/East power e �uation �
this quarter-centur :r .
Do we want to ape the Thirties where
everyone sucked their thumbs while Hitler broke the Versailles
pacts, pulled out of the League of Nations, and marched into the
Rhineland?"
Despite their reluctance to see a reunified Germany, the Soviets neverthe
less may be considering it as part of a long-term solution to their never
ending crisis in Eastern Europe, as well as a means to keep new American
missiles--soon to begin arriving--out of the continent. At least this is
the speculation among Hungarian officials, according to an article in the
July 31, 1983 issue of Britain's weekly (Sunday) newspaper, THE OBSERVER.
Entitled, "Russia May Opt for Unity of Germany," it was written from
Budapest by Lajos Lederer:
Hungarian officials believe that, despite the failure of arms
control talks and the frigid relations between the superpowers,
the Soviet Union is planning a European "peace offensive."
Its long-term tar � et, they believe, would�! united and neu
tralised Europe with a reunited German t at its heart. The idea
that such a plan may be 1n the mind o the Soviet leader, Yuri
Andropov, has emerged from remarks he made to Janos Kadar, the
Hungarian leader, during three long meetings in Moscow.
Sources here say that the Russians are now working on a long
range strategic plan which will entail fundamental changes in
their policies towards Eastern Europe and the West, including