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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 27, 1984
Unrest Begins to Stir in the German Soul
Throughout its brief 35-year history, the Federal Republic of Germany has
been a relatively quiescent--indeed pacified--state. With its ultimate
protection guaranteed by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, its citizens could for
get about military ambitions and concentrate their energies on industrial
reconstruction and expansion. Equally important, the European Community
provided Bonn the prospects of an expanded economic market as well as an
acceptable political goal of a united Europe.
All of this is now in disarray. The Common Market lurches from one summit
collapse to another, and the U.S. nuclear umbrella, full of holes anyway,
might someday be altogether removed as America turns its attentions
primarily to the Western Hemisphere and Asia. As a result, the Germans are
once again wondering about their future--and that should be a factor of
grave concern to the world. As the late Luigi Barzini points out in the
last sentence to his book THE EUROPEANS, "Germany is, as it always was, a
mutable, Proteuslike, unpredictable country, particularly dangerous when it
is unhappy." This uncertainty, this unhappiness is slowly building up.
Tyler Marshall writes in the April 18, 1984 LOS ANGELES TIMES:
The chief disarmament spokesman of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's
Christian Democratic Union called Tuesday for a greater role for
Europe in its own nuclear defense and, eventually,� West German
voice in the use of nuclear weapons. Writing in the Hamburg
based daily, DIE WELT, Juergen Todenhoefer called for a merger of
independent French and British nuclear forces with the 572 U.S.
intermediate-range nuclear missiles now being deployed by NATO in
Western Europe to create a unified nuclear defense for the
continent.
While Todenhoefer's remarks do not constitute official West
German government policy and reportedly have drawn criticism
within his own party, l hey do reflect � growing West German
concern about the need ......Q.! � greater European and West German
voice on nuclear issues. Noting present British and French plans
calling for expanding their combined nuclear arsenal from 162
warheads at present to more than 1,200 over the next decade,
Todenhoefer said a joint force would boost European participation
in defending its own soil while still maintaining an American
presence considered vital if the force is to be taken seriously
by the Soviets.
According to his proposal, control of the missiles would initial
ly rest with the United States, Britain and France but at some
undetermined future date would be expanded to include other mem
bers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including West
Germany. This would take place according to "progress in the po
litical unification process of Western Europe," Todenhoefer
wrote.
The West German Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the plan
late Tuesday. Sources within the Christian Democratic Union who
did not want to be identified by name indicated that there are
serious differences within the party about the Todenhoefer paper,
which they said had not been discussed internally before its