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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 24, 1984
PAGE 7
ic attack on West Germany's Chancellor Kohl for saying there should be��
"security partnership" between the two Germanys. Nothing surprising in
that, perhaps, except for the fact that it wasn't Kohl who originally
called for this. The idea was Erich Honecker's, expressed in a letter to
Kohl.
Here, from the press, are more analyses of the revived "German Question."
The first is a NEW YORK TIMES editorial, reprinted in the August 13 INTERNA
TIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE. It is entitled "Germans in a Romance."
The Germanys are straining to bridge the gulf that history has
dug between them. Hitler's thunderous quest for Lebensraum (more
living space) is what brought Germany to ruin and left it, and
Europe, divided into Communist and
democratic
zones.
Most
non
Germans have since figured that these divisions are permanent and
stable. But Germans, East and West, now talk passionately about
Spielraum--more room for maneuver between the powers who divided
their country••••
This West German yearning for an Ostpolitik aimed at detente is
haruly new: it was invented by Willy Brandt's Social Democrats,
some of whom would now pursue it clear out of NATO. What is new
is the enthusiasm for Ostpolitik among West Germany's pr'o=NATO
conservatives.
They are discovering national emotions even
deeper than a desire for profitable East-West trade.
Still more startling is the reciprocal enthusiasm of East German
Communists•.•• East German officials are unmistakably proud of
Moscow's denunciations of their "independence." And if Mr. Ho
necker makes his defiant�rip••.he will gain stature also in Hun
gary and Romania, which have been cheering him on.
West Germany, meanwhile, is unashamed of the red carpet it has
prepared for him. Chancellor Helmut Kohl has been reading up on
his guest's youth in the Saar region and claims to be impressed
by the nationalism that moderated Communism even then. Franz
Josef Strauss, Bavaria's erstwhile cold warrior, has bestowed his
blessing after a tour of the East with a case full of credit of
fers.
It is easy to make too much of all this, but dangerous to make too
little. The Germans hunger to feel united even if they must live
apart. By purging the dream, or nightmare, of "reunification,"
they think they have found the way to maneuver around the super
powers. These stirrings could be seen as the final steps of ac
commodation to a bitter defeat. More likely, they are the first
faint steps toward the unknown
.QY
people who think it!,!! their
fathers, not they, who lost Worl.aWar
.!.!·
Writing in the August 17 LOS ANGELES TIMES, international relations obser
ver Robert E. Hunter reveals that Herr Honecker "knows his limits" but at
the same time is shrewd enough to take advantage of Moscow's weakened posi
tion in the East Bloc.
There is
risk
of making either too much or too little of what is
happening. There can be little doubt that Honecker knows his