Here I Stand

The world knows where doughty old Konrad Adenauer stands--before, during or after any number of Genevas--on German ties with the West. But how would the rest of West Germany stand now that the second Geneva conference had dashed all German hopes of reunification in the foreseeable future? Last week West Germany's Foreign Minister Dr. Heinrich von Brentano, 51, addressed himself to that question in as eloquent a speech as the Bundestag has heard in its six years.

"The federal government will continue to pursue a policy of German reunification in close and trusting cooperation with its allies," said Von Brentano. "It rejects any thought of endangering this infinitely valuable friendship and the support it implies by any hesitancy, inconstancy or lack of frankness. It knows very well that the fate of the German people would be sealed if it tried to barter the confidence and friendship of its allies for the sympathy of the Soviet Union, which has made it plain, at least for the present, that it wants to deny the German people a peaceful future in freedom.

The Worst Road. "If Germany were to enter on a deal on this question, she would not only betray her own future but also violate the freedom of other nations by exposing them to fulfill the historic task set for her as for others: to secure on the European continent the basis of a system of freedom by ever closer cooperation with all European nations against the menace of a system alien to their very nature and essence.

"The German people will not permit themselves to be pulled out of this [Western] community nor will they separate themselves voluntarily from it . . . A compulsory neutralization or isolation from any alliance would be the worst road for us to choose or into which to force us."

Von Brentano then addressed himself to the Soviet Foreign Minister: "Mr. Molotov may be sure of this: though he once managed to sign a treaty with Messrs. Stalin and Ribbentrop, and thus to seal an alliance between two totalitarian systems, he will not be able to bring about such a treaty again with the federal republic of today or with the reunited Germany of tomorrow."

The Cheap Way. Next day, making his first Bundestag speech since his illness, 79-year-old Chancellor Adenauer wound up the debate with a brief warning against a "policy of weakness." But the forceful pronouncement of Von Brentano, a figure who has been gaining political stature by the day since he took over the Foreign Ministry six months ago, ended the chatter among some of Adenauer's coalition members about holding "talks" but not "negotiations" with the Russians. Even the Socialist opposition leader Erich Ollenhauer, who like many Germans would like to find a cheap way out if there were one, promised that the Socialists would never agree to reunification except in "freedom and law." The Bundestag voted solidly to uphold Adenauer's policy of "undeviating" solidarity with the West.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.