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Europe Casts an Anxious Eye
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17239 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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2 / 1990 |
2,749 Words |
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Gerald Frost
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The candor of European political leaders when discussing the implications of a reunified Germany has seldom matched that of French novelist François Mauriac: "I love Germany so much I am glad there are two of them. The day East and West Germany reunite we shall have reason to tremble." Rather, when the matter is raised the leaders of West Germany's neighbors usually resort to stock phrases for fear of damaging German sensibilities and of encouraging trends whose consequences they fear. These are normally to the effect that reunification is a purely German question that Germans must decide for themselves. As almost everyone knows, however, this is literally untrue since a unitary German state cannot be recreated without reference to the superpowers and without transforming the security and political interests of all Europeans, and perhaps those of many others besides. Indeed, if the dangers and yawning pitfalls inherent in the process toward reunification were not apparent, politicians would not choose their words with such caution.
The Germans themselves much prefer to talk about the prospects for reunified Europe -a process in which they believe they have a historic role. This is true of East as well as West Germans: During the recent remarkable protests in Leipzig and East Berlin, the posters and slogans were demands of free elections, liberty, and an end to communist rule rather than a reunited Germany (although a few such posters are now beginning to appear). Any suggestion, however, that their overtures to the Soviet Union or their sympathetic responses to Mikhail Gorbachev's overtures to them might cause political turmoil tends to be met with incomprehension or irritation. Although it is not a charge that could be laid at the door of the West German chancellor, such attitudes smack either of arrogance or a curious narrowness of vision.
Arnulf Baring, a distinguished German historian, has warned his fellow countrymen of the dangers arising from what he regards as a new and alarming tendency for Germans to overestimate themselves and their new role, while ignoring their dependency upon America:
“We do not take sufficient trouble to watch the incipient disengagement from Europe which is underway across the Atlantic. Instead we are eager to emphasize the distance between ourselves and the Americans. In our new dreamy delight in risk-taking we are well on the way to distancing ourselves in small, almost unnoticeable steps from the United States. If things carry on like that it must end badly.”
There is little sign, however, that Bearing's views are widely shared. An unnamed adviser to the chancellor perfectly exemplified the attitude that Baring describes so well when he told Western reporters: "It is time to do more, and we Germans will do it. Perhaps in time the United States will take care of places like Central America, and we will handle Eastern Europe. " Given the record of German occupation of Eastern Europe during World War II, such words are unlikely to be cause for celebration in Warsaw or Prague, however keen Poles and Czechs may be themselves to see the end of a divided Europe.
The concerns of West Germany's neighbors stem from two factors: (1) the suspicion that a unified Germany would again cause traditional balance-of-power problems by virtue of its size and strength, and (2) the belief that the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) cannot make further progress toward the creation of a unitary state
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