Approval & Worry

One week after their return from Moscow, the German negotiators were still counting their money and their fingers. One of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's colleagues described in shocked tones the ordeal of dealing with the Russians. "They squeeze you until blood comes from under your fingernails," he said. "They make you feel your position is hopeless. Then, in the last hour, they give you something you want in return for what they wanted in the first place. This happened to the Chancellor, and I cannot think of any German who could have acted differently than he did."

All Germany rejoiced at the promised return of the prisoners, and the press was loud in praise of Adenauer. But Adenauer was busy denying that Moscow had weakened the West's position while the Kremlin's men worked at forcing some more blood from West German fingernails. They sent Premier Grotewohl & Co. back to Pankow with a pact declaring East Germany's full sovereignty. The Russians, of course, would keep their troops there "as a temporary measure."

The Sooner the Better. Their shrewdest move was designed to force Adenauer to deal with the East German satellite in spite of his determination not to: they gave East Germany control of all civilian traffic and trade between West Germany and West Berlin, which must cross East German territory. "The sooner the politicians of Bonn and West Berlin realize that they cannot undermine the East German regime, the better it will be for the populace of West Berlin," said East Germany's Deputy Premier Walter Ulbricht.

Adenauer warned that the federal government would consider any nation's recognition of the "socalled" East German Republic "an unfriendly act," and he urged his three Western allies to take steps against the violation of Allied transit rights under the agreement which ended the Berlin blockade.

At week's end, Adenauer went before the Bundestag to ask formal approval of his mission. "In extraordinarily difficult negotiations, we have made of a given situation what was humanly and politically possible," he said. Uneasy and largely silent, the Bundestag unanimously approved Adenauer's deal.

Inchoate Doubts. The German uneasiness was for the most part diffuse. The Socialists of Erich Ollanhauer stuck to their perpetual line that the Adenauer theory of strength through unity with the West was a failure. More significantly, some of Adenauer's own Christian Democrats were beginning to talk of developing "a more German" policy. But unity with the West remained the dominant view. There was some worry that the West might be soft-talked by the Russians into tabling German reunification and moving on to discussion of an East-West European security arrangement. This, Adenauer men pointed out, might lead to a situation where the "two Germanys" would feel forced to take-up reunification themselves, with Russian help.

To unbait the "two Germanys" trap, Adenauer dispatched Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano to Washington this week with the urgent appeal that Western powers stick to their insistence on German reunification.

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