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WAVES OF CONTROVERSY OVER WEST GERMAN REARMAMENT

WAVES OF CONTROVERSY OVER WEST GERMAN REARMAMENT. In 1950 Adenauer opens talks over German rearmament within a “European Defense Community” (EDC), with German army divisions integrated into European corps, under French command.

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WAVES OF CONTROVERSY OVER WEST GERMAN REARMAMENT

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  1. WAVES OF CONTROVERSY OVER WEST GERMAN REARMAMENT • In 1950 Adenauer opens talks over German rearmament within a “European Defense Community” (EDC), with German army divisions integrated into European corps, under French command. • After France rejects the EDC, West Germany is admitted into NATO in November 1954, and conscription is restored in 1956. • In 1958 Adenauer provokes emotional debate with a call for nuclear arms for the Bundeswehr. • In 1959 Heinrich Böll published Billiards at Half-past Nine, and Günter Grass, The Tin Drum. See David Clay Large, Germans to the Front: West German Rearmament in the Adenauer Era (Chapel Hill, 1996).

  2. “The People in Arms”(SPD, 1896) “The German loves the uniform, The saber and the gun, The spiked helmet is the norm, That’s how we have our fun.” “The judge, the prosecutor, The banker’s son and pastor, They all take the floor As a martial arts master.”

  3. In 1906 the cobbler Wilhelm Voigt disguised himself as a Guards captain, showed forged orders to a squad of soldiers, invaded the City Hall of Köpenick, arrested the mayor, and confiscated 4,000 gold marks in the city treasury “for reasons of national security.” Carl Zuckmayer wrote The Captain from Köpenickin 1931 (filmed in 1956).

  4. When North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, the U.S. Government instructed Dwight D. Eisenhower as NATO commander to raise an army of 40 divisions to defend Western Europe. He concluded that this would be impossible without massive West German rearmament.

  5. Despite such wartime propaganda, most U.S. officers had the highest regard for the Wehrmacht

  6. THESE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS OPENED TALKS IN 1950 OVER A “COMMON MARKET” AND “EUROPEAN DEFENSE COMMUNITY” (EDC) Alcide de Gasperi, Italian PM, 1945-53 Konrad Adenauer, West German Chancellor, 1949-62 Robert Schuman, French foreign minister, 1948-53

  7. BUT ADENAUER’S POLITICAL BASE WAS WEAK (West German election returns on August 14, 1949) The CDU formed a government coalition with the FDP and German Party.

  8. Adenauer’s approval rating dipped (green), and his disapproval rating soared (red), when he announced support in 1950 for rearmament and a “Common Market”

  9. Interior Minister Gustav Heinemann was the elected lay moderator of the Synod of the Evangelical Church of Germany. He resigned from the cabinet in August 1950 to protest Adenauer’s decision to approach the Americans to discuss rearmament.

  10. Pastor Martin Niemoeller:“Under Fascism the Church was guilty because it kept silent. Now it must do everything possible to win its members for the cause of peace.”(Placard from West Berlin, 1951).

  11. ADENAUER RELIED ON TWO (CATHOLIC) CHRISTIAN TRADE UNIONISTS TO ADVANCE HIS FOREIGN POLICY AGENDA Theodor Blank, 2nd vice-chair of the Mineworkers’ Union, appointed in Oct. 1950 to prepare rearmament Jakob Kaiser, Resistance hero and “Minister of All-German Affairs” (1949-57)

  12. Count Wolf von Baudissin served under Rommel in North Africa and emerged as the Blank Agency’s best spokesman. He set up shop in the Cologne train station to engage with youths who opposed rearmament

  13. Count Baudissin’s principles of “Inner Leadership” for an army of “citizen soldiers” (1952): • Education of soldiers who think • Respect for the human dignity of the soldier • Obedience based on insight • Leadership through example • No commissars, but tough training • He proclaimed himself a disciple of Scharnhorst and Clausewitz…

  14. STALIN SOUGHT TO DISRUPT THE EDC WITH A PLAN FOR A “FINAL PEACE TREATY” IN MARCH 1952 • Unified German state • Withdrawal of all occupation troops within one year after all-German elections • Democratic rights and liberties; free activity for all parties except those “hostile to democracy and peace” • No military alliances aimed at former enemies from the Second World War • Acceptance of the borders drawn at the Potsdam Conference • Independent German army and arms industry “STALIN: That is Peace”

  15. “The American High Commissioner McCloy said on 4 July 1950: ‘I feel right at home in Germany!’Germany answers:‘Yankee, go home!’”(GDR, 1950)

  16. The rebuttal of the West German government:“STALIN’S VICTIMS WARN US”(Federal Republic of Germany, 1952)

  17. Heinemann founded a neutralist party to combat Adenauer’s foreign policy in 1953 but won just 2% of the vote.

  18. Neutralist propaganda was discredited by a popular uprising in East Berlin on June 17, 1953, crushed by Soviet tanks

  19. The CDU won 45% of the vote in September 1953, and its ally the FDP, 10%

  20. The French parliament rejected the EDC in August 1954(“WARNING! THE EUROPEAN DEFENSE FORCE WILL REVIVE THE WEHRMACHT,” French Communist poster, 1953/54)

  21. “NATO: His Comrades, our Allies” (West Germany, 1955):The Paris Treaties of October 1954, admitted the FRG as an equal partner in NATO, but the FRG renounced any development or deployment of “ABC” weapons.

  22. Peace rally in Krefeld, 1954, to demand all-German elections, the withdrawal of all occupiers, and no cooperation with NATO

  23. “Negotiating is better than saber-rattling”(German Labor Federation youth rally 1954/55)

  24. “THE GERMAN MANIFESTO” (January 1955), adopted at a mass rally organized by Heinemann in Frankfurt a.M. “The stationing of German military forces in the Federal Republic and the Soviet zone will invariably eradicate the chances for reunification in the foreseeable future and reinforce the tension between East and West. Such a measure would increase the moral distress of large segments of our people to an unbearable degree…. “Agreement on a Four-Power accord for reunification must take precedence over the formation of military blocks. Conditions that are acceptable to Germany and its neighbors can and must be found in order to secure the peaceful coexistence of the nations of Europe through the reunification of Germany. The German nation has a right to reunification!” SIGNED BY: SPD chairman Ollenhauer, DGB vice-chair Georg Reuter, Prof. Alfred Weber, Prof. Helmut Gollwitzer, Gustav Heinemann, etc.

  25. Defense Minister Theodor Blank greets the public in 1955, flanked by Generals Adolf Heusinger and Hans Speidel They enrolled their first 101 volunteers in Bonn on November 12, the 200th birthday of General Scharnhorst

  26. The evolution of the German eagle, 1871-1953

  27. The “German Cross.”In 1957 it became legal to wear medals awarded by the 3rd Reich, if the swastika was removed.Vs. 3 of the old National Anthem (“Unity and justice and freedom….”) became recognized, but vs. 1 (“Deutschland, Deutschland überalles”) was OUTLAWED

  28. INSTITUTIONAL CONCESSIONS TO THE CRITICS OF REARMAMENT • The Bundestag created a Security Committee in 1953, and Blank honored its demands for frequent testimony about every aspect of military planning. • The Bundestag created a Personnel Screening Board in July 1955, authorized to veto the appointment of officers. • In response to a mutiny within his own party, Blank reduced the term of service in the new conscription law from 18 months to 12 in September 1956. • Conscripts could complain to a Bundestag ombudsman. • Conscientious objectors could perform “alternative service.”

  29. “No Experiments!”In 1957 the CDU won 50.2% of the West German vote.Adenauer then secured a Bundestag resolution in March 1958 that the Bundeswehr should acquire all “the most modern weapons” if invited to by NATO.

  30. The SPD’s “Struggle against Nuclear Death” attracted 120,000 protesters in Hamburg A young Helmut Schmidt in Duisburg

  31. “The SPD warns: Atomic weapons cause mass death” “Albert Schweitzer warns! Atomic weapons are a deadly experiment!”

  32. THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT WEIGHED IN TO CONDEMN SPD TACTICS • The Basic Law made no provision for a referendum, but the SPD introduced a bill for a poll of the German people (Volksbefragung), on the grounds that Adenauer had said nothing about nuclear arms in the 1957 election campaign. • When the Bundestag rejected any Volksbefragung, the SPD appealed to state and municipal governments to carry out polls. • On July 20, 1958, the Constitutional Court ruled that state and local governments could not conduct such polls, because they had no authority over issues of foreign and armaments policy.

  33. The CDU won further victories in state elections in 1958, and SPD leaders concluded that they had fallen into a trap… “Go with the times” --The SPD adopted the moderate “Godesberg Program” in November 1959

  34. THE SPD GODESBERG PROGRAM (1959) • “The SPD dedicates itself to the defense of the free and democratic order. It supports national defense.” • “The Federal Republic of Germany may not produce or utilize atomic or other weapons of mass destruction.” • “Even in uniform, the soldier remains a citizen.” • “The totalitarian command economy destroys freedom. The Social Democratic Party therefore supports the free market, wherever competition actually exists…. As much competition as possible– as much planning as necessary!” • “Regional security pacts [e.g., NATO] should be built up within the framework of the United Nations, as steps on the path toward general disarmament and the relaxation of international tensions…. Economic development requires cooperation among the states of Europe. The SPD supports this cooperation.”

  35. Heinrich Böll (1917-1985) on Cologne radio, December 1953 Born in Cologne, son of a Catholic sculptor and anti-Nazi; refused to join Hitler Youth 1939-45: War service as army conscript; wounded four times 1951: Receives “Group 47” literary prize 1973: Wins Nobel Prize for Literature

  36. Heinrich Böll and Oskar Lafontaine protest at Mutlangen against U.S. plans to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles, September 1, 1983

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