Evening star., 1949-09-10
Judgment Of Fear
On German Situation
Could Be Disastrous
DismontIing Of Industry
Should Stop at Once or
Revolt Is Possible
By Dorothy THOMPSON

Revolt Is POSSIBLE
By Dorothy Thompson
There is always a tide that
taken at the flood may lead to
fortune, and if missed will GER
tainly produce catastrophe.
There is such a tide now in
western Germany. No one who
has spent much time there re-
Gently can view German prospects
with naive optimism. The coun-
try's problems are gigantic. The
public mind is discouraged, or
cynical. The dark forces of
Naziism have not been eliminated.
The Allied occupation has been
restrained but not fundamentally
reformed. Nobody could make
such a report on Germany as
Gen. MacArthur's anniversary
statement on Japan.
There is, however, a German
proverb, IF one says a. one
must say B." The western Allies
have given western Germans a
constitution and a government
The nearly 80 per cent participa-
ton in the elections demonstrated
that western Germans hunger fol-
selt-government. Although the
campaign revealed unattractive
qualities-the tendency to wipe
out of memory everything prior to
defeat and blame the Allies fol
every woe-the parties which want
constitutional government and
collaboration with the West won
the greatest number of votes and
there has been tendency since to
dampen exaggerated nationalist
sloganism.
Good as Could Be Hoped.
Whether we like the German
government or not, it Is as good
q one as we could hope for. AL
though 1t is definitely Of the
fright" the rabid neo-Hitler
parties were trounced, as were the
Communists, and the large Social
Democratic parliamentary oppo-
sition will have to be needed.
The question now is. having
proposed and given the Germans
q government of their own, will
we permit it to govern?
There is already a tendency,
awakened by alarm over ultra
nationalist campaign utterances,
to tighten rather than relax con-
trolls. This, a Judgment of fear,
will be disastrous. The new gov-
ernment and the opposition have
made promises ON taxation,
housing. loans, refugees-which
they cannot possibly fulfill, under
present restrictions. If the re-
strictions remain, both govern
ment and people wfll-not un-
reasonably-blame the Allies; and
disgruntlement will grow into
revolt.
Having given the Germans the
attributes of sovereignty, a step
has been taken which cannot be
revoked without draconic re-
pressive measures which neither
the Western temperament or the
international tension with Russia
will permit. What is not freely
granted will. therefore, eventually
be wrenched away, in a repetition
of the dolorous history between
two wars, in which the Allies
yielded to the threats of a hostile
rabble-rouser what they would not
grant to moderate friends.
The Allies must realize that the
present political constellation, in
which both government and oppo-
sition are constitutional and demo-
cratic parties, will never be more
favorable. Either this constella-
tion will achieve notable progress
in German liberation or it will
dissolve in favor of something
much worse.
Calls for Decision.
The situation, therefore, calls
Tor decision, and although there
Is risk in it. there is a thousand
fold more risk in hesitation and
drift. One need only consider
our China policy, where indecision
compounded of Intervention and
nonintervention has made an
enemy out of an ally in four years.
And the Adenauer government in
Western Germany is not the die
tatorship of Chang Kai-shek.
We have already made the
fundamental decision to give
western Germans their own gov
ernment. That decision logically
implies the reduction of the occu-
patton to essential restrictions on
military rearmament and the
protection of German civil lib
critics.
Dismantling should be stopped
Immediately. and stopped volun-
tarily by the Allies, before they
have to stop it or yield to the
pressures of the entire nation
whipped up under radical dema-
gogues Of right and left. German
production should be freed and
integrated into European recov-
cry via the organization for Eu-
ropean economic cooperation and
the Bonn government brought,
without delay, into the Council
and Assembly of Europe.
For when you give a people
self-government you either give
them equality or you start revolt,
and this Is as sure as mathe-
mates.
Craftsmanship is the art of dis
corning cause and result, action
and reaction. It is the ability to
predicate consequences. Only the
lack of this art has turned an i'm
mense victory into a partial de-