Evening star., 1950-02-09
Blunt Words for the Germans

In effect, in his address at Stuttgart, John
j. McCloy has delivered friendly but stern
lecture to all the political leaders of Western
Germany. Speaking as American High Com
missioner, he has told them that the United
States expects them to do a better Job than
they have done to date, and he has admonished
them to get down to the business of dealing
more energetically with their urgent domestic
problems, notably unemployment, the status of
refugees from the Soviet-occupied eastern areas,
and the future of their country's homeless youth
Within recent months too many German
officials, instead of concentrating on those prob
lens, have been expending their energies on
making nationalistic speeches (some with Nazi
undertones) agitating a great deal over foreign
issues like the saar's future, and even going so
farm certain inStanceS-as to blame the recent
war and their countrys plight on the Western
Allies rather than on Hitler and the Germans
themselves Now, in sharp answer to all this,
Mr.. McCloy has served notice that the United
States, with the full concurrence and support of
Britain and France, is determined to prevent the
establishment of another nationalistic or Nazi-
fed Reich; that an army and air force are to
be denied Germany; that Germany itself bears
the basic responsibility for its own troubles;
and that If those troubles are to be surmounted,
then the Bonn government and its political sub
divisions must pay undivided attention to them.
But Mr. McCloy has not limited himself
merely to laying down the law to those officials
who seem to have forgotten that their land is
occupied and that the Western Allies will not
tolerate the revival of mitariStic and totali-
tartan Reich On the friendly side, he has
been at pains to emphasize that the United
States, together with Britain and France, is
dedicated to the objective of promoting not
simply the countrys economic recovery but it's
growth into genuine democracy to be integrated
with free Europe and ultimately unified with the
areas now under Soviet occupation, To that end,
besides offering firm assurances that the West
will not yield to Russian pressures in Berlin,
he has stated that the 1edgling Bonn government
assuming that it co-operates and lives up to
both its responsibilities and it's opportunities
will continue to have full American support in
a great effort to build new German nation that
will prosper in liberty.
In the last analysis, however, in Mr.. McCloys
words, "only the German people hold the key
to their own peaceful and prosperous future"
For unless they throw off their authoritarian
habits and cultivate real attachment to democ-
racy, then sooner or later, after the withdrawal
of the occupation forces, their country will sue
cumb to tyranny of one kind another. As
for the foreseeable future, though, the American
High Commissioner has made clear that as
long as the United States has authority there,
it will all its power and influence to Suppress
subversion. That is policy statement that
should be at once reassuring to those working
for free Germany and SOLDERING to those who
would like nothing better than a Nazi revival
or Communist coup.