Evening star., 1952-05-12
Germans Are Fearful
OF Speaking Openly
On Rearming Issue
By Dorothy Thompson

be borne in mind in West Ger
many-that is that this is still
an occupied country. It has a
representative government to
which more and more control IS
being handed over. It has demo-
cratic freedoms and a free press,
with no one barred, theoretical
ly, from participation in public
life except Nazis who have been
sentenced, or known unrecon-
Structed Nazis. There are plenty
of the latter around, though I
do not think they play much of
a role. The splinter groups into
which they gather are insignif1-
cant politically.
But this Is not a country which
Is genuinely free-or which feels
that it. is genuinely free, which
can amount in effect to the same
thing-to advocate or oppose any
policy it believes in or disagrees
with. The West German govern
ment has tied it's policy to that
Of the West, which means, spe-
cifically, to that Of the United
States. For it was the United
States who initiated the sharp
reversal of the early postwar pol
icy, including the determination
to establish German military di-
visions as part of an all-European
defense plan.
Hold Superior Position.
The West German government,
and the many American agencies
operating in West Germany, have
an overwhelmingly superior posi-
ton when it comes to guiding and
influencing public opinion. The
government initiates or withholdS
important news, and American
agencies have done an energetic
and in many respects successful
job of selling the new policy.
They directly control an influen-
tial part of the press and indi-
rectly q much larger part of it.
The Bonn government and
Allied High Commissioners have
established liaison with many un-
official bodies and organized
groups. for instance. among wom-
ems organizations. A result is that
independent thinkers, critical of
or dubious about the predominant
policy, believe-rightly or wrongly
that 1t is unsafe to present their
views openly, fearing that if they
do so, they may suffer in one way
or another.
am not speaking of the "Man
in the Street" The average Ger
man always has been politically
Indifferent. preferring to leave it
to the experts" He Is inclined to
conflne himself to his own par
ticular job, and do it superlatively
we'll regardless of the larger pur-
pose to which it is being put.
Works for Survival.
This has changed, it seems to
me, very little. And especially to-
day the average German is con-
cerned with his personal and fam
lily survival, with getting a roof
over his head and food in his
stomach. For these most primitive
needs he works as no other Euro
pean works, and in achieving them
exhausts all his energy.
But one notices among intellec-
tuals, ana precisely in those fields
that normally form the opinion
making groups-editors, publish
ers, teachers, professors, clergy
men-a marked shyness, or even
fear, of saying publicly what they
do say privately. This does not
mean that there is no public de-
bate. There is, and-aS has also
been usual in Germany-it is
marked by emotionalism and acri-
mony. But many of the most
thoughtful persons think it better
to keep their thoughts largely to
themselves. They speak candidly
only in small groups, or personally,
eye to eye, and-where they differ
with the prevailing policy-even
express fear of being overheard.
Fear Communist Label.
The chief reason for this is that
opposition to. or even fundamental
discussion of possible alternatives
to, the prevailing policy have be-
come associated with aiding COM
munism." Any peace movement in
Western Germany is therefore
practically out of the question.
There Is only one respectable
theory of the way to obtain peace,
and that is by sufficient military
force to deter the Soviets.
Yet, many Germans - and
among them exactly those whom
we were cultivating a few years
ago, and whose numbers we were
trying to increase by re-education
do not believe this theory. Some
of them are outright 100 per cent
paciflsts, who believe, and can
make rational arguments for their
conviction, that disarmed Ger
many is safer against aggression
than an armed Germany will be.
Among them are members Of the
clergy, especially of the Evangeli-
cal Protestant clergy, the most
notable example being Pastor
Niemoeller.
Absolute Finish Feared.
There are others who, without
being conscientious pacifistS. see
that if the policy should fail, and
Europe, by way of it, become en-
broiled in war, Germany will be
absolutely finished. Among these
are even German generals.
Others, who believe in united
Europe, integrated politically
socially. and economically, believe
that the raising of German de-
tense units for such a Europe
should have been the last, not the
first, thing on the agenda. These
support the general aim Of Ameri-
IA ~ c,1VNVNaVst tho