July 13, 1962

MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION WITH HERBERT WEHNER, SUNDAY, JULY 1, 1962.

From: Henry A. Kissinger

Herbert Wehner asked me to lunch while I was at the Institute of Strategic Studies conference in Bad Godesberg. I spent about three hours with him. The first part of our conversation he spent telling me about his experiences in Moscow, where he lived as a party functionary after 1933, and particularly about the events of the purges as he experienced them.

He then turned to the situation in Germany. He said that Berlin was lost. I asked him why. He said that the end result of the policies of the last few years meant that sooner or later Berlin was finished. I asked him what could be done. He said this was a very American question. Policies always consisted of a sequence of events bringing about certain historical situations. One could not simply ask how to solve one partial manifestation. The root of the problem is that the United States' interest in Berlin was bound to be a purely juridical one. The German interest in Berlin was a moral one. He became very agitated then and almost shouted as he said, "We will never accept the wall. We will never accept the concentration camp in the East." He was not critical of American policy; in fact, he thought it had been generous. He believed that the real

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criminals were the Adenauer government, which had brought on a situation where sixteen million people had been enslaved. Wehner had warned for years what the inevitable consequences of the Adenauer policies would be. Now a price had to be paid for them. Moreover, American policy having once been cast in its juridical mold, it could not and should not be changed.

I asked him what he thought of the negotiations with the Soviets on Berlin. He said the tactics were a relatively unimportant detail. Our actions were quite consistent with our basically juridical approach. Then he stated again in a somewhat excited fashion that we should read carefully his reaction to the leak of our proposal a few months ago. He had insisted on the importance of the American alliance and the pre-eminent need to maintain it. He had avoided any endorsement of the specific points in the plan. I could not draw him into a discussion of the merits of this plan.

Wehner also said that he foresaw over the next two or three years a growth of nationalist sentiment in Germany. A lot of people who now claimed to be pro-American would turn against us. This, too, he said was an inevitable consequence of the bankruptcy of Adenauer. The only hope he could see was a coalition between the CDU and the SPD. He said that the dilemma was that the CDU might be ruined by a coalition and the SPD by continued opposition. In any case, a continued split between the two parties would be the end of the democratic forces in Germany. He thought the reaction to the leaked United States proposals in Germany indicated a revival of nationalism. He said that the Right must not again capture all national feelings.

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At the same time, he was worried by the growth of pacifism
among the trade unions.

Wehner then turned again to Eastern Germany. He said no matter
what America does--and he had full understanding for our views--West
Germany had a duty toward East Germany. He said, "We will not spare you
the bankruptcy of the East German regime." (Wir werden Euch den Bankrott
da Uben nicht ersparen.) To build policy on anything else over the next
few years was an illusion. If he had his way, he would make an appeal to
all East Germans to quit the territory of the Soviet Zone regardless of
the consequences. I asked him whether this would not mean that the Polish
frontier would be moved to the Elbe. He said the human problem was more
important.

This account cannot do justice to the eloquence and brilliance of
Wehner's remarks. I find him by all odds the most impressive man in German
political life. At the same time, I find his comments extremely worrisome.
They indicate to me that he expects a nationalist revival and that he wants
to make sure that the SPD participates in it or at least is not destroyed
by it. Moreover, while he carefully refrained from criticizing American
policy, his attacks on Adenauer were almost invariably for policies with
which we are closely identified.