New Hitches

This week, in civilian clothes, 30 German army officers got set to invade Paris. There, they will become partners of French, British and American military men in planning the defense of Western Europe. They are the forerunners of an army that does not yet exist: the 400,000 soldiers whom West Germany will call to arms after her peace contract and the European Defense Pact are ratified by all the governments concerned. That day seemed last week to be moving farther & farther away.

Chancellor Konrad Adenauer urged the upper house (Bundesrat) of Germany's parliament to hasten the job by considering only those aspects of the treaties that lie within what he said was its proper sphere, i.e., protection of states' rights within the new Federal Republic. A resentful Bundesrat, after a mere 15 minutes' debate, voted unanimously to ignore his appeal, and to debate the entire treaties, paragraph by paragraph. Moreover, it declared, it could not possibly discuss either treaty until the Federal Constitutional Court hands down a decision on the constitutionality of German rearmament--a decision not expected for at least three months.

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