Overwhelming Approval

After all the international fretting over whether Konrad Adenauer would get a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag for German rearmament, the Bundestag last week gave its answer. It overwhelmingly enacted the constitutional amendments needed to clear the way for the creation of the new German armed forces. With all but a few Socialists voting in rare solidarity with Adenauer's Christian Democrats, the vote was an overwhelming 390 to 20.

Adenauer got his majority by making a sizable concession to the Socialists: he agreed to place the army under command of a partially autonomous Defense Minister (except in war, when the Chancellor becomes commander in chief). The Socialists in turn abandoned all-out opposition on rearmament, concentrated on making sure that the reconstituted German army would never become a militaristic menace but would take its subordinate place under civilian and parliamentary control. Once the upper house and President Heuss add their approval, the new citizens' Bundeswehr* (Federal Defense Force) can get on with plans to take in some 90,000 men by the end of 1956, and to train 500,000 men (a twelve-division army, a 20-wing air force and a small navy) for NATO by 1961.

* Instead of Wehrmacht, which stirs unpleasant memories.

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