Half-Step Forward

Shortly after 3 one morning last week, nearly 500 weary members of West Germany's Bundestag straggled red-eyed out of Bonn's slick, brass-trimmed Parliament house into the bright dawn. Behind them lay 16 hours of acrimonious debate which had ended in a half-step forward for West Germany's rearmament program: the passage, by a vote of 270-166, of military conscription.

The Socialist Party, West Germany's second largest, had fought a bitter delaying action. During the second reading, all 145 Socialist Deputies walked out of the Bundestag in protest against the speed with which Chancellor Adenauer's government coalition was pushing the bill through. Returning to the attack at the bill's final reading, fiery Socialist Deputy Fritz Erler harped on the nightmare fear that West German rearmament would end all hope of reunification of Germany, and protested that the Germans were being asked to arm at a time when others are reducing their arms. "The twelve West German divisions will be the last tin soldiers of the cold war," he cried.

Konrad Adenauer was relaxed and confident; "We must look at things realistically," he said. "The Russians are working closer and closer to Europe by way of the Mediterranean. To the tune of Russian peace flutes, the encirclement of Europe has concentrated on the Mediterranean. We are in one of the exciting phases of the cold war. If we fold our hands, the cold war will take a fatal run."

Pushed through by Adenauer's iron will, the bill was less than all he desired. Unable to get the Upper House to agree to 18 months service for conscripts and unwilling to accept a counteroffer of twelve months, Adenauer settled for a law which fails to specify how long draftees must serve but nonetheless gets the defense machinery to work. West German officials swear that they will keep their promise to have 96,000 men in uniform before the end of the year and a 500,000-man force in NATO by 1960.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.