To Defend the Fatherland

If war should break out, NATO forces would deploy to defend Europe and the West, but not the geographical integrity of their most exposed European member, West Germany. Since taking over as the federal republic's Defense Minister last year, stocky, hard-driving Franz Josef Strauss has been preparing plans for a home army "under German not NATO control, to try and protect the Fatherland." Last week Strauss named a member of an old Prussian military family, Major General Hans-Joachim von Horn, 61, to organize and command such a force.

Within five years Strauss plans to create a new army of 700,000 men either in active service or trained and ready for service within 48 hours. Of these, fewer than half will join NATO forces under latest reduced targets; all the rest will belong to Von Horn's Territorial Defense Command. A 4,000-man nucleus has already been assembled in the last two months around Koblenz and Cologne.

The Von Horn force is to be a sort of revolving reserve of trained men. No more than 80,000 territorialists will be in uniformed service at one time, some getting their three to six months' basic training, others returning for weekend refreshers (all will serve within 25 miles of home if possible). Such troops would eventually be equipped with tanks, artillery and antiaircraft weapons (but not, in present thinking, with planes).

Strauss has explained to Western officials that the home army will not get rolling until Germany's NATO contribution is well started, will probably ask for approval from its Western European Union allies, some of whom still get nervous at the thought of a new Wehrmacht under strictly German control.

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