Under the Moral Sword

West Germany's Mideast muddle unhappily reminded its citizens of just how fickle is the good will they have worked so hard to accumulate since World War II. Declared Britain's Central Jewish Organization last week: "A German government which 20 years after Hitler is prepared without shame to sacrifice the vital needs of Israel will be condemned by all men of good will."

In New York, three sizable U.S. textile companies canceled contracts with West German suppliers in protest. "Once again, as we did in 1914 and 1933, we warn the world that the German bell tolls again," announced the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A. in full-page newspaper ads. "We believe that the weaknesses and defects latent in the German character once again have begun to show signs of dominating German life."

Deep Regret. Replied Bonn's ambassador to Washington, Heinrich Knappstein, in letters about the ad: "I was appalled ... I deeply regret this attack on a government and a people who have done everything in their power--as far as this is possible at all--to make up for the past." Some Germans wanted to do even more. For all the ties developed over the years, Bonn has never formally recognized the state of Israel. Last week German students in West Berlin paraded for Israeli recognition as one answer to Germany's critics.

For the moment, though, much of the Germans' hurt and dismay over the new hostility toward them was vented on Chancellor Ludwig Erhard and the CDU--which could conceivably lose the national elections in September over the Middle East fiasco, as CDU strategists privately admitted. But the issue went deeper than German politics. Protesting against the "new wave of distrust," Die Zeit in a front-page editorial noted that there is a "new generation" of Germans which knows Nazi crimes "only from history books and which therefore finds it hard to comprehend that being a German is a flaw of birth. For the sake of this generation, we may be forgiven for saying: One cannot treat a nation like a juvenile delinquent--always under the moral sword, a potential criminal until he proves the contrary."

No Expiration. A second major cause for the new criticism of Germany had more justification than the arms cutoff. Last November, Erhard's Cabinet voted not to extend West Germany's 20-year statute of limitations on war crimes. Though some 70,000 Nazi criminals have been sentenced, prosecutions pending against 13,000 others would be dropped if the statute is applied. Nearly 75% of the German mail to the Bundestag on the statute of limitations was in favor of letting the law lapse. But in the face of mounting foreign criticism, the Cabinet last week reversed itself, agreed to support legislation to extend the period in which war criminals may still be apprehended and tried.

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