Debate Over the Dark Side

In 1961, West Germany's Free Democratic Party won a surprising 12.8% of the popular vote--and a junior partnership in the coalition government--behind the cry for greater independence and self-assertion of Germany as a nation. This election year, the two larger German parties have also discovered the campaign value of "the new national consciousness," but as the man who started the ball rolling, the Free Democrats' dapper leader, Erich Mende, 48, is ideally situated to get maximum yardage out of the issue.

He is losing no opportunity to do so. At a state convention in Solingen last week, he appealed for a "purified patriotism" and demanded reinstatement of the first two verses of the German anthem (including the famous "Deutschland, Deutschland, ueber alles . . ."), which were originally banned by the Allies, and were left out of the national hymn after the occupation. He has also emphasized that his party opposed reparations and aid for Israel, as well as extending the statute of limitations on Nazi war crimes. Though an opponent of former Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, Mende, like Strauss, justifies his opposition to the extension of the statute by referring to crimes committed against Germans by Eastern Europeans and the Soviets in 1945. "We don't want to balance these things out, but . . ." he begins.

Mende strongly backs a more active German role in the struggle for reunification. As Acting Chancellor while Chancellor Erhard was on vacation fortnight ago, he invited Soviet Ambassador Andrei Smirnov to dinner and volunteered to send a group of Free Democrats to Moscow to discuss the subject (Smirnov turned him down).

Reunification, of course, appeals to Germans of all political persuasions, but some German leaders are concerned lest other aspects of the new national consciousness be exaggerated into an appeal to the now-dormant far-right wing by politicians vying for votes. One of the concerned is President Heinrich Luebke, who occupies a position above party politics. Dedicating a memorial at the site of the former Belsen concentration camp last week, he sternly advised politicians to avoid stirring up "the real or suspected dark side of our nation."

Luebke came down heavily in favor of the extension of the statute of limitations, observing cuttingly that there was a difference between Germany's war crimes and those of other nations. "Hitler made murder a task of the state," and while his government's acts may have been "without the knowledge or willingness of the German people, they happened in our name. It is only because we have proved that we want to right these injustices that we have found trust in the world again."

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