Better Late Than Never

For weeks, Hausfrauen all over West Germany have been practicing Hofknickse (curtsies). At the Munich mint, eight gold commemorative coins had been struck; a Cologne record company brought out The Queen Elizabeth Foxtrot. In Bonn, 15,000 champagne glasses were ordered, and mobile lavatories were trundled in from Cologne for a state reception for 2,500 at Augustusburg Castle. It was all part of the feverish preparations for the eleven-day, 1,200-mile tour by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of ten West German cities, the first state visit by a reigning British monarch since Edward VII paid his last call on Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1909.

It was meant to be more, even, than a state visit. Officially, it was the formal return of the visit by Germany's late President Theodor Heuss to Buckingham Palace in 1958. The glacial response he got then and the deep-rooted hostility many Britons still harbor toward their wartime enemies delayed the return engagement seven years, until German protocol officials had privately given up hope. Finally, last spring the Conservative government decided to find out whether the past was indeed past, and last fall incoming Prime Minister Harold Wilson concurred. As Chancellor Ludwig Erhard put it, the royal visit was intended to be "the ultimate reconciliation which both our nations have sought."

"Smile More, Your Majesty." Elizabeth and Philip, who between them have at least as much German blood as English, seemed the model monarchs for such an undertaking.* Yet somehow the visit got off to a chilly start as heavy rains and mothball size hailstones pelted the top-hatted German Cabinet, waiting with President Heinrich Luebke and Erhard for Elizabeth's airplane to touch down at the Bonn-Cologne airport. The sun came out before she landed, but squishing along the soggy red carpet, and then splashing through puddles to inspect her 270-man guard of honor from the German air force, navy and army, the Queen grimaced with distaste.

Her British advisers might have recommended a bit more warmth of approach that afternoon, as her closed Mercedes whisked the Queen from her official residence, the Petersberg Hotel on the heights of the Siebengebirge, across the Rhine to Bonn. Clearly, the Germans were hoping for more than the genteel reserve that England expects of its Queen. The mass-circulation Bild Zeitung ran three photos of Elizabeth's glum face and begged, "Please smile more, Your Majesty."

Freedom & Peace. That night, at the state banquet at Augustusburg Castle, resplendent in a jewel-encrusted blue and white gown designed to match the baroque decor, she came out with a political plea, clearly dictated by Harold Wilson, in favor of West Germany's most popular principle. "In the last 20 years," she said, "the problems facing our two peoples have brought us closer together again. It is now our task to defend civilization in freedom and peace together. That is why we wholeheartedly support your natural wish for peaceful reunification."

Elizabeth must have read the papers, for the next day, at the Bonn city hall, she was positively beaming. When she laid a wreath on the nearby Beethoven monument, the crowd responded with loud cheers and chants of "Elizabet, Eliz-a-bet." That night, after entertaining 88 dignitaries at dinner atop the Petersberg, the Queen and her guests stepped onto the terrace to watch "The Rhine in Flames," a dramatic fireworks display that covered the river halfway to Coblenz, 30 miles away.

Honeymoon Route. After taking leave of President Luebke and Chancellor Erhard, the royal couple journeyed up the Rhine past the famous rock of the Lorelei (the same route Victoria and Albert took on their honeymoon) and dined near Darmstadt with Prince Ludwig of Hesse and Rhine--the Queen's distant cousin and Philip's brother-in-law--in his 18th century hunting castle. It was in Bavaria, home of Germany's most unreconstructed royalists, that their warmest welcome awaited them. In Munich, schools were dismissed; the streets were lined by 8 a.m., two hours before the royal train arrived, and the Abendzeitung hung out a banner headline: GRUeSS GOTT, MAJESTAeT (God's blessing, Your Majesty).

Before taking off for a weekend at Salem Castle on Lake Constance with Philip's sister the Dowager Margravine of Baden, Elizabeth visited the Nymphenburg porcelain factory in Munich and watched the German Olympics equestrian team go through its paces. Over a lunch of lobster Vierjahreszeiten, duckling a I'orange, peaches Bavarian and four German wines, she heard Bavaria's Premier Alfons Goeppel talk of the need for friendship between Britain and Germany. "We have been slow, perhaps, in realizing this," he said. "But there the famous phrase of your nation applies--better late than never."

* Both are great-great-grandchildren of Britain's Queen Victoria, herself a descendant of Britain's Hanoverian kings, and Germany's Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and they have an estimated 400 royal relatives in Germany. The name of the British royal house was changed in 1917 by George V, Elizabeth's grandfather, from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor (whereupon Kaiser Wilhelm II, George's first cousin, gleefully called for a performance of The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha). Philip is a Mountbatten, a name also Anglicized in 1917 from Battenberg.

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