Fast Drive to Bonn

A black, Czech-built Tatra limousine pulled up outside Bonn's White House, the Villa Hammerschmidt. Out stepped two East German diplomats, chilled from their unannounced eleven-hour journey over the icy autobahn from East Berlin. They carried a letter from East German Communist Boss Walter Ulbricht to West German President Gustav Heinemann.

The letter arrived at a time when the general diplomatic climate in Central Europe seemed to be improving. Until last week, Walter Ulbricht, the East bloc's most durable Stalinist, had appeared to be Europe's odd man out. Even as the Soviet Union and his other Communist allies arranged bilateral talks with Bonn, he went right on insisting that West Germany must recognize his regime as the price for any negotiations about lessening tensions. But last week, at Ulbricht's bidding, the East German Volkskammer (People's Chamber) unanimously passed a resolution empowering the government to "take the necessary steps" toward "peaceful coexistence" with West Germany on the basis of "internationally binding agreements." Significantly, the resolution did not insist on full diplomatic recognition of Ulbricht's German Democratic Republic as the precondition for talks.

Changing Tactics. Ulbricht's letter called on West Germany to be "realistic." In Communist parlance, that means to accept the status quo of a permanently divided Germany and the Oder-Neisse border, thus finally acknowledging the postwar Polish takeover of areas formerly held by Germany. The letter included the draft of a proposed state treaty on "the establishment of equal relations" between the two Germanys.

Though Chancellor Willy Brandt had offered to conclude a state treaty that would regularize relations between East and West Germany, Bonn seemed somewhat surprised and suspicious about Ulbricht's move. Brandt said only that he would discuss the Ulbricht proposals in his January state-of-the-nation report.

What was Ulbricht up to? Some diplomats in Bonn thought that he was cynically offering West Germany the kind of negotiations it could not agree to. More likely, however, the old Stalinist had been under some pressure from Moscow to adopt a more flexible approach and had responded by changing his tactics but not his ultimate goal of full diplomatic recognition for his half of Germany. A poll published in the illustrated magazine Stern last week showed that most West Germans were more inclined than a few years ago to grant much of what Ulbricht wants. According to the poll, 74% advocate talks between Brandt and Ulbricht and 68% believe that the former German lands now contained within Poland are lost forever.

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