From Rubble To Renewal

By George Russell

Forty years after V-E day, the world's greatest battleground is a Continent revived and prosperous, free from war for those four decades. It is also a Continent dramatically divided, slightly uncertain of its future, and sometimes sadly aware that it has yielded its place at the center of the world to the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

On May 8, 1945, one world ended and another began. When all the ghastly totals were added up, it would be reckoned that some 40 million Europeans had lost their lives during the war; alongside them fell 160,045 Americans, 45,057 Canadians and thousands of others of non-European nationalities. Since then, in a near-miraculous turnabout, the nations of Western Europe have risen from the rubble and grown into the world's second-largest economic entity, ranking below only the U.S. In a remarkable fashion, that accomplishment owes much to the superpowers. From the West came the generosity and vision of the U.S., through the Marshall Plan; that grand recovery scheme, conceived under the aegis of then Secretary of State George C. Marshall, gave Western Europe more than $13 billion to build a new economic foundation. From the East came the threat represented by Joseph Stalin, the Soviet despot whose Red Army divided the Continent in half, and who spurred movement toward greater unity in the West through his cold war policies. Says Andre de Staercke, a former Belgian diplomat: "We should build a statue to Stalin in every public square in Europe, because he showed us the danger [of disunity]."

As the pain of war and the threat of Soviet expansion have receded in Western Europe's memory, a new generation is uneasy with the perception that the Continent's fate is not in its own hands but in those of the superpowers. There are signs that Eastern Europe too is experiencing a change. Says Rumanian-born Political Scientist Pierre Hassner, a research fellow at Paris' National Foundation of Political Science: "There is a tension between the rigid East-West strategic balance on the one hand and changing popular attitudes and life-styles on the other. The security arrangement has guaranteed four decades of peace, but people are increasingly weary of a system that represses their aspirations."

The reasons for the discomfort in Western Europe are complicated. One aspect is economic: there is concern about the technological gap that has opened up between the U.S. and Japan on the one hand and the old Continent on the other, mainly in such fields as microprocessors, information technologies and bioengineering. Linked to that imbalance is a lingering worry over slow growth and high unemployment. Another reason for the sense of drift is demographic. The 60% of Europeans born since V-E day tend to dwell less on the horrors of World War II than on a U.S.-Soviet rivalry that bristles with nuclear weapons, many of them based on European soil. In Western Europe, some of that sentiment has flowed into the pacifist and antinuclear movement that brought thousands of people into the streets two years ago to protest the deployment of U.S. -built nuclear Pershing II and cruise missiles as a counter-force to a Soviet buildup of medium-range SS-20s. The era of mammoth demonstrations seems to have passed, but a pacifist current remains. With the notable exception of France, it has penetrated the main opposition parties of many West European countries and has caused occasional tension within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization over questions of arms control, space weaponry and the state of superpower relations.

Finally, there is a certain disappointment with the idea of Europe itself, a sense that the Continent's greatest postwar dream, West European integration, has lost momentum. Since the mid-'60s, the principal focus for that aspiration, the European Community, has been burdened by frequent bickering and haggling. Typical was the ploy carried off last month by Greece, which extracted subsidy increases for its farmers as a condition for agreeing to the enlargement of the Community from ten members to twelve, a measure planned to take effect in January 1986. [*]

Above all, there remains the problem of the war's most gaping wound: divided Germany. Just as conscious as ever of their special and not-quite-equal places in postwar Europe, West and East Germans are trying to find a way past their enforced separation that will not arouse the suspicion and hostility of their neighbors. In turn, West Germany's allies privately worry about the slightest symptoms in the public mood that might indicate a willingness to leave the Western alliance in favor of a neutralist reunification.

Some of Western Europe's concerns will be on display for Ronald Reagan at the main diplomatic event of his controversial European visit, the annual economic summit meeting of seven leading industrial powers--the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, West Germany, Canada and Japan--that will take place in Bonn from May 2 to May 4. At the top of the summit agenda, along with problems of international trade, will be unhappiness over U.S. budget deficits, high interest rates and the uncertainties that the dollar is creating in European money markets.

The six summit partners may also repeat their reservations about the Reagan Administration's $26 billion research program for the Strategic Defense Initiative (S.D.I.), known as Star Wars. In the allies' view, the drive for S.D.I. could jeopardize U.S.-Soviet arms-reduction talks in Geneva and undermine NATO's reliance on nuclear deterrence as the basis of alliance security. A U.S. invitation to the 15 other NATO members, as well as to Japan, Australia and Israel, to participate in the research scheme seems unlikely to remove those doubts, even if they do not prove to be well founded.

The leaders will also discuss with Reagan prospects for a meeting between the President and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. By and large, the West Europeans favor such a get-together. But they do not want the U.S. to sacrifice substance for appearance at a time when the Star Wars issue is under intense debate and U.S.-Soviet arms negotiations are under way in Geneva.

Sometime during his ten-day visit, Reagan will surely have kind words to say about the West European allies' resolve in deploying the new Euromissiles. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have all accepted the NATO weapons on their soil, despite heavy pressure from the peace movement. Allied solidarity has been further strengthened by the near unanimous Western rejection of Gorbachev's recent offer to "freeze" the missile balance in Europe at current levels, which greatly favor the Soviet Union.

Nonetheless, apprehension runs deep on the Continent that the nuclear-arms race between the superpowers is accelerating and that the battlegrounds of World War II could be those of a future East-West conflict. That fear is in a sense a permanent symptom of Europe's subordinate, postwar place in the nuclear-dominated world. In Western Europe's uncertain mood, governments and institutions have begun to recognize that there are limits to their ability to deal with change. Authority and self-confidence have come under some strain. Once mighty traditional labor unions are on the defensive, losing membership and influence. Newly militant interest groups are striking or demonstrating with increasing frequency to dramatize their grievances. As French Columnist Michel Noblecourt, writing in the left-leaning daily Le Monde, has put it, "Everyone is preoccupied with his own situation, that of his profession, of his company."

Similar frustrations center on Western Europe's unemployment rate, now almost 12% of a 117 million-member work force. (The U.S. rate is 7.3%.) Millions of the unemployed are under 25; many of the youthful jobless have become alienated and have dropped out of the job market completely.

Western Europe's most substantial challenges, however, are economic readjustment and realignment. As in the U.S., old industries like steel, coal mining and shipbuilding are going out of business. Unlike the U.S., Western Europe has been slow to find high-technology replacements. Businessmen must cope with extensive bureaucratic controls and high social welfare costs, the legacy of postwar obsession with creating economic security for all citizens. Says Henry Ergas, an economic analyst at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an association of 24 industrialized countries: "Americans are finding some of the answers in some body's garage, but Europe has no such free market in industrial ideas. Europeans are trying to figure out how to reconcile change with their desire for social consensus."

Today's difficulties have led many West Europeans to hark back with nostalgia to the '50s and '60s, the golden age of the dream of Continental unity. By 1957, with the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the European Economic Community had come into existence. The agreement committed the original six members--France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy--gradually to eliminate trade barriers and harmonize economic policies.

At first the Community's common market worked astonishingly well. During the 1960s, unemployment among the Community countries averaged only 2.1%, vs. 4.7% in the U.S.; economic growth and increases in industrial production outpaced the U.S. averages. Says Economist Ergas: "In the '60s we knew precisely what we wanted: cars, washing machines, fridges. It was easy to handle, and we did it."

Perhaps it was too easy. Success fueled exaggerated visions of a grand, institutionalized United Europe. There was talk of a common flag, of joint Olympic sports teams, but nationalism stayed alive. In 1966, under severe pressure from French President Charles de Gaulle, the Community adopted a compromise allowing a partner country to cast a veto whenever it felt that a "vital national interest" was involved. Since then, the veto threat has been invoked several times on issues like farm prices and deregulation, sometimes slowing Community progress to a crawl. De Gaulle also pulled French forces out of NATO'S integrated military commands and closed down U.S. military facilities in France; NATO moved its headquarters from Paris to Belgium.

The '70s eroded more pan-European illusions. In 1971 France dropped its longstanding opposition to British membership in the Community, and Britain, along with Ireland and Denmark, formally joined in 1973. The expansion of a formerly tightly knit group offered enlarged economic possibilities, but also hampered cohesion. The original spirit of joint sacrifice splintered in frequent acrimony, especially after the two oil-price shocks of the decade weakened West European economies. By the early '80s, the once solid NATO consensus on defense also came under strain as a result of the drawn-out missile-deployment drama.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain, today a gash of electrified fences and minefields, the challenge that began on V-E day has had very different dimensions. For the nations of Eastern Europe, the prospect of a new, democratic postwar era vanished with Stalin's unkept pledge to hold free elections in the "liberated" territories. By 1949, Communist regimes had consolidated power by force or subterfuge in eight countries. During the past 40 years, only two nations have been able to escape the Soviet orbit: Yugoslavia in 1948 and Albania in 1961.

Eastern Europe has been reminded more than once of the futility of resistance to Soviet domination. In 1953 a revolt by East German workers was suppressed with the help of Soviet troops. In 1956 came the Hungarian uprising, sparking a Soviet invasion that left thousands dead. Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring was crushed by Warsaw Pact tanks in 1968. That was followed by Moscow's enunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, justifying the use of Soviet force in maintaining Communist regimes in the region. In 1981, soon after Soviet divisions held maneuvers along Poland's borders, General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law to quell the independent trade union Solidarity.

Between eruptions, most East Europeans have come grudgingly to terms with their fate. They can even point to gains achieved after "liberation." The Communist regimes have all but conquered illiteracy, which stood at 40% in Hungary before the war and even higher in Rumania. They guarantee their citizens a free education, a job, free health care and an old-age pension. Says Hungarian Dissident Writer Gyorgy Konrad: "Peasants who used to go barefoot and hungry now drive cars and own homes."

But as a whole the picture remains dismal. Freedom of movement and expression are sharply limited, as is the right to travel abroad. Internal movement is subject to police surveillance; censorship is ubiquitous. Many East European cities, despite restoration efforts, still present a gray, depressing sight: unpainted buildings, dingy streets, understocked shops. In the Rumanian capital, Bucharest, queues at food stores form at 3:30 a.m., and "energy police" roam the streets to make sure no one is burning more than one 25-watt light bulb at night . Poland is an even worse basket case, plagued by perennial food shortages and a foreign debt of $27 billion.

Like the West, the East has sprouted its own supranational institutions--all under Soviet control. The Warsaw Pact, signed in 1955, formalized Soviet direction of Eastern Europe's armed forces. The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, or Comecon, was set up to coordinate and integrate East bloc economies; the system has been as ungainly as its foundation stone, Soviet-style central planning.

With the exception of Bulgaria, which has strong historic ties to Russia, East bloc attitudes toward the Soviet Union range from distrust to outright loathing, an attitude that stands in sharp contrast to a hunger among East Europeans for most things Western. Through much of the East bloc, youngsters wear blue jeans and dance to Western rock; purple-haired punks are seen in the streets of Warsaw and Budapest. More important, East European governments have turned to the West for the credits and technology that Moscow cannot provide, giving East Europeans a vested interest in the revival of detente.

In quiet ways, some change is at work; its most advanced expression is in Hungary. Communist Party Chief Janos Kadar, who demonstrated his fealty to Moscow during the 1956 uprising, in 1968 launched the East bloc's most successful economic reforms. He began to decentralize the economic system, introducing some free-market management methods and profit incentives. Later, the state allowed private ownership for some small and middle-size businesses. In effect, Kadar entered into an unwritten contract with the Hungarian people, allowing them a measure of freedom in their domestic lives as long as they left politics to the party. Today shop windows in Budapest are filled with clothes and appliances, while bookstores are well stocked with Hungarian titles and Western best sellers. Says a Hungarian historian and Communist Party member: "We have come to realize that national independence is not as important as the possibility of having an independent road for economic reform and more freedom in cultural life."

For most East Europeans, hope for meaningful change depends on substantial shifts within the Soviet Union; thus East bloc citizens are closely watching Gorbachev's moves. But the Soviets are unlikely to allow a wave of economic innovation to sweep through the East bloc, and prospects are even more dim for any significant moves toward greater political freedom or national independence.

The segregated unease of Western and Eastern Europe comes together where the victorious Allies met in 1945: Germany. In the 1970s, the age of East-West detente, West Germany tried to build bridges to the East with its Ostpolitik, a reaching out to East Germany and the rest of the bloc through increased economic, diplomatic and personal ties. For their part, the 17 million East Germans took solace from an economy that, while it lagged far behind West Germany's, provided them with a standard of living higher than that of the Soviets.

For both sides, the advantages were clear-cut: by last year, trade between the two Germanys had reached $5.3 billion, providing an estimated 70,000 jobs on both sides of the border. On a more personal level, Ostpolitik allowed tens of thousands of German families to be reunited, a process that continues. Western influence flows steadily eastward on the airwaves: more than two-thirds of East Germany's population live within range of West German television, and most of them tune in regularly.

But the sense of optimism along what is now known as the inner German border has been blunted in the chilly superpower climate of the '80s, and no one knows the disappointments of the times better than Chancellor Kohl, 55. Only 15 years old when the war ended, Kohl has described himself as "the first Chancellor of the postwar generation," meaning the 60% of West Germans who on V-E day were either children or not yet born. Kohl came to office determined to play a role abroad commensurate with his country's flourishing democracy, strong support for NATO, and eminence as the non-Communist world's third-largest economic power. Internally, he intended to put a new gloss on national pride and patriotism by increased emphasis on symbols such as the red, black and gold national flag and more frequent playing of the national anthem.

Kohl's initiatives have, for the most part, produced less than glowing results. In Western Europe, the French, who otherwise have forged a close and cooperative relationship with their former enemy, have occasionally bridled at Bonn's assertiveness in economic matters. In the East, during the Euromissile debate, Moscow rolled out accusations of West German "revanchism," a reference to Nazi territorial ambitions of old. Kohl's attempts at burnishing national symbols have also met with limited success: West Germans still do less anthem singing and flag flying than their neighbors. Says Hans Mayer, professor emeritus of literature at Tuebingen University: "Hitler's nationalism so upset the stomachs of the Germans, particularly the older ones, that they are now keeping to a very strict diet. The only time they break it is for a German soccer team."

Life has been troublesome too for Erich Honecker, 72, the East German leader. After decades of unrelenting East bloc propaganda that described "the spirit of militarism and fascism" as a purely Western affliction, Honecker has tried to steer a more nationalist course, chiefly on cultural and historical issues. King Frederick the Great of Prussia and Otto von Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor," have been restored to grace in East German schoolbooks. In 1983, East Germany celebrated the 500th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther, who is now described as "an initiator of a great revolutionary movement." The celebration underlined Honecker's modus vivendi with East Germany's Protestant churches, which have cautiously criticized the stationing of Soviet and U.S. nuclear missiles in Europe. Ultimately, however, the Euromissile issue led to a major setback for Honecker: the cancellation under pressure from Moscow of a three-day visit to West Germany scheduled for last September. The trip would have been the first ever by an East German Communist Party leader to West Germany. Honecker has not yet given up on his notion of Westpolitik, however. This week he travels to Italy for his first visit to a NATO nation.

There is no question, according to Gerhard Herdegen, head of the Aliens-bach polling institute in Bonn, that West Germans "want to see the East and West blocs dissolved and the borders loosened," but they do not know how that goal can be reached. Another pollster, Hermann Bausinger of the Ludwig Uhland Institute in Tuebingen, detects "a great insecurity about where the future will lead us all." The feeling, Bausinger finds, is strongest among intellectuals and young people.

The pertinent question for the 40th anniversary of V-E day is how the Continent will shrug off its discomforts and limitations, and reignite the promise that was so stunningly fulfilled, at least in Western Europe, during the immediate postwar years. Part of the answer will depend, as it has all along, on the guardian superpowers. Even so, there are signs that a more realistic view of Western Europe and its prospects is gaining strength and currency, based on the pragmatic recognition that the constituent nation-states of the region will survive--and can thrive--for some time to come.

In France, the Socialist government of President Franc,ois Mitterrand has begun to reverse its statist orientation through a series of reforms aimed at industrial innovation and efficiency. British Prime Minister Thatcher remains indomitable in pursuit of a free-market ideal. In Italy, the Socialist Craxi government is attacking such problems as the country's underground economy and endless wage indexation pegged to inflation. Budget deficits have been trimmed in the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. Even the travails of the Euromissile crisis have led to a greater sense of allied cohesion, as Western Europe's people have come to appreciate the resolve shown by their respective governments.

A new kind of ad hoc co-operation on specific projects has also been gaining hold. The list of successes includes joint production of the Airbus commercial jetliner; the eleven-member European Space Agency's Ariane rocket; and the CERN nuclear research lab outside Geneva, built by a twelve-nation consortium. Last week France announced a proposal called Eureka, intended to coordinate European research on such futuristic technology as lasers, particle beams and large computers. In the general defense area, seven members of the Community--Britain, France, West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries--have revived the moribund Western European Union, long overshadowed by NATO, as a forum for specifically West European defense concerns.

Thus the movement for European unity that grew from the cinders of World War II is still inching ahead. Says Historian Lord Blake, provost of Queen's College at Oxford: "In the historic time scale, we may well have a federal Europe, including Britain, in the very early years of the 21st century." What Blake's prediction may require for fulfillment is the same spirit of cooperation that drove the wartime Allies to their great victory 40 years ago, and that has made that epochal occasion so worthy of remembrance ever since. -- By George Russell. Reported by Lawrence Malkin/Paris and John Moody/Vienna, with other bureaus

With reporting by Reported by Lawrence Malkin/Paris, John Moody/Vienna, with other bureaus