Security through Integration with the West and European Reconciliation : Germany

To Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who until 1963 had largely held the reins of foreign and domestic policy himself (”Chancellor democracy”), Germany’s reunification in peace and freedom was the foremost political objective. To achieve this, western Germany had to be integrated into the Atlantic Alliance. Accordingly, the repeal of the Occupation Statute on 5 May 1955 coincided with the accession of the Federal Republic to NATO. This alliance was to be the main protective shield, the proposed European Defense Community having proved abortive due to French resistance. At the same time, the European Communities (Treaties of Rome, 1957) were developed into an anti-communist bastion, denauer’s distrust of Moscow was so deep-rooted that ln 952 he, together with the other Western powers, rejected Stalin’s offer of reuniting Germany as a neutral country as far as the Oder-Neisse line.

The dic-£jors offer appeared to him too unclear for him to 6 the upcoming integration of the Federal Repub-into the West at risk. His suspicion seemed only ied when, on 17June 1953, the people’s Kiesinger, based their policy on the harsh realities prevailing in Central Europe. They were prompted to do so not least by the new approach adopted by the SPD opposition, which promoted Egon Bahr’s formula of “change through rapprochement” (15 July 1963). The establishment of German trade missions in Bucharest and Budapest was a promising start. In the West, there were increasing efforts to merge the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the European Economic Community (EEC) into one European Community (EC; 8 April 1965).

The establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel despite pan-Arab protests was a major step in the Federal Republic’s policy of rapprochement. At the beginning of 1967 Bonn established diplomatic relations with Romania, and in June 1967 the Federal Republic and Czechoslovakia opened trade missions in their respective capitals. The Harmel Report of December 1967 at least prepared the way for further steps towards detente by laying down the Western Alliance’s twofold aim of maintaining its military strength while at the same time being ready to talk to the Eastern bloc. In that year Bonn and Belgrade resumed diplomatic relations, which had been broken off by the Federal Republic on account of Yugoslavia’s recognition of the GDR. And from Poland came proposals for a non-aggression pact. In addition to the policy of reconciliation with Germany’s European neighbors and her integration into the Western community, Adenauer had attached special importance to restitution for the Jews.

Six million lews had been systematically exterminated by the National Socialists. It was not least the close personal relationship between the Federal Republic’s first Chancellor and Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion which fostered the process of reconciliation between Jews and Germans. One outstanding event at that time was their meeting in New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel on 14 March 1960. Addressing parliament in 1961, Adenauer stressed that the Federal Republic could only prove that the Germans had broken completely with their National Socialist past by making material restitution as well. As early as 1952 the first agreement had been signed in Luxem-bourg. It provided for assistance for the integration of Jewish refugees in Israel. Of the total sum of about DM 90 billion provided for restitution purposes, roughly one third went to Israel and Jewish organizations, and especially to the Jewish Claims Conference, a hardship fund which helped Jews all over the world who had been persecuted by the National Socialists. However, diplomatic relations between the two countries were not established until 1965.