In 1949 the newly created Federal Republic of Germany lacked freedom of
action. The country was under Western Allied occupation, its new Government
under supervision by the Allied High Commission. After coming to office in
September 1949, chancellor Konrad Adenauer was determined to achieve West
Germany's firm anchoring in the Western community, sovereignty, political,
economic, and military security, and Western European integration. However,
his later success should not obscure the fact that his policy was risky. In
1949-50 his course was complicated by the Saar issue, sparse Allied
granting of sovereign rights, the rearmament question, and the problem of
German unity. Meanwhile, the Opposition social Democrats under Kurt
Schumacher criticized the concessions to the Allies and, as western
integration assumed a quicker pace, stressed the primacy of German unity.
Even members of the Bonn Cabinet started to doubt a policy that seemed
likely to solidify German division.
The West German press mirrored and judged the domestic fight over
foreign policy. Four of the five leading publicists examined in this study
tended to support economic and political integration in Western Europe,
while not prepared to cede to French interests and to renounce German
claims on the Saar, they did support the Petersberg Agreement on
dismantling, accession to the Council of Europe, and involvement in the
Schuman Plan negotiations. The issue of German unity played a limited role
in their editorials. Two pundits, Paul Sethe and Hans Baumgarten, never
mentioned it, while two others, Richard Tungel and Ernst Friedlaender,
believed that western integration offered perspectives to regain East
Germany in the future. Moreover, Schumacher's opposition found little
positive echo. Only Rudolf Augstein and Sethe at times backed similar
policies to that of the SPD. Although the broad tenets of Adenauer's course were accepted, there was consistent criticism of his diplomatic methods, in
fact, in the spring of 1950 three commentators called on the Chancellor to
surrender diplomatic affairs to someone else.
Amongst the editorialists examined, only Augstein advocated a
neutralist policy, hoping it would facilitate German unification. However,
he did not sufficiently discuss the great risks associated with German
neutrality. Augstein was also the only commentator to oppose West German
rearmament categorically. Although none of the commentators supported
outright rearmament, the pundits backed a para-military federal police
against the perceived East German threat. The question of direct
remilitarization was ignored or made dependent on Allied concessions. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/5368 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Knuth, Jens |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 7579644 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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