Bonn Stunned by Cemetery Furor, Takes Another Look at U.S. Relations

The intensity of opposition to President Reagan’s planned visit to a German war cemetery next month has stunned West Germany’s political elite, causing many here to reassess the meaning of the country’s ties with the United States.

At present, the reassessment is taking place on a personal rather than a policy level, and few here expect the controversy to yield any immediate, visible change in the political relationship.

However, it is the policy-makers and opinion formers--those most familiar with the United States--who are engaged in the process. Together, they appear to share a sense of disbelief at the level of U.S. reaction, consternation about how to defuse it and worry about its long-term impact.

Two basic issues appear to separate German and American perceptions on the emotional issue:

--Many Americans see the 47 graves of Hitler’s infamous SS soldiers at the Bitburg cemetery as a symbol of SS terror during the Holocaust. However, Germans focus only on the cemetery itself, stressing that most buried there were teen-agers drafted for the Western Front in the final months of World War II. Bitburg is in the western portion of West Germany near the border with Luxembourg.

The gist of a letter sent last Friday to 53 U.S. senators by Alfred Dregger, the Christian Democratic parliamentary floor leader, conveys this impression.

“When you ask your President not to make this noble gesture at the Bitburg war cemetery, I must interpet it as an insult to my brother (killed on the Eastern Front) and my (other) fallen comrades,” he wrote.

While many West Germans interviewed believe the aggressive tone of the letter will only exacerbate the outrage in the United States, they agreed that Dregger’s views reflect an important mood in the country.

--Closely linked with the German perception of those buried at Bitburg is a sense of disillusionment that, even though Germany has accepted historical responsibility for the Holocaust and spent long years as a U.S. ally, the American view of Germany as an nation besmirched remains strong.

“We have said ‘Never again war from German soil’; we have said ‘Never again a dictatorship’; we have aligned with the West and built our democracy,” said Alois Mertes, state secretary in the West German Foreign Ministry and conservative member of Parliament for Bitburg. “What can we do? How can we make it good?

“After 40 years, after 35 years as an ally, that the Holocaust stands square in the middle of everything, after so much. . . . It is a terrible human disappointment.”

Prof. Michael Stuermer of Erlangen University, a personal adviser to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, said, “What is happening in the (United States) puts into question an unspoken assumption of our years in the Western alliance--that Germany had achieved a degree of forgiveness.”

Proud, Sensitive

The depth of reaction here to the U.S. protest is fueled by a combination of factors, all peculiar to West Germany.

Few countries are as proud of, yet so insecure about, their democracy as is West Germany. No European country is more sensitive about criticism by outsiders. No relationship means more at virtually every level of German society than that with the United States.

It is now apparent that it was Kohl’s eagerness to cement Germany’s reconciliation with the United States and to win recognition for the country’s postwar transformation that caused him to propose the cemetery visit in the first place.

How Kohl, Reagan and those advisers from both countries involved in the detailed preparation of the visit could have so badly misjudged the public mood remains a mystery in this country.

Privately, West German political leaders searching for ways to alleviate the controversy say they believe further statements on the issue would only make things worse.

But they also agree that, at this point, the only thing worse for the U.S.-German relationship than Reagan’s appearance at Bitburg would be its cancellation.

There is also concern about possible longer-term fallout from the controversy.

“It will take time for this to show up, but it will come,” said Prof. Stuermer. “Hard-faced bureaucrats totally underestimate the politically emotional dynamite that lies in those graves.”

There are indications that the dispute has already added to the cynicism of the country’s political left.

“Everyone talks of partnership (with the United States), but when it comes to the point, there doesn’t seem to be much partnership there,” declared Eduard Heussen, deputy spokesman for the Social Democratic Party’s presidium.

Personal Sufferings

The controversy also comes as West Germans have begun to focus for the first time on the personal sufferings of their own citizens during the war, a subject previously untouched because of the guilt that hangs over that entire period of German history.

“No German parent dared tell his child how hard it was during the war,” Stuermer said. “It just was never done.”

In an interview last week, the mayor of Bitburg, Theo Hallet, expressed concern about a possible anti-American backlash in his town. It was destroyed by American bombers in 1944, but for the last 32 years it has taken pride in the quality of its hospitality to the 11,000 servicemen based at the nearby U.S. Air Force base.

“That could only hurt us all,” he said.