Bitburg’s Big Day : U.S. Becomes the Issue in German Town

Excitement crackled through the anteroom of Mayor Theo Hallet’s office less than two hours before the start of President Reagan’s controversial visit to the town’s war cemetery.

Amid a flurry of dark-suited bureaucrats from Bonn, the mayor’s secretary, Agnes Mathey, stood nervously in her best gray suit and pronounced, “We are ready.”

On the streets outside, others were ready, too.

Some of the estimated 2,000 police on hand for the presidential visit kept a protest group of Jewish students corralled more than a quarter-mile from the cemetery where Reagan would soon lay a wreath.

A few hundred anti-nuclear demonstrators gathered in a square nearby to listen to anti-American rhetoric.

Meanwhile, along the route of the presidential motorcade, the citizens of Bitburg and the numerous tiny villages that dot the surrounding countryside gathered for what all agreed was one of the biggest days of the town’s 1,700-year history.

Some of the anti-nuclear demonstrators, from the nearby city of Trier, also lined the route. As they waited, arguments broke out along curb-side police control barriers.

“Americans go home!” shouted one demonstrator decked out in a scarf inscribed “No to Pershings,” a reference to the U.S.-made Pershing 2 nuclear missiles now being stationed in West Germany by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Within seconds, an elderly, well-dressed woman clutching a small paper American flag led a spirited counterattack.

“Who do you think guarantees your freedom to say such things?” she demanded, shaking the flag in his face.

“Try saying that in Russia,” muttered another. The startled demonstrator retreated, but only slightly, and suddenly the street was alive with strangers engaging each other in instant debate.

The issue on this Bitburg street corner was no longer whether Reagan should lay his wreath, but America itself.

“Thank You for Liberty,” read a sign in English held aloft by Herbert Dzuk, a graphic designer from Saarburg, 30 miles west of the town. His 7-year-old daughter helped hold the sign.

“We can’t stay democratic without the U.S.A.,” he said. “I’ve come to say thanks.”

Bitburg townspeople have long prided themselves on their good relations with the nearby U.S. air base and the 11,000 Americans there that form the core of the town’s economy.

Chowhand’s Tacos, the Las Vegas Club, the Hollywood Video Store and even the Trier Street Bar’s nonstop programs were all closed Sunday, but during the week, their existence and that of many other establishments here depends on the Americans.

At the bar of the Bitburg Hotel, just off the town’s main street, many of the locals who usually come in Sunday morning were missing. Those present talked with visitors about the 49 SS combat soldiers that are among the 1,887 World War II dead at the cemetery, less than a mile down the road.

Above the noise of a German “oompah” band, blaring out from the radio on a shelf nearby, the hotel’s chambermaid, Aloisa Wetzel, noted that most of the dead were young.

“And besides,” she emphasized, “they had no choice. If they had said ‘no’ when they were drafted, they’d have just ended up in a grave somewhere else.”

In different forms, other Bitburgers advanced the same arguments. They were convinced the that the President was doing the right thing.

“I’m glad he stayed the course,” said Erik Adrian, a retired Bitburg schoolteacher. “He is right to say that those in the cemetery stand before a larger judge.”

Even one of Bitburg’s three Jewish families gave qualified support for Reagan’s gesture, although Chaim Rosenzweig, his French wife, Evelene, and their two children did not join the crowds in town. They gathered instead in front of the television at their newly completed home two miles east of town.

Sitting on the edge of the living room couch with his children around him, Rosenzweig told how his Polish parents survived Dachau, emigrated to Israel and eventually came to Bitburg because relatives were nearby.

“My father had 10 brothers and sisters, and not one of them survived,” he said quietly. “But, you know, we get along with people here; they are good people. We have to forget about the war.

Outside, heightened police activity, the rattle of hovering helicopters overhead and the number of faces poking out of the upper floor windows above the Hellas Restaurant at the town’s main intersection, all indicated that the long-awaited presidential motorcade was approaching.

After a while, flashing lights appeared on the narrow street leading from the war cemetery.

The citizens of Bitburg rose to life. Flags waved. Whistles filled the air. The anti-nuclear demonstrators jumped up and down, shouting “Boo!”

Herbert Dzuk heaved his “Thanks for Liberty” sign as high as he could and, as the presidential limousine glided by, Reagan’s face was clearly visible.

Within seconds the motorcade was gone, on its way out of Bitburg to the U.S. air base.