West Germany’s <i> Ostpolitik</i> Should Shake Washington Into Fashioning a Response

The dramatic events surrounding Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s foray in pursuit of a Soviet-West German rapprochement must be matched by a new U.S. policy toward Bonn and Eastern Europe.

Gorbachev’s apparent triumph in the Federal Republic brought into the open what had been slowly apparent--that West Germany was seeking to repair its eastern relations and to formulate an advantageous eastern policy. This has long been advocated by such German nationalists as Kurt Schumacher, leader of the Social Democrats in the 1950s, and by former Chancellor Willy Brandt and his ally Egon Bahr, who formulated their own Ostpolitik in the 1960s. Today’s principal proponent of an eastern policy is Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, a refugee from East Germany. The West German outpouring for Gorbachev should have pleased Genscher--it is now apparent that no West German politician can afford to advocate a policy of rearmament including modernization of the Atlantic Alliance’s nuclear forces.

Given the current climate in West Germany, it is fair to ask if we are witnessing the beginnings of another Treaty of Rapallo. That Soviet-German alliance in 1922 served as a steppingstone to the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact, which ushered in World War II. Developments in West Germany should signal to Washington that it is high time for the United States to formulate and announce a new policy designed to further American interests, not German ones.

Washington must find an answer to what appears to be a new German expansionism and how to meet the needs of emergent reformist regimes in Eastern Europe--Poland, Hungary and eventually Czechoslovakia. It is apparent that we are facing a resurgence of German nationalism, which is finding expression on both its right and left political extremes. To the people of East-Central Europe, this is strongly reminiscent of the aggressive German nationalism of the earlier part of this century. Ostpolitik as practiced by Genscher seems to be a winning political option under any number of coalitions that could emerge out of the federal elections next year. If so, it is not implausible to think of Ostpolitik as Bonn’s exclusive orientation.

Meanwhile, Gorbachev’s western policy is nothing more than a revival of a traditional rapprochement with Germany, with the ultimate aim of exploiting Eastern Europe. Inevitably, Eastern Europeans will see this new development as a new type of political encirclement, reviving bitter and fearful memories of the past.

Poland, dependent on the powerful German mark to support its impoverished economy, already is apprehensive about the rise of the German right. Bonn will help Poland modernize and emerge with a stronger economy, but economic influence brings with it political influence of a sort that might upset the delicate balance that now exists in the unstable coalition between the Polish Communist Party and the Solidarity trade union.

Recent history informs us that an overactive Germany jeopardizes the delicate balance of power in East-Central Europe. The immediate economic benefits for Poland may be offset by a Soviet-German rapprochement, which threatens the independence of East European states. East European nations can no longer depend on a Soviet-German rivalry to guarantee their security. In the 1920s, it was the French who provided the shield. Now it should become an American responsibility.

Here is where opportunities lie for the United States to create its own subtle eastern policy.

President Bush could well receive a Gorbachev-like response in Eastern Europe when he visits Poland and Hungary next week. While there, Bush can use America’s economic weight and political influence to intercede between German and Soviet pressures on Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Washington can and should mitigate an exclusive German credit to Poland. An American-initiated approach featuring Western economic guarantees to the reforming East Bloc regimes could restrain German inroads there and curb Eastern Europe’s fears of German expansionism.

Gorbachev, who has a penchant for the dramatic, can be both preempted and buttressed by an American eastern policy. In West Germany, the Genscherite forces are in the ascendancy. But if Bonn continues to pursue an unrestrained Ostpolitik , it runs the risk of political isolation in Western Europe while alarming its new-found friend in Moscow.