Kohl Proposes Federation of Two Germanys

In his first major statement on the future of the two Germanys since the Berlin Wall was breached Nov. 9, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl proposed Tuesday a federation of West and East Germany, saying it should be an interim step before the ultimate goal of reunification.

In a speech to Parliament, Kohl offered substantial support to encourage democratic reforms in the East and pressed for closer cooperation between the two states.

“We are ready,” he said, “to develop confederative structures. . . . Nobody knows today how a reunited Germany will look. But I am sure unity will come, if the people in Germany want it.”

He emphasized that “a legitimate democratic government in East Germany is a prerequisite” and that “the future structure of Germany must fit into the architecture of Europe as a whole.”

Kohl said he had no timetable in mind to carry out his ideas and made it clear that it could take years to form a federation. He said the two governments should establish--soon after free elections in the East--joint committees on such matters as the economy, transport, environment, technology, health and culture.

He offered to establish a fund to finance visits to West Germany by East Germans and to help modernize East Germany’s transport and communications facilities.

East German leader Egon Krenz quickly ruled out any talk of reunifying the Germanys. “A unity of Germany isn’t on the agenda,” he told West Germany’s ARD-TV network, insisting on the continued existence of two “sovereign, independent German states.”

Kohl’s proposal was described by officials in his party, the Christian Democratic Union, as a rebuke to critics who have complained that he has not reacted quickly or imaginatively enough to fast-moving developments in East Germany.

In the past few weeks, East Germany has replaced its hard-line Communist leader, Erich Honecker, installed a reformist prime minister, opened the Berlin Wall dividing the old capital and promised free elections.

Kohl is expected to confer with Krenz in East Germany in mid-December.

Unofficially, Kohl’s proposal was widely viewed as a blueprint for the incorporation of East Germany into West Germany.

Writer Stefan Heym said that Kohl, “with this overture, has begun the process of absorption.”

A newspaper that speaks for the National Democratic Party, which has been in the Communist camp, said that reunification “would be . . . equivalent to East Germany’s incorporation into West Germany.”

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said: “Chancellor Kohl is responding to the deepest aspirations of his people for unity. This is a goal we have long shared with the Federal Republic of Germany. It is not a cause for concern that the chancellor has laid out his vision. It is not a blueprint for reunification but a coherent approach to the rapid changes that have taken place.”

But Vadim Zagladin, a diplomatic adviser to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, said in Rome that Kohl appeared to be contradicting what he has said in the recent past.

“Mr. Kohl,” he said, “is deciding the future of another state that is perfectly capable of deciding itself.”

Even before his speech to Parliament, Kohl had pledged massive West German financial help to the ailing East German economy, provided that its new leadership moves to ensure human rights and guarantees free elections.

Some of Kohl’s critics, including his foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, have urged him to offer economic aid with no strings attached.

West Germany’s constitution calls for eventual reunification of the country, which was partitioned at the end of World War II in 1945. But West Germany’s allies, and many West German political leaders, would prefer gradual reunification--a series of steps that would ensure that the country remains firmly anchored in the Western Alliance.

Kohl aides said Tuesday that his call for confederation was designed to quiet West European fears that the Bonn government might be focusing too much attention on reunification and pushing for new relations with the countries of East Europe.

Kohl said in his speech that Bonn is firmly committed to the European Community but that the EC should extend its vision to the East.

“The European Community,” he said, “must not end at the Elbe (River) but must also be open to the East.”

Hans-Jochen Vogel, leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party, agreed with Kohl and issued a separate call for confederation and economic aid for East Germany.

In Brussels, Manfred Woerner, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said Kohl’s proposal is basically in line with the NATO position, spelled out last May, that German reunification should be achieved through self-determination.

He said the approach outlined by Kohl “links the development of the German future to the larger process of building Europe, and to the existing institutions of the West.”

A German confederation, which would create an economic powerhouse with a population of 80 million in the heart of Europe, is not a novel concept. Until late in the 19th Century, more than a dozen German-speaking states were united in a loose confederation that was to become the German Empire.

The empire was shattered in World War I. A brief period of democracy followed, which was succeeded in 1933 by Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Legally, according to some international experts, Germany’s frontiers are still those of Hitler’s Germany and will remain so until a World War II peace treaty is concluded.

Some Germans on the political right contend that a reunified Germany would have a legitimate claim to lands ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union after the war.