The Inevitable Reunification

German reunification has become not a matter of if--its virtual inevitability is now accepted--but of when and how. On this last point at least a consensus is emerging. The feeling in both the Western alliance and in the Soviet Union is that the issue is too momentous to be left up to the Germans alone. Even West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who two weeks ago seemed poised to rush toward reunification, now acknowledges that international concerns must be given full weight as that goal is approached.

Reunification appears to be unstoppable because of what is shaping up as an early transfer of power from Comunists to non-Communists in East Germany. That could come as soon as next spring’s promised free elections. Once the Communists shed power, the ideological basis for East Germany’s separate existence will no longer apply. In East Germany public demands for reunification are already being heard; there is even talk of holding a plebiscite on reunion sometime in 1990.

In a simple world the question of whether there should be one Germany or two would be settled by the democratic choice of the two states’ citizens. But the world isn’t simple, and the German question is especially complex. In most of Europe the record of German military aggression and Nazi savagery remains a vivid memory, nowhere more so than in the Soviet Union, whose civilian population suffered so grievously in the war. If it is implausible to suggest that a reunited Germany would represent a genuine security threat to Europe, it is unrealistic to expect that victims of past German aggression should not retain deep anxieties about what a single powerful Germany could mean in the coming century.

In a statement last weekend, leaders of the 12 European Community states--including West Germany--agreed that the German people should “regain its unity through self-determination,” but also with full respect for relevant treaties and agreements and “in a context of dialogue and East-West cooperation.” This is a diplomatic way of sending the message that the concerns of Germany’s neighbors must be considered. Statements by both President Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III have echoed the theme that reunification is an issue of multilateral concern that can only be addressed in an international context. Bush has set specific conditions: that reunification should be gradual and that a unified Germany must remain within the Western alliance, a point not likely to find favor in Moscow.

Kohl, in a statement after the European Community meeting, moved significantly away from his Nov. 28 endorsement of rapid progress toward a “confederation” of the two Germanys. Instead, noting the uneasiness that such a possibility raises in Europe and elsewhere, he now seems to be giving primacy to assuring that European stability won’t be disturbed by the reunification issue. What seems to be emerging from all this is a more realistic, measured and welcome approach toward a question that has moved from being a near-abstraction just a few months ago to a place high up on the European political agenda.