On Defusing the German Question

The fact that the four major World War II Allies have agreed to move the German reunification process forward by establishing a formal framework for negotiations was another big surprise from Ottawa. But, in a way, that was the very least they could do. Pressures within West and East Germany have been mounting day by day for reunification. It’s probable that neither West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl nor East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow could do much to hold back the tide of reunification sentiment in the divided Germanys even if they wanted to.

But the very thought of a united Germany, especially one as powerful economically as West Germany is today, sends chills down many spines. No wonder the Ottawa communique referred pointedly to the need to agree on “the issues of security of neighboring states.” Included inthe target audience for that unsubtle assurance were the Poles and the Russians, for whom the fear of facing another German Army on their territory may never wane.

Such fears, which extend to the Middle East and around the world, will not evaporate overnight no matter how carefully the communiques are drafted. But they may ease if German reunification proceeds in the context of growing European economic unity.

The key vehicle for such unity may be a European Community that transcends its Western, NATO origins and expands to embrace new members to the East. With such broadened membership, the EC could serve to dampen the extremely volatile German reunification question by serving as a bridge over the increasingly outmoded East-West divide and offer a way of accommodating the new Germany in a new order of open markets and cashiered ideological tension. The trick for the statesmen is to steer discussions of German reunification in the direction of economic dynamism, so that it is less and less perceived as political dynamite.