Bonn Approves Resolution to Reassure Poles

The West German Parliament adopted a resolution Thursday aimed at reassuring Poland that a united Germany will respect its present borders.

At the same time, however, Chancellor Helmut Kohl defended his controversial position that Poland should renounce any claims for World War II reparations from a unified Germany.

And later in the day, in Brussels, Kohl assured fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that a united Germany will remain in NATO.

“German unity,” Kohl said in Brussels, “is conceivable only under a European roof that includes NATO.”

Kohl’s visit to NATO headquarters is seen as an attempt to soothe ruffled feelings among allies who have complained that he may be moving too rapidly toward German reunification and without adequate consultation.

He said he wants the reunification process to “proceed at a reasonable pace, not in a rush.” He said the Germans “deserve confidence and trust, and that is what I’m asking for.”

On the question of the Polish border, the Bundestag, the lower house of West Germany’s Parliament, adopted a resolution intended to clarify the German position. It calls on the West German Parliament and the East German legislature scheduled to be elected March 18 to adopt the following statement:

“The Polish people are assured that their right to live in secure borders will not be questioned by us Germans through territorial claims, either now or in the future.”

The resolution also calls for a reunited Germany and Poland to enter into a treaty that would settle the matter formally. The Bundestag adopted the resolution after two hours of heated debate.

Poland’s frontiers were altered substantially at the end of World War II. Parts of West Germany, in Pomerania, Silesia, and East Prussia, were ceded to Poland to compensate for Polish territory annexed to the Soviet Union.

Until this week, for what were said to be domestic political reasons, Kohl had been reluctant to take a firm position on the border issue. But on Tuesday, he announced the plan calling on both German governments to adopt a clear and unequivocal position.

In Washington on Thursday, the White House described this as a positive and important step.

But Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski described it as only a “quarter step forward” and accused West Germany of stoking anxiety by persistently dodging the issue.

Reparations had been virtually a dead issue since 1953, when Poland proclaimed that it would file no such claims. But the issue has been revived in the heat of the move toward German unification, and Kohl called on Warsaw last week to make a new renunciation as a condition of German recognition of the postwar frontiers.

The Polish government promptly threatened to seek compensation for more than a million slave laborers forced to work in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.

“It is indisputable,” Kohl said Thursday in addressing the Bundestag, “that in Poland and elsewhere claims are being discussed. This is not an artificial problem, and therefore it has to be addressed. It serves nobody if demands remain on the table, and the impression is created that in the future unpredictable burdens would fall on the Germans. Historical experience shows that we should be warned.”

Nonetheless, he said, “I assume that Poland’s August, 1953, renunciation of reparations against Germany as a whole will also remain valid for a united Germany.”

In the debate that preceded adoption of the border motion, the opposition Social Democrats mounted a scathing attack on Kohl. Hans-Jochen Vogel, the Social Democrats’ leader, said:

“By your behavior in the question of Poland’s western border, you have jeopardized unity. If there is now once again talk of the nasty Germans, if there are delays, if conferences and consultations become more difficult, then it is your fault.”

Vogel said that what Kohl is doing in connection with Poland and his rush to unification are eroding the international trust painstakingly built up by West Germany’s postwar leadership. He called Kohl a “political risk factor” and added:

“Compared to these foreign policy activities of the chancellor, the proverbial bull in the china shop looks like a ballet dancer.”

In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner said the allies welcomed Kohl’s reassurance on the Polish border. He said that high-level consultations will continue, presumably at a special meeting of foreign ministers in April.

Kohl told the ambassadors to NATO that the move toward unification has been hastened by events in East Germany, where deteriorating economic conditions have led to the flight of more than 100,000 people to the West since the first of the year.

“That was not my fault,” Kohl said. “East Germany’s strength is running out. . . . We want that process to be stopped. We want people to stay home.

“We are not sitting in an academic seminar in Germany--we are in the midst of stormy developments,” he added.

In response to a reporter’s question about whether the allies were reassured by his remarks, he said, “It is our duty to consult with all concerned parties,” not only the allies but other European countries as well.

“Nobody has to be concerned,” he said, “that the Germans would want, in one way or another, to go it alone. . . . Everything that is happening in Germany now can take place only if it is embedded in the whole European environment. . . . German unity is conceivable only under a European roof that includes NATO.”