NEWS ANALYSIS : Briton’s Anti-German Diatribe Reflects Wide Unease : Europe: Many privately fear a reunified, powerful nation, and how those fears are handled will affect the spirit in which the new state is born.

A British Cabinet minister’s anti-German diatribe in a magazine interview may have triggered a wave of official outrage across Europe, but it has also highlighted a large and growing double standard in attitudes toward German unity.

Behind the polite applause and lofty declarations of support for German unification echoing through the conference halls of Europe, another emotion dominates--a gnawing worry about the power of a united Germany.

It is an emotion widely felt but rarely expressed in public, a feeling that has intensified as outsiders watch the speed and apparent ease with which unity unfolds.

Admittedly, even in private, few go as far as British Trade and Industry Secretary Nicholas Ridley did in his interview published Thursday in the respected British weekly The Spectator.

In the course of a three-page interview, he described efforts to forge a European monetary union as “a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe,” accused France of “behaving like poodles to the Germans” and stopped just short of comparing Adolf Hitler favorably with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Even though Ridley quickly retracted his comments, made in Hungary, the level of indignation may cost him his job.

“The man who the cartoonists loved to depict as a corpse (has) become one,” Peter Jenkins of the Independent newspaper wrote. “It will be flown home from Hungary today and buried quietly over the weekend.”

Other commentators said Ridley would be an obstacle in negotiations with Britain’s European allies, especially West Germany.

While the tone of Ridley’s remarks was clearly contentious, he was also discussing a subject that politicians have tried to avoid in order not to stoke enmity or be seen casting suspicion on an ally.

Indeed, some argued Friday that Ridley’s only real sin was to discuss the subject at all.

“As embarrassing as Ridley’s comments are, it’s hard to dispute that they have brought into the public domain a subject usually discussed only on the quiet,” commented the Swiss daily, Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

Added the West Germany newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau: “The feelings, the fears, the prejudices that came from the minister’s mouth are the feelings, fears and prejudices shared by many of his countrymen.”

How these fears are handled, both by a uniting Germany and its neighbors, will do much to determine the spirit in which a powerful German state is born--whether it is welcomed into the community of Western democracies or ostracized and left to sulk as a rejected, potentially dangerous outsider.

“There are only two paths for German unity--either a nationalist path or a European path,” noted Bonn University historian Karl-Dieter Bracher. “The best way to control the Germans is binding them into an integrated Europe. Anything else is dangerous.”

While both German governments insist that they want unity as part of a larger European unity, this has done little to allay the undercurrent of concern.

“In part, it’s a generational thing,” said West German spokesman Dieter Vogel. “Younger people are more relaxed about unity.

“We’ve lived with this for a long time,” Vogel added. “We’ll have to live with it a while longer.”

In the democracies of northern Europe, there are few foreign policy issues where private reservations contrast so sharply with unqualified public backing.

“It’s not next month or next year I’m worried about,” said a respected Western ambassador who has served in the region for several years. “It’s 10, 15 years from now, when they’ve gotten used to their size and their strength--that’s the time I worry about.”

The 12 European Community leaders last month officially blessed unification at their summit in Dublin. But, unofficially, more than one of those present would have nodded approvingly at the well-known, tongue-in-cheek comment of French author Francois Mauriac that he loved Germany so much that he was happy there were two of them.

In the weeks after the Berlin Wall fell, French President Francois Mitterrand and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher strayed from their longstanding endorsement of German unity, until they realized that it was inevitable. Like others who now cheer unity, they decided that to oppose German public will at this point would be politically disastrous.

East Europeans also fear German unity. But free of alliance or ties to the European Community, they express their worries more openly--especially the Soviet Union, where such concerns constitute a key stumbling block in negotiations on the external aspects of unification.

A Los Angeles Times/Economist magazine poll published last month found that half of those surveyed in Britain and France expressed concern about a dominant Germany. In Poland, the figure was nearly 70%. This level of public worry in Europe is a key factor separating the Bush Administration’s unwavering support for unity from Europe’s double standard.

When asked recently why German-American ties had become so close, Kohl’s answer was a not-so-subtle swipe at his European allies.

“There are some who mean it when they speak of the right to self-determination,” he said.