Final Act: Allies End German Occupation

With lofty rhetoric, the foreign ministers of both Germanys and the four major victorious powers rang down the final curtain Wednesday on World War II.

The foreign ministers of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, West Germany and East Germany signed a treaty restoring full German sovereignty when the divided country becomes one on Oct. 3.

With the end of the so-called two-plus-four talks, the World War II Allies agreed to surrender the last of their occupation rights and responsibilities in Germany, primarily in the divided city of Berlin.

“This day will go down in history . . . for Europe and the world at large,” Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze told reporters after the ceremony. “We are going through an emotional and historic event. We have drawn the line under World War II, and we have started counting the time of the new age.”

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, describing the occasion as a “rendezvous with history,” said the completion of German reunification marks the end not only of World War II but of the Cold War that kept Germany and Europe divided for 45 years.

With the East-West conflict over, Baker said, “we consign to history forever one of the most corrosive conflicts of this century.”

British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said: “This is the end of one road but also a milestone on a new road to a new and harmonious world order.”

West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher struck the most somber note, saying: “We remember in this hour all the victims of the war and (Nazi) tyranny. We think of the suffering of people, and not just those whose representatives are assembled around this table. Our thoughts are especially with the Jewish people. We want to be sure that this should never be repeated.”

Shevardnadze acknowledged that many in the Soviet Union fear a resurgence of German militarism. But he said the treaty provides “the necessary safeguards and guarantees.”

The two-plus-four treaty was signed a day short of seven months after the six nations agreed Feb. 13, at a meeting in Ottawa, to begin consideration of “the external aspects of German unification.” It was completed in just four meetings of the foreign ministers, interspersed with intense negotiations by lower-ranking diplomats.

When the Moscow meeting began, only two issues, both dealing with technical and legal restrictions on military activity in what has been East Germany, were left unresolved. The talks became so bogged down Tuesday that Soviet officials suggested that the signing ceremony might have to be postponed, and Genscher made a post-midnight visit to Baker’s hotel to devise a strategy to break the deadlock.

But by the time of Wednesday’s press conference, the six ministers were in a festive mood. After making set-piece statements hailing the agreement, they stayed around to answer questions for more than an hour.

Baker, Genscher and the other Western leaders all praised Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Shevardnadze and Soviet “new thinking” for making it possible to complete the treaty in what might be record time for important negotiations. Nevertheless, the final negotiations divided Moscow from the other five in a pale imitation of Cold War competition.

A senior U.S. official said Baker and Genscher met privately with Shevardnadze Wednesday morning to hammer out the compromise on the final two issues.

Moscow wanted to forbid German troops stationed on former East German territory to possess weapons, such as artillery and combat aircraft, that are primarily non-nuclear but can be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Germany and its allies resisted, saying that this would impose needless restrictions on Germany’s conventional forces.

In a compromise, the six foreign ministers approved a statement permitting these so-called dual-purpose weapons as long as they “are equipped for a conventional role and designated only for such.”

All six nations had agreed earlier that nuclear-armed foreign troops, presumably NATO troops, would not be “stationed or deployed” on former East German territory. But a last-minute hitch developed over whether the word deploy applied to maneuvers by forces based elsewhere. Compromising, the ministers adopted a statement leaving it up to the united Germany to define the term, in effect letting the new government decide if it wanted to allow NATO maneuvers in the east, as it has done for years in the west.

The disputes seemed trivial in comparison to the highly emotional matters that were settled earlier. For instance, the Soviet Union agreed that a united Germany could be a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And Germany calmed Polish fears by renouncing any claim to vast tracts of prewar German territory that were ceded to Poland after the war to compensate for formerly Polish districts that became part of the Soviet Union.

“The united Germany has no territorial claims whatsoever against other states and shall not assert any in the future,” the treaty says.

The treaty also requires that united Germany renounce the manufacture, possession or control of nuclear weapons, just as West Germany and East Germany did years ago.

The treaty officially takes effect only after its ratification by the united German government and the four wartime Allies.

The two-plus-four agreement will be submitted to a summit meeting of the 37-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe scheduled for November in Paris. The CSCE conference will have no power to veto or amend the treaty, but endorsement by an organization that includes the United States, Canada and all the European countries except for isolationist Albania will give the settlement a stamp of approval by Nazi victims not among the Big Four.

“Forty-five years after World War II, we have got the arithmetic right,” Baker said. “Two-plus-four adds up to one Germany in a Europe whole and free.”