World Greets Unification With Congratulations, Trepidation

Germany’s reunification was greeted with celebration and some trepidation at home and around the globe Tuesday.

In a congratulatory statement to the German people, President Bush said that “45 years of conflict and confrontation between East and West are now behind us.”

“We expect much of our new relations,” said Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whose new diplomacy made the reunification of Germany possible.

In his message, Gorbachev did not dwell on the immense losses the Soviet Union suffered at the hands of Germany during World War II but instead referred to it as a lesson for all.

“Unification could not have taken place if there had not been profound internal democratic changes in our countries, if the right conclusions from the tragedy of the most horrible war had not been reflected in real life,” Gorbachev said in a telegram sent to German President Richard von Weizsaecker and Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

In Brussels, the European Community warmly welcomed 16.4 million new citizens into the 12-nation grouping.

“The unification of Germany opens the door toward the unity of all of Europe,” the EC Commission said.

In Warsaw, some Poles expressed concern about the new economic power on their western border.

“Today, just like Japan, Germany--because of its economic power--is more dangerous than the Wehrmacht (the German army in World War II) or than Japanese battalions,” said Marian Podkowinski, a writer and expert on German issues.

Former Polish Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski said he is uneasy about an accord with Germany that fixes current borders.

“I would like to be a bad prophet,” he said. “But I do not exclude the appearance, toward the end of this century, of the (renewal of) demands concerning our western territories.”

A poll released Tuesday by the Wickert Institute, a public opinion institute in western Germany, said that 87.7% of Germans are happy about their country’s unification.

Another large majority, 92.3%, said unification would promote the growing together of European nations, and 88.3% said it would help reduce tension in the world.

But Heinz Galinsky, the chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, reminded the new nation of its “dreadful past” and demanded that it end “once and for all” every form of racism, anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism.