Second Wind

The Berlin blockade ended yesterday. In another week and a half, the foreign ministers of the United States, France, Great Britain, and Russia, will meet in Paris "to consider questions relating to Germany." These two occasions could mean nothing, as far as the cold war is concerned, if there is no real meeting of East and West, if there is more wrangling and suspicion. Under those circumstances, the conference will break up, as have so many other conferences before it, and the battle for Germany will continue--only more bitterly than before.

This is not unduly skeptical viewpoint. It is one that has only too much precedent to back it up: the Soviet bloc and the American bloc. have a practically unbroken record of non-agreement since the end of the war, and no matter who is to blame in each case, the cause of permanent world peace has been the sufferer. But there can be end to failures; there can be a beginning to successful Russian-American bargaining, and the time for such a beginning can be now.

Germany, the key to Europe, presents two major problems which the foreign ministers will have to discuss. If agreement can be found on both or on either, the world will breathe more easily. The first problem is economic: control of German industry and the resumption of trade between the eastern and western zones. The second is political: the future of Germany and the German people. At the present time, the western bloc is trying to work out answers to both problems. The West is in haphazard control over most of Germany's heavy industry and is trying to make up for the absence of east German products elsewhere. Finally although the western Germans have agreed faintheartedly to a constitution, there is little doubt that this arrangement satisfies only a few of them. Germans want an all-German government, and a united Germany.

Even without Russian agreement, the Western Powers could solve a substantial part of the economic problem. They could take German industry completely out of the hands of the notorious private cartels and nationalize it under strict controls. Thus far, the U.S. has been able to prevent nationalization on the pretext that German workers would labor more efficiently for their old masters. If the foreign ministers cannot find a workable arrangement for four-power control of German industry, the West should at least end the present sorry policy.

Ideally, the foreign ministers should decide to give the United Nations power to regulate the German economy for the good of all Europe. A UN commission of economic experts could tell German industry what to produce and where to sent it; a UN commission could state East-West trade flowing first through Germany and then throughout the Continent. But it is unlikely that the four powers will agree on this, at least for the time being. What is more possible is that the two blocs will find it profitable to exchange western industrial products for the raw materials and food stuffs of the east. Both sides need this trade; every effort must be made to set it going.

The question of Germany's political future is decidedly secondary to that of Germany's economic future. Whatever form the government (or governments) of Germany takes, it will not be a strong one. Under either joint or divided four-power sponsorship, the future administrations of Germany by German must be restricted to domestic affairs. There will be no German army, no foreign policy, no control of heavy industry. At the May 23 conference, the western representatives must be prepared to junk the constitution for Western Germany recently drawn up at Bonn. If we are able to agree with the USSR on a federal plan for all of Germany, we can satisfy the German desire for unity. This desire is now the subject of vigorous Russian politicking among German in both halves of the nation. If Germany remains split, and the eastern Soviet parties go on screaming "unity," our political position will be further weakened. Yet if agreement is impossible, then there is no choice but to go ahead with the western state.

Even supposing that no agreement whatsoever comes out of the foreign ministers conference, the end of the Berlin blockade and its tensions is welcome, of course. This crisis has lasted 11 months: during that time, the West has drawn closer together, and in Europe, at least, has been more successful than not in the struggle for recovery. But Europe, divided, hostile, and unhappy, has felt little joy at any "victory" for either side in the war of nerves. The re-opening of the German question can conceivably lead to a cautious resolution of East-West conflict in Europe. But if the lifting of the siege is the only development--if the foreign ministers again stalemate--Europe and world peace will be little better off than before.