Ghost Voice

In the streets of Frankfurt last week, black, red and gold tricolors whipped in the wind. They meant nothing to some people. "What a waste of cloth," said one old Hausfrau. "Think of the dresses all those flags could make."

But thousands of Germans last week remembered the tricolors as the flag of Germany's first parliament, which had met in the Pauls-Kirche just 100 years ago. The Frankfurt Assembly had died young, succumbing to the "unity" of Berlin and Bismarck. Last week those who remembered those lost beginnings gathered at battered old St. Paul's.

Runner from the East. Inside the church, Frankfurt's mayor received relay runners with greetings from all parts of occupied Germany. One had come all the way from Berlin, but he was not even out of breath. The Russians had forbidden him to run through the streets in their sector; so he had taken the subway to the airport and flown the rest of the way.

The assemblage had expected to hear resounding words about democracy. Instead, they were haunted by a ghost out of the past. To the rostrum stepped Fritz von Unruh, one of Germany's greatest writers (Way of Sacrifice), a Junker officer who turned pacifist. Exiled by the Nazis, he had spent nearly eight years in the U.S. His grandfather had been the parliament's presiding officer. Von Unruh reminded his listeners that again & again since 1848 Germans have trampled freedom to death in their own country. When his audience squirmed, he peered from face to face. "What did you expect to hear from me? . . . Who among us could forgive himself?"

Then his intense speech slowed; his figure swayed. Officials supported him before he fell. He was carried out, his notes still clutched in his chalk-white hands. Mayor Kolb explained that the speaker was weak after a serious operation.

Wine of Seduction. But Unruh came back and softly spoke again:

"If my presence is to have any reason at all, it can only be to express what many are afraid to admit to themselves in the deepest cell of their hearts, what in the dust of ruins we still do not recognize: that every single one of us was very well able to choose for himself between right or wrong, justice or chaos. We must withstand the tempters--in whatever gilded cups they may be serving the red wine of seduction--when they cry from the right or from the left: 'Put your ballot in our box and your sins will be forgiven.' Let us at this moment and in this place give the order to our innermost hearts: 'Germans to the Front!'"

His face white, Unruh swayed again in the upsurge of applause. In the square, thousands who had heard him through loudspeakers cheered too. A good many Germans, who were eager to forgive themselves, would not listen to Fritz von Unruh; but even they knew that the voice was the voice of Germany's conscience.

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