Berlin to Bonn

Among the musty stuffed owls, elephant skeletons and glass-eyed bears at Bonn's Koenig Museum, Western Germany's leaders met last week. They displayed more unity and guts than anyone had had a right to hope three months ago.

The delegates to Western Germany's "parliamentary council" were top politicians and union leaders who in the past had wanted nothing to do with a Western German government or the Western occupation authorities; most were grey survivors of concentration camps, or sadder & wiser leftovers from the Weimar Republic. Some were unknown men whose only distinction was that, under the Hitler regime, they had fought for freedom.

House for All. Drafting a constitution for a Western German state at the suggestion of the Western powers was an act of political courage. The Communist argument that a Western German government would split the nation has been losing ground ever since the Russians laid brutal siege to Berlin. Westphalia's Minister President Karl Arnold spoke of the Germans now under Russian domination: "We must be sure that what we construct will some day be a good house for all Germans."

The cheers from the delegates rattled the glass cases containing the museum's collection of stuffed rare birds.

The opening ceremonies over, the assembly got down to business in the shiny, modern auditorium of Bonn's Pedagogical Institute. What followed was as refreshing an exhibition of parliamentary vigor as Europe had had in years. Up rose portly Socialist Carlo Schmid to pledge his party's cooperation with the Christian Democrats (who hold a slight majority). In the past, the Social Democrats had fought the Christian Democrats tooth & nail in every election; but the Berlin airlift had galvanized both parties into common enthusiasm and common sense.

The applause greeting Schmid's announcement was cut short by long, lean Max Reimann, one of the two Communists elected to the assembly. His suit, shirt and tie were a symphony in grey. From a pink sheet of paper he read: "I wish to put forward this resolution: It is resolved that this assembly halt its deliberations on a separate West German constitution and disband immediately. This assembly violates the agreements of Yalta and Potsdam . . ."

Hoots and catcalls filled the room.

Yelled one delegate: "We've waited three years for the Russians to live up to Potsdam!"

Reimann plunged on: "This assembly is furthermore formed against the will of the German people . . ." There was bitter laughter. "Speaking of mandates," yelled one delegate, "why did the Russians call off the Berlin elections this year?"

Reimann tried once more: "All German parties [should] present a united German point of view . . ." Cried an old man from the back: "That's what Hitler used to present."

Der Tag. A brisk little Bavarian delegate proposed that delegates from Berlin be invited as "guests and advisers." Before a vote could be taken, Reimann was on his feet again. "Zur Geschaeftsordnung" (Point of order), he yelled, but was ignored. His face turned red, his grey hair flopped about wildly. "Traitors! . . . Stooges! ... Well, in a few months there will be no assembly, there will be none of you . . . der Tag is coming."

A formal, orderly vote was taken on Reimann's motion to abandon the assembly; all voted against him, except his one fellow Communist. Christian Democratic Leader Konrad Adenauer, Cologne's ex-mayor and one of Germany's most respected public figures, took over as chairman. Said he: "A start must be made so that Germany can earn a place among the free nations of the world . . ."

Reimann broke in once more: "Free, did you say?"

Adenauer cut him off imperiously: "I would like to remind you that we in th:'s chamber represent 46 million Germans in the only part of Germany where there is freedom from fear."

Adenauer's brave words, however, were not entirely correct. There was some fear in this assembly--the fear that, at Berlin or Moscow, the West might drop its plans for a Western German state in some sort of a deal with the Russians. Several delegates anxiously buttonholed observers from the U.S. Military Government to ask whether the Big Four negotiations might not render the whole performance at Bonn "somewhat academic."

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