Germans Bearing Arms

In Paris' gloomy old Quai d'Orsay, representatives of six neighboring nations stepped forward one by one last week to initial a draft treaty which would, if ratified, pool the armed forces of France, Germany, the Benelux nations and Italy into a common European army. Surrounded as the treaty was by more pessimism than at any time in its 15 months' gestation, the initialing ceremony was nonetheless something of a triumph when set against the tangled nationalisms and ancient hatreds of Europe.

It would set up a European Defense Community (EDC) with a board of commissioners, a council of ministers, a six-nation assembly and a court of disputes. EDC's soldiers will form a truly multinational army. They will wear the same uniforms, use the same weapons, serve under the same commander in chief: France's Alphonse Juin, 63, SHAPE commander of Central European ground forces.

To allay French fears that German recruits might coalesce into a new nationalistic Wehrmacht, EDC will limit its national contingents to relatively' small divisional formations known as "groupements": 12,000 men apiece for armored groupements, 13,000 for infantry. The groupement will be the largest formation of men from the same country; at army corps level (i.e., three or four groupements), national units will be put into multinational commands in which French, German, Italian and Benelux staff officers will serve side by side. Probable size of the European army, when & if it is recruited: 43 groupements (14 French, 12 German, 12 Italian, 5 Benelux).

Between initialing and ratification, between planning and recruiting lay many a debate and a difficulty. EDC cannot become reality until West Germany signs its "peace contract," gets its need of sovereignty, and agrees to participate in EDC. In all probability, no German soldier will put on his European suit until 1954.

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Across the border in East Germany, no such slow democratic debate stayed the Communists. Declared East German Premier Otto Grotewohl: if West Germany elects to go with the West, East Germany will arm to the teeth. To a cheering Red rally, he added: "The signing of the general agreement [between Bonn and the Western powers] will produce in Germany the same conditions that existed in Korea. The great danger arises of a fratricidal war of German against German."

Grotewohl's threats raised goose pimples throughout Western Germany. So did the martial look of East Germany's 65,000 well-armed "People's Police." Unlike EDC, an army on paper, East Germany's army has long been a fact. Lodged in barracks throughout the Soviet zone are 65,000 Communist "policemen" (average age: 19), organized into 24 "police service commands." Each command is the hard core of a fighting division, well trained by Red army officers in the use of tanks and heavy artillery. Last week the Reds announced that they will expand the People's Police into a full-fledged national army, probably 25 divisions strong, "to defend the fatherland."

West German Communists also got orders to sabotage German participation in EDC. They were quick to obey. In the ancient steel city of Essen (pop. 500,000), 30,000 Reds brawled with the cops. Scores were hurt; one young Red was killed. It was, as all Germany noted, the first time since Hitler that Germans had killed Germans in public dispute.

The question before the house was no longer whether Germans should bear arms, but whether only the East Germans shall.

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