Ten Years Later

West Germany gasped painfully last week as the Yalta documents arrived in time for the last stages of the debate on the Paris accords in the Bundesrat (upper house). Said Hesse's Socialist Minister President Georg August Zinn, attempting to make Socialist capital out of the chilling dialogue on German dismemberment; "The Yalta documents . . . show that it was not the will of one, but of all the Allied powers, not only to split Germany, but at the same time to merge the split parts into greater military and economic systems. I have a dark feeling that the issues discussed at Yalta are being materialized by merging West Germany into the military system of the West. The merger of Middle Germany* into an Eastern system of alliances will [make] the reunification of Germany impossible."

But even that new fuel failed to set off a fire. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had the votes. He also had an impressive argument: under the Paris treaties, a mere ten years after Yalta, Germany will receive national sovereignty, the right to create a 500,000-man army, to join NATO and a seven-nation Western European Union. After a short debate, the Bundesrat completed (29 to 9) ratification of the Paris treaties. Now the only possible roadblock to German rearmament is the French Senate, which is scheduled to vote this week.

Tired, 79-year-old Konrad Adenauer, only 24 hours out of the sickbed in which he had lain for ten days, smiled broadly over a triumphant glass of champagne. Said he: "This does away with Yalta."

*Patriotic German jargon for the Soviet zone, meaning that there is a third part of Germany further east still to be recovered: the 44,231 square miles given to Poland and Russia after World War II.

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