Precedents & Safeguards

By joining the Western alliance, West Germany got the right, and the duty, to form an army. Chancellor Adenauer was anxious to get started before the new, balmy atmosphere from the East thawed his nation's resolve. Knowing that he must beware of many, inside and out of Germany, who still fear German militarism, he moved surely as ever, but more quickly than usual. On Monday morning last week he visited President Heuss. tendered his own resignation as Foreign Minister (a job he has combined with the Chancellorship for four years), and nominated two key new ministers: P:To be Foreign Minister: his friend, Heinrich von Brentano (see box). P:To be Minister for Defense: small (5 ft. 4 in.) Trade Unionist Theodor Blank, 49, since 1950 head of a shadow defense ministry called "Bureau Blank," which is set up in a dingy brick building in a Bonn back street. In 1933, Union Organizer Blank chose unemployment rather than the Nazi Arbeitsfront. When war came he joined the Wehrmacht as a private, finished up as a first lieutenant in an American P.W. camp. Blank makes frequent speeches about how the new army will be de-Prussianized; the real soldiers who will command the troops are currently being kept out of the headlines.

At the same time, Adenauer put pressure on the Bundesrat (the Upper House) to push through an emergency bill for recruiting army volunteers, without waiting for the complicated enabling legislation setting up terms of the new army.

But there are others, too, who fear a Blank check. They protested that Adenauer's three-paragraph emergency bill set precedents without creating safeguards. By a unanimous vote, the Bundesrat (where Adenauer usually has his way) sent his bill back with a demand for clarification of policy.

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