Not So Fast

Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, no militarist, heard himself accused in Bonn last week of soliciting "a blank check for a pact between militarism and bureaucracy." The words were those of Opposition Leader Erich Ollenhauer, but they reflected the mood of the entire Bundestag.

Tousle-haired Socialist Ollenhauer was bristling over Adenauer's curt, 250-word "volunteers bill," a stopgap measure by which der Alte hoped to have the beginnings of a German army in time for the Big Four conference. Months of legislative deliberation would be needed to create a legal structure for Adenauer's ultimate goal of a twelve-division army and 1,300-plane air force. Meanwhile, promised the

Chancellor, the government would operate under the "volunteers bill" for less than a year, would enlist no more than 6,000 volunteers as "temporary civil servants" and would keep civilian control of the military.

Adenauer's Defense Minister Theodor Blank tried to reassure the Bundestag by saying that he shared all its fears: "The army must not be a state within a state. Parliamentary control must be made stronger than was formerly the case in Germany." Not one of these limitations, objected the opposition, was spelled out in the bill. And while the Bundestag might trust Adenauer, it did not trust the old army elite, and did not want an army born before the limitations on its officers' responsibilities were well understood in advance.

Perceiving that Adenauer was getting only the faintest support from his own side, Ollenhauer got bolder and bolder. Even to make a start on rearmament would hinder the possibility of a settlement at Geneva, said Ollenhauer. Der Alte was visibly angry when he followed Ollenhauer to the speaker's stand. "I had hoped," said he, "to discuss this problem with the Social Democratic faction in a democratic fashion. I have been disappointed."

From the Socialists came yelps of "slander, insolence--pfui, pfui!" but Adenauer persisted: "Herr Ollenhauer apparently ignores the fact that there exists an East German army and that the East German youth is being prepared for civil war"; to follow Ollenhauer's policy of neutrality would be to lead "Germans to the slaughterhouse like so many sheep."

After a ten-hour debate, the bill was referred to three committees for revision. There the Bundestag's reservations will be written in, including a provision for screening all officer candidates above the rank of major. With these changes, Adenauer still has a chance of getting his bill through just in time for Geneva.

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