DER ALTE TODAY

THE man who meets President Kennedy this week is not only the world's oldest head of government; at 85, Konrad Adenauer is the greatest German of his time, and one of the greatest Europeans.

At home, in the wake of elections he narrowly won, Adenauer is probably less popular than ever. In the West, some wish he had given way to a younger, more tractable man. Yet by an extraordinary combination of high moral fervor and ruthless political skill, Adenauer, at the start of his fourth term as Chancellor, remains the unshakable spokesman for his nation--the man who led defeated and despised Germany firmly into "the Christian world of the West."

Despite considerable concessions to his new government partners, the Free Democrats, Adenauer plainly remains his own boss. Der Alte blithely added to his Cabinet without consulting his coalition colleagues, further humiliated Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard (whom he considers too spineless to rule Germany) by withdrawing Erhard's unofficial title of Vice Chancellor, and coolly refused to give the Bundestag the customary summation of the new government's policies.

His position on Berlin remains essentially unshaken: no recognition for East Germany, no thinning out of the troops in West Germany, no recognition of Poland's Oder-Neisse frontier with East Germany. One demand he is prepared to make in Washington: the right of NATO, including West Germany, to determine, independently of the U.S., when nuclear weapons must be used. Says he: "A situation could arise where one hour might be decisive for us all and the President of the United States might not be reachable." If Washington wants a "flexible" approach to Moscow, Adenauer is not necessarily opposed. He merely warns: "The Russians will negotiate with you only when you are strong."

The Adenauer position must be seen against the background of his accomplishments during the last twelve years. At the age of 73, he took over a nation that then cost the U.S. taxpayer a billion dollars a year--and turned it into one of the world's strongest economies. West German steel production was 9 million metric tons a year (compared with 34 million today), there were 1,300,000 unemployed (none today), the average German had a monthly income of 243 marks (well over 500 today). Germany's economic recovery was largely the work of Ludwig Erhard, but it would not have been possible without Adenauer, who, while bored with the details of economics, believes firmly that the free individual, working hard for his own gain, can in the long run accomplish more than the state-subsidized creature.

Above all, Adenauer made West Germany's recovery part of Western Europe's. He became an enthusiastic ally of Jean Monnet's in fighting for the European Common Market--which Adenauer proposed as early as 1946--and he has brought about greater amity between France and Germany, Europe's traditional foes, than existed at any other time in history.

Adenauer has made a nation with little talent for democracy into a functioning parliamentary society. Its people, the "carnivorous sheep" who could be led to every form of political profligacy, have clamped total civilian control on the militarists who launched five aggressive wars in less than a century. West Germany today again boasts the biggest army on Western European soil. But today German arms are valued, not feared--except by Communists.

Adenauer did not shirk Germany's moral responsibility; he has made the nation assume its share of guilt for World War II and for the inhumanity toward the Jews (he negotiated a formal reparations agreement with Israel). Yet, he has combined common sense and compassion in declaring that a member of the Nazi Party who did not personally participate in crime must not be condemned "forever."

Born only five years after the earlier Iron Chancellor, Bismarck, welded the German states into a single nation, Adenauer may not realize the goal of a reunited Germany. But in the light of history, the goal of a united Europe may be more important. Adenauer has dedicated his life to the proposition that "we belong to the West," and he calls the Americans "the best Europeans of all." During a visit to Washington in 1953, he was deeply moved when he heard Deutschland uber Alles played after The Star-Spangled Banner. He recalls it as one of his great moments. At the time, he only said: "This is a turning point of history." .

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