The New Nationalism

Until recently, West Germany was largely content to let the U.S. and other NATO allies call the tune on East-West policy. Of late a militant, assertive new spirit has risen east of the Rhine. It is, in a sense, a new nationalism-- not the unsavory kind associated with jackboots and lebensraum but a more civilized version reflecting the muscle and emotion of a strong, reborn nation.

The new nationalism is based in part on a nagging suspicion that West Germany will be the loser in a cold-war settlement between the U.S. and Moscow; the fear is of a deal with Moscow that would reduce West Berlin's ties to West Germany, and permanently recognize Red rule in East Germany. With this in mind, so stalwart a supporter of the West as former Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano (now Christian Democratic leader in Parliament) recently reminded the Allies sharply that "it is intolerable to offer additional concessions. The aim of talks must be to convince the Soviet Union that the German people have an ineradicable right to self-determination."

In West Germany's rising chorus of protesting voices, none is more vehement than that of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer himself. These days, he makes no secret of his deep dissatisfaction with Western leadership. Der Alte urged the U.S., through visiting Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to limit the scope of this month's 18-nation disarmament talks in Geneva; he fears East and West will start bargaining over Germany if the discussion of disarmament bogs down. If a deal emerged, it could mean some form of East-West "disengagement," which might well permanently prevent the Germans from getting nuclear weapons, or even the long-range rockets capable of carrying them.

To the Fourth Power. Impetus for Adenauer's arguments is provided by aggressive Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, who demands that NATO become a ''fourth atomic power''; this obviously would make West Germany an atomic power as well, for despite NATO's control over them, nuclear warheads would be in the hands of the Bundeswehr. Most of the American nuclear weapons on the Continent are already on West German soil but under strict U.S. control.

Washington was angered last week by a blistering attack on U.S. defense policy written by Colonel Gerd Schmueckle, Strauss's press secretary. Wrote Schmueckle in the conservative weekly Christ und Welt: "There are still people in the West who talk of conventional warfare, pauses, rollbacks, escalation and the like . . . Since both sides have atomic weapons, the idea of a conventional war in Europe is military alchemy. " Schmueckle's conclusion : Western troops, including West Germans, should be prepared to fight it out with superbombs.

Voice of the Church. Many West Germans do not share Strauss's desire for the Bomb, but there is a rising clamor in many quarters for a more "active" foreign policy in Bonn. Adenauer's Free Democratic coalition partners, led by Erich Mende, constantly press the government to be more independent. And recently a memorandum approved by top leaders of Germany's Protestant church took a similar line: "The foreign policy of the government appears to us too one-sidedly defensive . . . We expect our Western Allies to assume the risk of a nuclear war in order to defend West Berlin's freedom" and to reunify divided Germany.

The spokesmen of the "new nationalism" have many faces. Most, like Adenauer and Strauss, are firm advocates of a strong Atlantic alliance and argue that they are merely trying to strengthen it. Others are more concerned with German unity. They would reject nuclear armament and would make other concessions to Russia for the sake of reunification. Off on another tangent is brash Hans Kroll, West Germany's ambassador in Moscow, whose loud advocacy of rapprochement with Russia last fall earned him a personal dressing down from Adenauer himself. Last week Kroll was again ordered home by the angry Chancellor, following press reports that in private talks he had been urging an astonishing array of concessions to Russia, among them a demilitarized West Berlin, admission of both East and West Germany to the United Nations, and a $2 1/2 billion West German credit to help the Soviet economy.

Few Germans would accept such a scheme, which is far closer to the old spirit of Rapallo than to the New Nationalism. But the Berlin stalemate tends to stifle West Germany's spirit, restricts its activities in other fields; the resulting irritation forces many to the conclusion that something must be done, though no one knows quite what. The fact that the West Germans are even considering "direct" talks with Russia reflects a significant psychological shift. It will require some getting used to by West Germany's allies, but it is not necessarily dangerous to Western unity. As TIME'S Bonn bureau sums up: "The new German nationalism is born not only of cold war fears and hopes, but also of the simple fact that West Germany is militarily and economically the most powerful nation of Western Europe, the second most powerful of the Atlantic alliance. With this to back them up, the West Germans are raising their voice, and they mean to be heard."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.