The Anniversary

Twenty years ago, the Third Reich died amid the fiery rubble of conquered Berlin, having pulled into ruins much of the rest of the Continent as well. To day, Western Europe is prosperous and at peace. And yet, as the nations last week commemorated Hitler's Zusam-menbruch, the very way they went about it proved -- for all the gleaming miracles of glass and stone -- how wide spread are the new divisions that afflict Europe two decades later.

While Paris erupted with fireworks, flowers and music on V-E day, West Germany's Bundestag, not surprisingly, voted down any German notation of the anniversary. "We truly have no occasion to celebrate this day," said Chancellor Ludwig Erhard in a moving speech. "The guilt and fate of this epoch of our history will not leave us for generations." Moscow, however, was determined to rub it in on the West Germans. Premier Aleksei Kosygin flew to East Berlin to join Puppet Walter Ulbricht and Poland's Premier Jozef Cyrankiewicz in a parade of thousands of Russian and East German troops.

And Soviet Ambassador to Bonn Andrei Smirnov insolently sent out invitations to a massive reception " to celebrate the victory of the Soviet people in the great patriotic war." Acidly, the Palais Schaumburg said that attendance would show "lack of dignity." So few Germans sent back R.S.V.P.s that Smirnov formally protested the boycott to the German Foreign Ministry.

Petty Quibbling. The West Germans had hoped to use last week to emphasize their own democratic achievements and the need for reunification, for they were celebrating an event of their own --the tenth anniversary of the Paris treaties that restored West German sovereignty. Among their major allies, only Charles de Gaulle failed to send a congratulatory message. Far worse, Bonn failed to get unanimous Western backing for a new initiative on reuniting Germany. Even a routine statement hailing reunification as an admirable goal bogged down in petty quibbling. France insisted on phrases making reunification necessary not only to Germany, "but in the interests of all the peoples of Europe," thus coming too close for U.S. comfort to Gaullist overtures to the Communist satellites to share in his self-sufficient Europe.

It was only the latest disappointment De Gaulle has inflicted on the Germans and his other allies. Just a few weeks earlier, le grand Charles had slapped down a proposed Common Market ministerial meeting to discuss further political integration among the Six. Then, in a television address he went further than ever before in expressing his contempt for the goals of European unity and American partnership, to which the Germans especially are idealistically committed. "In sum," intoned De Gaulle, "however large may be the glass offered to us from the outside, we prefer to drink from our own, while touching glasses all around."

Mood of Angst. This sort of glass touching has all but shattered for West Germany the high hopes with which it concluded the Franco-German Treaty of Friendship back in 1963. From Common Market cooperation to German hopes for some sort of Atlantic nuclear sharing, De Gaulle has proved increasingly obdurate in insisting on his vision of an independent France running Europe, with West Germany at best a junior partner. As a result, the Germans have fallen into a new mood of Angst about their own role in Europe.

De Gaulle has even managed to estrange his most ardent followers in West Germany, including such a strong German "Gaullist" as Bavarian Boss Franz Josef Strauss. Fortnight ago, De Gaulle with great fanfare entertained Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. At the end of the visit, Gromyko professed to be delighted to discover that the French accepted the existence of two Germanys. Though the French mumbled a denial later, the Germans were unconvinced--and an angry Strauss expostulated that "he who today renounces Breslau and Stettin will renounce Leipzig and Magdeburg tomorrow, and quite certainly Berlin the day after tomorrow."

France Disapproves. Indeed, De Gaulle has been busy stirring up mischief all over the world. Having opposed U.S. policy in South Viet Nam all along, last week he called a Cabinet meeting to discuss, among other things, the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic, and a spokesman disclosed that "France disapproves and wants the withdrawal of troops who have landed in Santo Domingo." He underscored his virtual withdrawal from SEATO by sending only an observer to last week's SEATO conference in London. Running out of targets, he even took a swipe at Britain's commitment to defend Malaysia if Sukarno's Indonesia ever decides to carry out its threat to "crush" the new nation.

As De Gaulle often enough reminds his allies, the West does indeed owe him a debt for putting France back on its political feet again. Even in his insistence on a measure of economic and military autonomy from the U.S. for a united Europe, De Gaulle would have considerable logic on his side if he were not the chief obstacle to unity. But as Lyndon Johnson observed in his own V-E day message to Europe, "There are some efforts today to replace partnership with suspicion, and the drive toward unity with a policy of division."

Though such efforts often seem dismaying, in a way they are the inevitable fruits of American and European success in the last 20 years--a testament to how well the restoration of the European's national identity has succeeded.

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