Februar 1952

My program for Germany

By Chancellor Konrad Adenauer

The leader of the Bonn Republic explains why he hitched his nation to the star of the West, what he expects to get and what he is willing to offer.

 

The last quarter of 1951 has been marked by a growing diplomatic activity on the part of the community of free peoples. Realizing that most of the great tasks of our present day can no longer be solved in a national frame but only by the cooperation of nations, the leading statesmen of the democratic world have met frequently to analyze the international situation and to arrive at necessary decisions. All these conferences were determined by unshakable will to defend the endangered democratic freedoms and to preserve the threatened peace.

For the Federal Republic of Germany, the last few months were especially important, since Germany for the first time in the postwar period was admitted to conferences of the Western powers and permitted to join in discussion of the common goals, as far as they concern Germany, and in the search for the best methods by which those goals could be realized. The Federal Republic shares, thereby, responsibility for all the resulting duties and rights.

This is the result of a policy which the Federal Government has followed with determination - a policy which aims at integrating Germany into the community of free European peoples, and at cooperation as a full-fledged partner, with the great associations which the free world has created for the realization of the various plans for peace and prosperity.

After signing the contractual agreement which is now in preparation, the Federal Republic will have a partnership with the Allies based on international law. I take it as a good omen that the governments of the USA, Great Britain and France, supported by the public opinion of the whole free world, have given the Federal Republic an opportunity to join in the international discussion even before the signing of the formal agreement.

The results of the discussions in which the Federal Republic participated can be summarized as follows:

It is a common aim of the Allied governments and of the Federal Government to ease the East-West conflict by normalizing the political, economic, and military conditions in the contested areas.

A prerequisite for diplomatic action which could promise a permanent success is to balance the military forces either through a controlled disarmament or through the upbuilding of the western defense system.

All the plans and moves of the democratic nations aim exclusively at defense.

There is complete unanimity that any agreement with the eastern bloc must not be paid for with the loss of democratic freedoms in any of the territories which are now contested ground in the cold war.

Applied to Germany, these principles mean that the Federal Republic gains her full freedom as a democratic country and that this freedom will be guaranteed also to a reunited Germany established by free elections.

In the framework of this program the Federal Republic will seek security, liberty, and economic prosperity in cooperation with the other free peoples, especially in a European federation.

In following these principles, the Federal Republic will support with all its powers all efforts for the preservation of peace. This implies that the Federal Republic must, when necessary, make a military contribution to the defense of the democratic freedoms. She wants to do that in the framework of an integrated European army so as not to give any of her neighboring states cause for justified concern for its own security.

If we achieve these goals through energetic and patient labors, then we all, in East and West, will be able to concentrate our undivided efforts in the cause of peace - which is closest to our hearts and for which the Federal Government is now hopefully striving.

 

Quelle: United Nations World von Februar 1952, S. 10f.