TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93HT0289> <link 93XP0168> <link 93HT0425> <link 90TT1974> <title> 1950s: Europe </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1950s Highlights </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> Europe: 1950s </hdr> <body> [Picking up the pieces of Europe after World War II and getting the nations to cooperate in their own defense was the U.S.'s top priority in the early 1950s. The war was still not legally over because of Germany, occupied by the U.S., Britain and France in the Western zone, and by the Soviets in the East. The prospect of a reunified, rearmed Germany frightened many Europeans. But the Soviets dangled tempting suggestions for peace terms that would end the occupation. One such offer came in 1952, promising that a unified Germany could rearm, so long as it did not then join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.] (April 7, 1952) At half-hour intervals, charges d'affaires of the U.S. Britain and France called on Soviet Foreign Minister Vishinsky with replies to the Soviet offer to "neutralize" Germany. Though the notes were identical, Vishinsky gravely heard each one read aloud, as if hearing it for the first time. It was all very polite, and diplomatically correct. The West expressed doubts that Germany can be unified until free elections include the Soviet zone. The West wondered whether Russia intends to give Germany back the seized lands east of the Oder-Neisse rivers. And the West expressed grave reservations about letting a unified and independent Germany arm itself: arming inside a European army is one thing; arming on its own would be a "backward step." As France's Robert Schuman put it the day before: "Never leave Germany to herself is my principle." Then the West sat back to wait for West Germany's response. Well did it know the eagerness that quickens every German's heart at the prospects of uniting their divided country. The West, and its good friend Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, are engaged in a great gamble: to give West Germany its independence, and to integrate its troops into a European army before the cries for a free and unified Germany can thwart the plan. So far, 76-year-old Chancellor Adenauer has managed to avoid the accusation that he seeks to keep Germany divided. But his popularity is precarious; the lure of the Soviet siren is strong, and he has but 17 months left in office (if a parliamentary vote of confidence could topple the government in West Germany, Adenauer might well have fallen by now). Last week Adenauer, fighting against time, announced that West Germany would sign a peace "contract" with the Western occupying powers and get its freedom in May. (June 2, 1952) For the second time in 33 years, the U.S., Great Britain and France this week made peace with their defeated enemy, Germany. Flags flew in the German capital and Chancellor Adenauer proclaimed a holiday for the nation's schoolchildren as the Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, France, the U.S. and West Germany put their pens (each used his own) to the "Convention of Relations between the Three Powers and the Federal Republic of Germany." Even before the agreement was signed, Russia sent a note calling it "a flagrant violation" of the Potsdam Agreement, which determined Four-Power rule in occupied Germany. Since Potsdam also guaranteed the Allies their right to stay in Berlin, the Russian threat was clear. The new Republic could count on many more such menacing noises in the future. [Allied troops would end their occupation, but remain in Germany as invited protectors. The West German armed forces were to be integrated into a European Defense Community, under NATO command. That plan foundered on the opposition of a weak and fearful France. A wave of disillusionment threatened to lead to American withdrawal from Europe. Finally, in the fall of 1954, the terms of a looser association were worked out under which a fully sovereign West Germany could proceed with rearmament.] (March 7, 1955) The West German Bundestag last week voted 314 to 157 for German rearmament within the Atlantic alliance. It was not the last word, for the French and German Upper houses have still to be heard from, but it was the decisive advance toward the long-debated, often-despaired-of goal of lining up the West Germans with the West. Both sides in the cold war had labeled the German vote a point of no return, and the Communists threatened retribution should the decision go against them. But in a speech a fortnight ago, Foreign Minister Molotov prepared himself a retreat by distinguishing between the "ratification" and "implementation" of German rearmament. Molotov apparently anticipated that the Paris accords could not be prevented from becoming law, had swallowed his defeat and had begun to prepare for the next effort to delay and demoralize. [Austria had also been partially occupied by Soviet troops, and for ten years and through 400 negotiating sessions, there they stayed. In the wake of the West German choice of a Western military umbrella instead of reunification, the Soviets finally agreed to restore Austria's sovereignty.] (April 25, 1955) "Austria will be free," Chancellor Julius Raab triumphantly telephoned back from Moscow to Vienna. "We get back our homeland in its entirety. The war prisoners and other prisoners will see their fatherland again." The Austrian state radio burst into Strauss waltzes and victory marches. In those four hectic days, the Russians briskly disposed of all obstacles they themselves had raised in ten years. They made real concessions. The big one: agreement that all occupation troops be withdrawn immediately after the state treaty is signed, "and in any case not later than Dec. 31, 1953." The price: Raab's pledge that Austria "intends not to join any military alliance or permit military bases on her territory, and will pursue a policy of independence in regard to all states." The Russians left one reservation dangling: they demanded that Austria ask for a four-power guarantee to defend Austria against any new attempt at Anschluss by Germany. [While Europeans and U.S. thrashed out plans for military cooperation of the Continent, the Europeans had been slowly proceeding with plans for economic integration. Here too, formidable barriers of ancient enmity and touchy nationalism had to be overcome.] (May 26, 1951) In Paris this week, the representatives of six Western European nations (France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg) met to put their initials on a document that embodied a great hope. It was the draft treaty for the Schuman Plan, finished after nine months of negotiations that often seemed hopeless. The draft must still be approved by the member nations' parliaments, where it faces some stiff opposition. But this week's agreement was a huge step forward. As the plan's "godfather," Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, looked on happily, the plan's real father, French Economic Planner Jean Monet, listed its positive achievements: -- "The supranational character of the European community of coal and steel." -- "The creation of a market of 150 million consumers and the common use of coal and steel resources." -- "The elimination of restrictive cartel practices and excessive concentration of economic power...The Schuman Plan can [substitute] for the barriers of the past, which have divided and impoverished us until the present, common rules accepted by all...for the common good..." This week's agreement would not have been possible without U.S. pressure. The last big obstacle had been raised by German industrialists who did not want to break up Germany's coal-steel cartels. The U.S. proposed a compromise. Its chief point: let the German mills keep ownership of enough coal mines to cover 75% of their needs. When the Germans balked, U.S. High Commissioner John McCloy threatened that if the Germans settled the Schuman Plan, he would impose even tougher anti-cartel measures. That did it. A European newsman covering the ceremony said: "If Europe is ever unified in our lifetime, it will be because of Washington--or Moscow." (August 18, 1952) Prussia's greatest statesman, Prince Otto von Bismarck, often maintained that the squabbling states of Germany would never be united except by blood and iron, but lived to acknowledge that coal and iron played the larger role. Last week six Western European nations, including the ancient enemies France and Germany who have three times tried blood and iron, gave coal and iron a chance to unite them. In the sharp-spired city of Luxembourg (pop. 65,000) Sunday-suited burghers, many of them heavy workers from the Grand Duchy's steel mills, stolidly watched the nine-man High Authority of the European Coal-Steel Community take charge of an industrial colossus which will out-produce Russia in steel and rival her in coal. The Schuman Plan had become fact. Yet the directors of Europe, Inc., who consider themselves responsible not to the governments but to the people of Europe, regard the Schuman Plan Treaty not only as a mandate to set up the Coal-Steel Community but also as a mandate to lay the foundations for a new supernation. Its name: the United States of Europe. (January 28, 1957) Out of the ashes and gutted cities of World War II, idealists tried to create a united Europe by means of a political idea: the Council of Europe. They failed. Then came the hardheaded soldiers and diplomats who wanted to "build Europe" through a European army in a common uniform--and in the ugly, fruitless debate over EDC, all the idealism almost went out of the European dream. Last week, somewhat to their surprise. Europeans found themselves being offered a third chance to build Europe. This time the approach was economic, and surprisingly enough, the chances were good. For nearly a year, in a chateau outside Brussels, a small corps of economists, technicians and bureaucrats have been at work to establish a common market (goods and workers moving as freely as between California and New York) among the six nations--France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg--which belong to the European Coal and Steel Community. These planners have the backing of every government involved, and they mean business. Their plan calls for: -- Creating a common market of 160 million people. -- Cutting tariffs between the six nations by 30% in the next four years, and gradual elimination, over a maximum period of 15 years, of all tariffs and import quotas between them. -- Establishing, during the same period, common tariffs against outside nations at an average level lower than France's, higher than the Low Countries'. -- Abolishing discriminatory transportation charges, such as higher rates for goods originating in another country. -- Permitting free movement of labor, so that labor-hungry areas such as Germany's Ruhr can sop up some of Italy's 2,000,000 unemployed. -- Permitting free movement of capital, thus making it easier for European industrialists to invest their money where it will be most productive. -- Equalizing corporate taxes and working conditions. [The results, codified in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, created an economic colossus that later also included Britain, Denmark, Greece and Ireland, but did not lead to the political unification that its planners had hoped for.] </body> </article> </text>