Essay: The Bitburg Fiasco

When President Reagan and Chancellor Kohl of West Germany first discussed the idea, it seemed like a good one: a V-E day visit by the President to a cemetery in Germany where American and German soldiers lie side by side. It would be a ceremony of friendship and reconciliation.

It has, of course, become a disaster. It turned out that no American dead from World War II are buried in Germany. It would have to be a purely German cemetery. And it turned out that Bitburg, the one suggested by Chancellor Kohl, contained the graves of 47 members of the SS.

But even before the unraveling, and the storm that followed, was there anything wrong with the original scenario? Just a few months ago, after all, did not Kohl and President Mitterrand of France hold a moving reconciliation at the World War I battlefield at Verdun? When Kohl raised with Reagan the idea of a cemetery visit, he cited the Verdun ceremony as the model.

The analogy does not hold, and that Kohl and Reagan could miss the point is at the heart of the Bitburg fiasco. World War II was unlike World War I, or any other war. It was unique because Nazism was unique. Nazi Germany was not just another belligerent; it was a criminal state. Even that term is inadequate.

This does not make the 18-year-old who died defending the Nazi regime a criminal. Nor does it lessen the grief of his mother. But it does lessen the honor due him from the President of the United States. Even among the dead, we are required to make distinctions. It is not just grotesquely wrong to say, as the President said last week, that German soldiers are as much victims as those whom the Germans tortured and murdered. There is also a distinction to be drawn between Hitler's soldiers and the Kaiser's. Mitterrand's choice of Verdun, the awful symbol of World War I, shows a grasp of that distinction. The choice of Bitburg does not.

If the distinction seems subtle, after the discovery of Waffen SS graves the need for subtlety vanishes. Even if one claims that the ordinary German soldier fought for Germany and not for Hitler, that cannot be said of the Waffen SS. Hitler's 1938 edict declared them to be "a standing armed unit exclusively at my disposal." A further directive in 1940 elaborated their future role. After the war the Third Reich would be expected to contain many non-Germanic nationalities. The Waffen SS would be the special state police force to keep order among these unruly elements. They proved themselves during the war: 40 miles from Bitburg, the Waffen SS murdered 71 American POWs.

Of all the cemeteries of World War II, one containing such men is the most unworthy of a visit by an American President. The most worthy--the graves of Allied liberators or of the Nazis' victims--were originally excluded from President Reagan's agenda. After the furor, the Administration hastily scheduled a trip to a concentration camp. It believes it has balanced things.

For the Jews, a camp; for Kohl, Bitburg; and for American vets, perhaps a sonorous speech. The picture now contains all the right elements. But the elements do not sit well on the canvas. They mock one another. What can it mean to honor the murdered if one also honors the murderers and their Praetorian Guard? This is photo opportunity morality, and so transparent that it will convince no one, offend everyone.