WESTERN EUROPE: The Fateful Hour

Night fell and lights were snapped on in the big, modernistic debating hall of West Germany's Bundestag. Wearily and warily the Bundestag debated the most important decision in its brief history—a vote on the treaties which will end the occupation, in exchange for a West German promise to rearm.

From the rostrum spoke the dry, spare, 76-year-old Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Ordinarily icy and unemotional, Adenauer summoned up all the passion and eloquence he could muster. "It is the fateful hour of Germany!" he cried. "We are at the crossroads of slavery and freedom...