WEST GERMANY: LAND OF THE ALMOST-FREE

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WEST GERMANY

"I am very satisfied," said stern-faced Konrad Adenauer last week, with a rare smile. He, the Chancellor and Foreign Minister of West Germany, had just come from a meeting in Paris with the U.S. Secretary of State, British Foreign Secretary and French Foreign Minister. For the first time, the German had been treated as an equal by the conquerors. "We have become partners only six years after the collapse," said Adenauer trimphantly.

The end of the Occupation, and the departure of the Allied Commissioners, was drawing near—but not complete independence. What made Adenauer rejoice was the drawing of a "roof treaty," to go into effect when—in the terms of the occupying powers' odd figure of speech—the walls are added. The treaty will make West Germany an almost-free state. West Germany must agree to let allied troops remain, but as defenders, not occupiers. She must allow the allies to intervene if the security of their forces seems threatened, from within Germany or without. Most important of all, she will get her near-independence only when she has contributed forces (probably twelve divisions) to a European army, and this army plan is ratified by all the Western nations and the West Germans themselves.

These ifs are the walls, waiting to be put up, but last week the roof was ready and Konrad Adenauer could smile.

Westchester-on-the-Rhine. Striking proof of Germany's resurgence is to be found in the university town of Bonn (pop. 124,000), on the banks of the Rhine 15 miles south of Cologne. It lies in the British zone, but like Washington, D.C., it is a neutral enclave, which West Germans have made their capital. In recognition of this, the U.S. is now moving out of its occupation headquarters in Frankfurt (in the unbombed I. G. Farben office building), to make its new GHQ in Bonn. This move is symbolic of Bonn's status as the newest and one of the most important of world capitals.

Almost every day this month, moving vans from Frankfurt-am-Main have lumbered into Bonn. Behind them trailed the chrome-grinning cars of U.S. occupation families, loaded with children, cats and dogs, Bavarian cuckoo clocks. Some 1,000 U.S. occupation employees and dependents attached to the Office of U.S. High Commissioner for Germany—HICOG for short—have moved to the capital. In overcrowded Bonn, they will jostle beside burgeoning French and British communities.

To make the move, the U.S. has spent nearly $25 million to build a Westchester-on-the-Rhine on several acres of apple orchards and woodland in Bad Godesberg, a suburb on the southern edge of Bonn. For HICOG headquarters, there is a seven-section concrete and glass structure with a 1,500-seat cafeteria and a 100,000-volume library. Four miles away stands a cluster of new two-story apartment houses, 458 apartments in all, each furnished down to the last curtain, dessert spoon and teacup. They range from tasteful bedroom, living room, kitchen combinations for bachelors to four-bedroom duplexes, and offer three kinds of decor: Greenwich Village modern, heavy German, or imitation French classical. Rent: free.