Leading from Strength

Leading From Strength

It was an anniversary that passed without fanfares or triumphalism. May 23 marked the 30th birthday of the Federal Republic of Germany as a democratic country. Six days earlier, the 518 members of the lower house of parliament had assembled inside Bonn's Bundeshaus —a white, flat-topped, modern building with none of the grandeur of other, older European parliaments. Under a 30-ft. backdrop of the national insignia, a black eagle with spreading wings, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt took the podium. Sturdy-looking as a Hamburg dock, chin set squarely as a chopping block, he methodically reviewed the state of his nation three decades after its occupation by the three Western Allied powers that defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. The Federal Republic, he said, had unparalleled economic development, democratic security at home and high prestige abroad, detente in the traditional tinderbox of Central Europe. At one point in his speech, Schmidt said something that could not help stirring the silent emotion of every deputy in the chamber. Said he: "We, the older generation, should stop perhaps for just a moment, and with a bit of astonishment, say to ourselves, this nation already has its own history. And it is, I believe, the best and most dignified part of German history."

Few Europeans with long memories would quarrel with that freeze-frame assertion; it seemed to crystallize the strong new sense of national identity and self-confidence now emanating from Bonn. Long reluctant to exercise a leadership equal to its political and economic strengths, West Germany has finally come of age as a Continental power. Much of the credit for this belongs to Helmut Schmidt. More than any other postwar Chancellor since der Alte—the late Konrad Adenauer—Schmidt has shouldered his way into the front row of international leaders and has increasingly shown that he is not afraid to play a great-power role. Thanks largely to Schmidt's imposing political skills, says one ranking British diplomat, "the West Germans have moved from an occupation mentality to an independence of mind."

Last week Schmidt was preparing to fly to the U.S. for a four-day "private" visit that would include an important bit of unofficial summitry in Washington. President Carter has scheduled roughly three hours of talks with the Chancellor, who will also meet with congressional leaders and breakfast with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. In addition, the U.S. public will be able to take the Chancellor's measure when he fans out to give three major speeches in his fluent, almost unaccented English: at Columbia, S.C., where he will attend a centennial celebration for the late former Secretary of State James F. Byrnes; at Harvard, where he is to deliver the main commencement address and receive an honorary doctorate; and at the American Council on Germany, a foreign affairs organization in New York City.

Carter and Schmidt have a number of critical issues to discuss, ranging from energy and economics to defense and detente. Perhaps most of all, the two leaders need to improve their personal rapport. Says one Washington policymaker: "Let's face it. Our relations with West Germany have not gone as well as they