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Near the Heart. As far as it went, the story of Germany's rise in 1953 was good for the democracies and bad for Communism. But other years and other men will determine whether there will be a happy ending. Konrad Adenauer is 78 this month. In the frost of his rigid, imperious command over machinery of both party and government, few sprouts of leadership have been able to grow. "How long I can hold my present office no one can tell," he said. "Even I cannot. My health and strength are excellent. Nothing, however, is nearer my heart than that before I go ... I shall have brought Germany securely into the community of free and democratic peoples of the Christian West . . ."
The question mark of the future intrudes like a brooding outsider on the encouraging spectacle of a West Germany healthily revived, strongly and democratically led, dedicated by its electorate to a United Europe as well as to a new Germany. "We never question Adenauer's sincerity when he talks of Franco-German agreement," said a top French diplomat. "He is truly European . . . But we don't forget another German, Stresemann, who wanted good relations with France. Six months after he died [1929], what happened? His party and policy collapsed."
Konrad Adenauer himself has also seen the brooding outsider. If the dream of Europe collapses, there is, he fears, the possibility of a revival of German militarism. "I never minimize this possibility if Europe fails," said he last week. "If France refuses to accept reconciliation with her former enemy, how we would accept the effect of such a reversal I do not know . . . The whole population would be affected. We cannot say what would happen. But we have had experience in the past."
"Perhaps I had better not die yet awhile," said Konrad Adenauer. "There is still too much to do."