After all the international fretting over whether Konrad Adenauer would get a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag for German rearmament, the Bundestag last week gave its answer. It overwhelmingly enacted the constitutional amendments needed to clear the way for the creation of the new German armed forces. With all but a few Socialists voting in rare solidarity with Adenauer's Christian Democrats, the vote was an overwhelming 390 to 20.
Adenauer got his majority by making a sizable concession to the Socialists: he agreed to place the army under command of a partially autonomous Defense Minister (except in war, when the...
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