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In last week's decision to send more U.S. troops to Germany (see above), Reuter's long campaign was beginning finally to bear fruit. But the Allied sense of urgency was still muffled by distrust of the Germans. Twice within a generation they had goose-stepped Europe, and the world, into war. Fellow Europeans had a saying: "The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet." Looking at the old enemy as a new friend, they could not help but ask: "The Germans to arms—again? And if not . . .?" The Western world was slowly coming to the realization that its choice was not between an armed and a disarmed Germany. Its choice was between a Germany armed by the West and willing to fight and a Germany armed by and made to fight for the Kremlin.
Dragging Feet. On paper, the nations of non-Communist Europe could overmatch the basic resources of Communist Europe. On each side of the Iron Curtain live about 250 million people. The Europeans to the west of the Curtain possess greatly superior technical know-how and industrial capacity. They can, for instance, make 50 million tons of steel a year against the 28 million-ton capacity of Russia and its satellites. Yet if West Germany's 50 million people and 15 million-ton steel capacity should pass into Red control, preponderance would pass to the Reds. Even with the German industrial capacity still in Western hands, there were calamitous dangers in the present situation of free Europe. The free nations had scarcely made a beginning at integrating their industrial efforts. France's bravest postwar gesture, the Schuman Plan to unite Western European coal and steel production, was bogging down in nationalist jealousies.
The military picture was even blacker.
Against Russia's 100 divisions the Western Allies had a mere 15, including two U.S. divisions in Germany. Only one of the U.S. divisions—the 1st Infantry—was organized for combat. The program to rearm Europe with U.S. aid had dragged through a year of staff conferences, then dragged through Congress and was last week dragging through more staff conferences. Europeans had the impression that, so far, rearmament was just talk. This impression was 99% correct.
Urgent Voices. The defeatism that arose from Europe's defenseless state was the Kremlin's greatest asset in Western Europe.
Like the rest of Europe, the Germans needed at least the chance of a successful stand against Communist power. A substantial U.S. military commitment in Berlin and on the Elbe would give them, and all Europeans, the feeling that "then everything would be different." Instead of a German and European Dunkirk and then a dreary war of liberation all over again, there would be at least the prospect of stopping the Communist push as soon as it started. And out of the common defense could rise a mighty, cohesive, free Atlantic community. This was the prospect for which West Germany's leaders were striving.
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had said: "The most important single thing that needs to be done right now is for America to send more divisions to Europe. That would give Europe the courage to arm."
The Socialists' Kurt Schumacher had seen the safe prerequisite for German rearmament in "monumental Western military might on the Elbe."