"I love Germany so much," wrote the French novelist Francois Mauriac, "that I am glad there are two of them." That phrase is cited with increasing frequency these days, but the sentiment is old. Clemenceau expressed it first as he wistfully reflected on the delicate balance of power nurtured in the 19th century by Austria's Prince Metternich. Since World War II the division of Germany has been central both to the tensions of the cold war and to the stability of the cold peace that accompanied it.
Throughout this period West Germany's allies paid facile allegiance to the goal of reunification, treating with abandon the fact that this simple dream involved some nightmarish complexities. It was an easy wish to proclaim, since it did not seem that the gods would ever grant it. Now, amid the widespread Western joy over last week's freedom dance at the Brandenburg Gate, comes a more sobering realization: the postwar division of both Germany and Europe seems to be tumbling toward the ash heap of history faster than preparations are being made for whatever new order might arise in its stead.
The two alliances that have divided Europe (and Germany) for 40 years seem less urgent militarily in the Gorbachev era. But they now must play a political role that is no less critical. At the beginning of 1989, way back when Hungary's Communist rulers were just considering whether to allow independent parties and Poland's were still debating whether to talk with Solidarity, the challenge seemed to be to find ways to ease Eastern Europe from the claws that had clutched it for four decades. In fact, Moscow seemed all too eager to remove those claws. So eleven amazing months later, amid the euphoria over headlines and live telecasts that continue to amaze, comes an added and even trickier challenge: steering Europe toward a continent free of rivalries -- with an unthreatening Germany in the middle and a secure U.S.S.R. on the edge.
The foundation of the old European order was the formal creation of two Germanys in 1949 and the decision by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer a few years later to tether West Germany to the Atlantic Alliance. For the Soviet Union, which subjugated East Germany as a satellite and buffer, this meant that any war with the West would occur on German rather than Russian soil. For the other Europeans, it meant a respite from the problem of German militarism. For the U.S., it made possible the creation of a strong NATO alliance to lead the struggle for containing the Soviets.
Enshrined in the constitution that established West Germany was the goal of reunification, but even conservative leaders there were privately saying as recently as six months ago that this was a theoretical aim, not an immediate one. In January East German leader Erich Honecker said he could envision the 100-mile barbed barrier around West Berlin that was the grotesque symbol of ) Germany's division remaining in place for another century. Few would have challenged that prediction.