Germany, the New Partner

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BEFORE my recent trip to the United States, a number of agreements were signed in Paris which are of importance to the entire free world. They establish a new community of the Western European peoples; they provide for Germany's admission into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; they create the basis for lasting German-French coöperation; and, finally, they introduce Germany as a free partner into the community of free nations. The new agreements will decisively influence the political and economic future of Europe. Also, since they constitute part of the organizational structure established by the Atlantic Community in furtherance of its aims, they will have a strong influence on the non-European members of the Atlantic Pact, including the United States.

Three problems had to be solved. First, Germany was supposed to become an equal partner in the community of free nations. This called for ending the occupation of Germany and granting the Federal Republic of Germany full power over its domestic and foreign affairs. These aims had already been embodied in the Contractual Agreements--or the Treaty on Germany, to use our name--which were signed in Bonn on May 26, 1952, by representatives of the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, France and the Federal Republic. However, the agreements were linked indissolubly with the European Defense Community Treaty and were to enter into force simultaneously with it. Some of the provisions actually referred to agreements contained in the E.D.C. Treaty, for instance with regard to the stationing of troops. Therefore, new agreements had to be formally concluded, and all those provisions which had become obsolete because of the failure of the E.D.C. Treaty and subsequent political developments had to be revised. All participants desired to renegotiate as few of the matters covered by the Bonn treaties as possible; they sought instead to take note of the parts that were still valid and usable and to extend these if they could and to eliminate the parts that were obsolete. This, in fact, is what was done. On the whole, therefore, the new treaty follows the pattern of the old Bonn agreements. It returns sovereignty to Germany. The only restrictions are those resulting from the position of the Allies in Berlin and the relationship between the Three Powers and the Soviet Union within Germany...