194
PARTISAN REVIEW
But a return of Germany, even a miraculously reunited Ger–
many, to a special role between East and West would make no sense ,
either politically or culturally, unless it was a great power role - and
the Germans feel it in their bones that this is an anachronism. They
will continue to be a part of the West, both of its culture and of its
alliance, which is also the consensus of most of their fellow Germans
east of the border. And no quarrels arising from transitory German
movements and transitory American policies will change this fun–
damental fact.
v .
Many observers, both German and non-German , have ex–
pected that the stationing of the missiles in the absence of an agree–
ment at the Geneva negotiations would be by far the most serious
test yet for the internal peace and institutional stability of the second
German Republic. Writing two months after the peak of the demon–
strations, followed by the decisions of the Social Democratic party
against stationing and that of the Bundestag in its favor , I find that
so far , the test has been stood remarkably well.
The demonstrations mobilized literally millions of people, and
they were impressive by their almost entirely peaceful conduct. The
advocates of violent resistance proved a small minority , and they
were isolated almost everywhere . Keeping violence to a minimum
was facilitated by advance contacts between the responsible leaders
of the movement and the police . Beyond the normal kind of legal
demonstrations, the movement engaged at a number of key points in
tactics of "civil disobedience," such as blockading access to barracks
and selected missile sites, until the police carried them away . While
such tactics were regarded as violating the law, because they infringed
the freedom of access of German or American soldiers, the police ,
too , avoided violence and took note of the identity of particularly in–
sistent "blockaders" only in a limited number of cases. In general,
there was an almost cheerful atmosphere of mutual tolerance: the
police regarded the demonstrators not as a "fifth column" of the
Soviets, as a government minister inclined to particularly offensive
language had described the movement, but as an assembly of decent
but deeply worried people - and the demonstrators did not regard
the police as "the pigs," as the advocates of violence described them,
but as ordinary fellow citizens doing their duty.
