Word: bonne
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Everything seemed to be going wrong at Bonn. The Social Democratic Party bitterly fought the Western Powers' "interference" in the work of the constitutional convention because it tended to impose too many limitations upon German sovereignty. The Western Allies, cried the Socialists, were trying to create a federal republic with such a weak central government that it could never properly govern. The Socialists were equally mad at their fellow Germans in the Christian Democratic Union, which was stringing along with the plans for a weaker government. At a Socialist meeting in Hannover last week, gaunt, one-armed, one-legged...
Then things began to happen. With Russian pressure for a new four-power conference and abandonment of the proposed West German state (see above), the West could not afford to have the Bonn talks collapse now. First, the West offered important concessions strengthening the proposed central government's legislative and fiscal powers; this was designed to pacify the Socialists. The wires buzzed between Washington and U.S. officials in Germany. Next, the State Department's old Germany hand, Robert Murphy, left his desk at half a day's notice, flew to Germany. After days of conferences, Schumacher...
...their latest memo to Bonn, the Allies asked that financial powers in the constitution be left largely in the hands of the separate states. This was a big pat on the back for the Christian Democrats and their conservative backers. Although the Social Democrats still refused to make any compromise with their opponents or with the Allies, they may back down. They know there will probably be no more concessions from the united allies, or from the Christian Democrats who are now certain of Allied support...
...people know how important the state of their country is to Western Europe at this time, from an economic or a military point of view. The fact that a political rupture within Germany is a constant headache to the West, is a good bargaining point for Social Democrats at Bonn. The growing hope among many of the German people for complete unification can also be exploited. In fact, Russia, in an effort to take advantage of those hopes, has already established a "People's Congress" in the Eastern Zone, which is ready to announce a new "All German State...
Such propaganda, plus the Allied check on nationalist hopes at Bonn, may persuade enough delegates not to give in, but to keep on trying to get exactly what they want so there will be no constitution at all. Even if the Allies give in to the Social Democrats the action would antagonize the Christian Democrats and result only in another deadlock. If the Bonn council does fail it will be a major defeat for the Western powers who have committed themselves to a German State, and the Germans and Russians know it--perhaps too well...