Abstract
When in 1954 the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was to be admitted to the reformed West European Union (WEU) and to NATO, Konrad Adenauer, its first Chancellor, explicitly renounced the production on the FRG’s territory of nuclear (or chemical or biological) weapons.1 While Germany had also been far down the road of nuclear research, mercifully Hitler’s physicists had not developed an atom bomb. Even though after the war, German nuclear physicists and missile engineers were exported in droves, the Federal Republic inherited enough know-how to continue the research programme of the Third Reich. However, it lacked access to the necessary raw materials to develop a full-fledged nuclear programme of its own, quite apart from the determination of the Occupying Powers to prevent this.2
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Notes
The texts can be found in Auswärtiges Amt: 40 Jahre Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: eine Dokumentation (Stuttgart: Bonn Ak-tuell, 1989), pp. 70–2, 78–80.
Peter Fischer: Atomenergie und staatliches Interesse: Die Anfänge der Atompolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1949–1955 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994);
Michael Eckert: ‘Die Anfänge der Atompolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeit-geschichte Vol. 37 No. 1 (January 1989), pp. 115–43.
Leopoldo Nuti: ‘“Me too, please”: Italy and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons’, Diplomacy and Statecraft Vol. 4 No. 1 (March 1993), p. 116.
Quite apart from the Morgenthau Plan developed in the USA at the end of World War II. See Catherine M. Kelleher: Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia U.P., 1975), p. 118, 145 f.
and Cyril Buffet: ‘De Gaulle, Berlin and the Bomb, or how to use a political weapon’, in Leopoldo Nuti and Cyril Buffet (eds): Nuclear Proliferation and Non-Proliferation (forthcoming, 1998);
Curt Gasteiger: ‘Der Atlan-tikpakt und das Problem der europäischen Sicherheit’, EA Vol. 13 No. 7 (5 April 1958), esp. pp. 10647–59; re British disengagement plans under Wilson and Healey, see Alfred Frisch: ‘Truppenverringerung in Europa?’, SZ (15 March 1965); ‘Bonn über die britischen Pläne zum Abzug von Raketenwaffen besorgt’, Der Kurier (Berlin, 27 August 1965); ‘Ziehen die Amerikaner ab?’, Christ und Welt (27 May 1966). Such projects were supported, however, by vocal groups within the Federal Republic, including a majority in the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) until the early 1960s, and the small nationalist parties.
Hans Apel (Minister of Defence): ‘Braucht die NATO eine andere Strategic?’, Europäische Wehrkunde Vol. 32 No. 4 (April 1982), p. 158.
Der Bundesminister der Verteidigung: Weissbuch 1983: Zur Sicherheit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Bonn: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 1983), p. 160.
For an excellent analysis of early West German defence reasoning, see Commandant Champeau: ‘Les problèmes de défense de la République Fédérate d’Allemagne’, Revue Defense Nationale Vol. 22 (November 1966), pp. 1760–73.
Quoted in Mark Cioc: PAX ATOMICA: the nuclear defense debate in West Germany during the Adenauer Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p. 29.
Franz Josef Strauss in the FAZ (13 May 1961), reprinted as The Debate in Germany — the Government View’, in Survival Vol. 3 No. 4 (July-August 1961), pp. 176–78; Adelbert Weinstein was converted to Strauss’s point of view: ‘Fur eine gemeinsame Atompolitik’, FAZ (25 January 1962); Wolfram von Raven: ‘Demontage der Abschreckung’, Wehrkunde Vol. 15 No. 12 (December 1966), p. 624;
Peter Wittig: ‘Einige Fragen der Abschreckungsstrategie aus deutscher Sicht’, Wehrkunde Vol. 15 No. 6 (June 1966), p. 280 ff.
This reasoning is implied by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker: ‘Should Germany have atomic arms?’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 13 No. 8 (October 1957), p. 284.
This article caused an uproar as critics alleged that the Generals were demanding that nuclear weapons, warheads and all, should be handed over to Germany in peacetime. Cf. Robert d’Harcourt: ‘Le réarmement allemand’, Revue defense nationale Vol. 16 (November 1960), pp. 1751–62.
as rightly argued by Theo Sommer: ‘The objectives of Germany’, Alastair Buchan (ed.): A world of nuclear powers (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), p. 39.
Paul Buteux: The Politics of Nuclear Consultation in NATO, 1965–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 39–68; ‘Krone entzaubert Atompolitik’, Die Rheinpfalz (15 January 1966); ‘SPD und FDP rücken von einer Nuklearstreitmacht ab’, Stuttgarter Zeitung (24 September 1966); Karl Theodor Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg: ‘Die grundlegenden Probleme der NATO’, Wehrkunde Vol. 15 No. 4 (April 1966), p. 178.
Wilhelm Grewe: Rückblenden: Aufzeichnungen eines Augenzeugen deutscher Aussenpolitik von Adenauer bis Schmidt (Frankfurt/Main: Pro-pyläen, 1979), p. 629.
See Christoph Hoppe: Zwischen Teilhabe und Mitsprache: Die Nuklear-frage in der Allianzpolitik Deutschlands, 1959–1966 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1993), pp. 320–39; Bluth: Britain, Germany, pp. 179–237.
Allrich Eden: ‘Bonn und die Atomwaffen’, Trierischer Volksfreund (22 July 1965); ‘Abrüstungskonferenz bereitet Bonn Sorgen’, SZ (7 August 1965); see also Helga Haftendorn: Kernwqffen und die Glaubwürdigkeit der Allianz: Die NATO-Krise von 1966/67 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994), pp. 148–66.
Horst Mendershausen: ‘Will West Germany go nuclear?’, Orbis Vol. 10 No. 2 (Summer 1972), p. 415; Günther Gillessen: ‘Sperrvertrag und Opposition’, FAZ (15 June 1973).
Printed in Auswärtiges Amt (ed.): Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1990/1991 (Stuttgart: Bonn Aktuell, 1991), p. 169.
For an overview of the divergent US-German interests, see Susanne Peters: The Germans and the INF Missiles: Getting their way in NATO’s strategy of flexible response (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1990), pp. 53–91.
General (Ret.) Johannes Steinhoff: Wohin treibt die NATO? (Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, 1976); ‘Um Gottes willen, was für ein Kriegsbild’, Der Spiegel (8 March 1976); ‘Schlachtfeld Deutschland’, Der Spiegel (12 September 1977), pp. 68–74; Harald Wust, Inspector General of the Bundeswehr: ‘Abschreckung und Entspannung’, FAZ (25 November 1977).
Diego Ruiz Palmer: ‘La cooperation militaire entre la France et ses Alliés, 1966–1991’, in Maurice Vaïsse, Pierre Mélandri and Frédéric Bozo (eds): La France et l’OTAN, 1949–1996 (Brussels: Eds. Complexe, 1996), p. 585 f.
Der Bundesminister der Verteidigung: Weissbuch 1985 Zur Lage und Entwicklung der Bundeswehr (Bonn: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 1985), p. 30;
see also Michael Forster: ‘AirLand Battle 1986: Das Ziel bleibt Abschreckung’, Europäische Wehrkunde Vol. 36 No. 12 (December 1987), pp. 672, 673;
Lothar Domröse: ‘FOFA als Mittel der Abschreckung’, Europäische Wehrkunde Vol. 38 No. 11 (November 1989), pp. 648–51;
Florian Gerster, MP, and Michael Hennes: ‘FOFA-Irrtümer: Rückbesinnung auf die Vorneverteidigung’, Europäische Wehrkunde Vol. 38 No. 10 (October 1989), pp. 595–600;
General Klaus Naumann: ‘Defensive Doktrinen und Streitkräftestrukturen’, EA Vol. 44 No. 22 (November 1989), p. 669;
Jürgen Och: ‘Operative Auf-gaben des FOFA-Konzepts: Raum nach vorne schaffen’, Europäische Wehrkunde Vol. 38 No. 2 (February 1989), pp. 78–80.
Uwe Nerlich: ‘Theatre Nuclear Forces in Europe’, The Washington Quarterly Vol. 3 No. 1 (Winter 1980), p. 121.
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© 1997 Beatrice Heuser
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Heuser, B. (1997). The Federal Republic of Germany: Consultation. In: NATO, Britain, France and the FRG. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377622_5
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