Looking Eastward

Having in his first two terms made peace and joined as partner with his Western neighbors, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer last week turned his eyes eastward. The time had come, he told his advisers, to improve West Germany's relations with Eastern Europe, and the object most on his mind was Poland. Just 18 years ago the September invasion of the Polish republic by Nazi panzers set off World War II.

Well aware that Poland now wants to shuck off Soviet domination, that all of Eastern Europe is in ferment, and that anything any Western nation can do to help break the Soviet grip would help, the old Chancellor set out with realistic caution. He wanted more trade with Poland, hoping that from this mutually advantageous first step diplomatic relations might follow. As a beginning, he would like to send a trade mission to Warsaw headed not by a trader but by a political figure.

The chief sticking point in Polish-German relations is the German claim to its former territories east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers, a territory about the size of Virginia. It was handed to Poland by the victorious Allies as compensation for the Polish territory seized by Russians. Adenauer has often promised that Germany would never use force to regain these lost territories; last week he went further. In a CBS interview he said that he could foresee the day when, in a United Europe, boundaries would be of less importance than they are today. In effect, Germany was not pressing for its old lands.

But, already aware of Adenauer's delicate probing, Poland's Wladyslaw Gomulka replied with quick and indelicate firmness. Said he: "The Western territories are a matter of life and death to Poland, and every Pole is aware of this. If anybody raises the problem of changing our Western frontiers, there is only one alternative --that of war." Gomulka's bellicosity may only be an opening gambit in a lengthy bargaining, but it is also in character with Communist Gomulka's concern these days to show Moscow that he is making no deals behind its back.

Gomulka undoubtedly realizes that if there were no longer a threat to Poland's borders by German "militarists," Russia would have lost its official excuse for keeping its troops in Poland. That should make it worthwhile for both Germany and Poland to get together.

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