“Adenauer’s pursuit of Western integration consolidated democracy in the West at the cost of the East.” Comment

According to the newspaper die Frankfurte Allgemeine Zeitung, the number of the unemployed people in Germany has decreased by 25.000 in November, reaching the stage of 4.531.000 jobless persons. The Federal Minister of the Economy, Michael Glos (CSU) spoke in the Bundestag „vom ersten November seit der Wiedervereinigung, in dem es zu keiner Zunahme der Arbeitslosigkeit gekommen ist“. Even long after Adenauer’s mandates, his heritage is still perceptible in Germany. His decision to anchor the Western Federal Republic in the capitalist block, rather than to pursue unification at all costs, has raised many controversies. Did the policy-making of Adenauer, consolidating democracy in the West, indeed harm the East and delay German unification?
Addressing this issue implies to focus on several matters:
-First, one should show that democracy was well consolidated in the Western Part of Germany, together with its economic situation. (I)
-Second, one should explain, as the term “pursuit of integration” shows, that Adenauer’s decision towards Western integration was not sovereign, but guided by the occupying forces. However, he actively supported Western Integration, a policy that makes him responsible for delaying unification and consequently harming the East. (II)
-Lastly, one shall see that the implementation of democracy in the West at the detriment of the East was a sacrifice that was worth it, since it was the quickest and safest way to stability in Germany. (III)
On the whole, the integration of the Federal Republic into the Western world was a sacrifice that was worth it.

[...] As a result, nowadays, the basic conception of democracy is rather homogeneous between the West and the East. In of the people in the East were moderately satisfied with democracy as it exists in the Federal Republic.[20] In the party political field, an East-West gap is still visible, however, in September 2005, a chancellor from the East, Angela Merkel, has been elected, which paves the way towards a deeper integration. To conclude, Adenauer’s economic and democratic continuation of the Allies objectives was a decision from which Germany benefited as a whole. [...]

[...] On 20 September 1949, he declared: have no doubts that in accordance with our origins and our convictions we belong to the Western European world”[11] Even though, Adenauer saw the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into the West as part of the process of unification. -First, he aimed at ensuring security in the Westzone, against the Soviet Union. The necessity to rearm, as well as the recovery of the Saarland, were issues in his view that could only be achieved through a Western integration. [...]

[...] Thanks to the observance of the archives, some historians such as Gerhard Wettig or Gottfried Niedhart, consider that Stalin did not have any project for the enforcement of this proposal if it had been adopted, and that his attitude was thus only a bluff to infringe a further Western Integration of Western Germany. In 1952, as we have shown, Germany was already too integrated in the Western block to turn back, and the Allies would not have permitted German unification. [...]