Word: germane
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...happened, questions were also being raised about Schmidt's handling of the matter. The flap erupted when it seemed that Carter was going to cancel production of the neutron weapon because, among other things, it had received no public support from the West German government. In the face of a scare campaign against the "inhuman" warhead that was skillfully fanned by Moscow, Schmidt apparently would not risk backing the weapon openly, although he did so privately. While the President eventually made no decision-he neither authorized the weapon's development nor definitively dropped it-the episode triggered...
Schmidt's Bundestag audience was so concerned over the deteriorating relations with Washington that he stoutly had to proclaim the obvious: "West German-U.S. relations are so deeply entrenched that they cannot be uprooted by occasional differences of opinion." Schmidt then made a significant concession to Carter, who has linked eventual development of the bomb partly to Bonn's willingness to deploy it on West German soil. For the first time, the Chancellor openly backed the new weapon and stated that it could be based in his country if it would "be a decision of the [NATO...
Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl, leader of the opposition, scowled that Schmidt's gesture was "too late." The Chancellor, he said, should have had the "courage" to back the bomb when Carter needed such support. "Your silence was irresponsible. You are responsible for the strains in West German-U.S. relations." A top official of Schmidt's government privately agreed, in part, admitting: "We could have done more to help Carter on the bomb issue. But for purely domestic [political] reasons we were afraid...
Quiet, thin, dressed in a conservative pinstriped suit, Kurt Groenewold hardly looks the part of a firebrand lawyer who would conspire with West German terrorists to bring down the state. But Groenewold is now on trial himself in a Hamburg courtroom for "supporting a criminal organization" and furthering the plots of the notorious Baader-Meinhof gang, which has wreaked havoc in West Germany for a decade. As Groenewold nervously shuffles papers, his own lawyer politely debates procedural points with the prosecutors. No one shouts obscenities; the tone is orderly and low-key, punctuated only by an occasional muffled cheer from...
Despite the subdued atmosphere of the State High Court, the stakes at the trial are high. If Groenewold is acquitted, the German effort to keep radical lawyers from helping their terrorist clients commit crimes will have suffered a serious blow. If Groenewold is convicted, the right of the accused to full representation by an attorney could be dangerously undermined. To anxious observers, it comes down to a difficult test case of Germany's precarious balance between the rights of the individual and the security of the state-an issue with echoes far beyond Germany...