ABSTRACT
The Prime Minister said that Europe had come to the end of the postwar period. It was argued that the basic perception of Germans related to a period of German history running from Bismarck until 1945. There was an innocence of and about the past on the part of the new generation of Germans. While we all admired and indeed envied what the Germans had achieved in the last 45 years, the fact was that their institutions had not yet been seriously tested by adversity such as a major economic calamity. The Germans' own interest lay in keeping the minorities where they were rather than in encouraging their return'. To the extent that border problems might arise, it would be as a result of comparatively wealthy Germans buying land and property in poorer Poland and Czechoslovakia. The overall message was unmistakable: we should be nice to the Germans.
