The German Socialists and the Greens, the coalition of political parties that has governed Germany for the past four years, managed to hang on to power in last Sunday's election by attacking the United States. Their prominent office holders shouted "No co-operation with America. Not a single German soldier will set foot in Iraq." The Interior Minister even compared President George W. Bush with Adolf Hitler and when the Chancellor wrote the president about the incident his letter was more of an explanation than an apology. The president said the way the ruling coalition conducted themselves has poisoned U.S.- German relations.

Well, fine. After all we have done for Germany. After defeating Hitler, we didn't try to keep Germany down the way the French did after World War I. On the contrary, the United States helped Germany to achieve the so-called "economic miracle." In just a few short years, Germany went from complete devastation to a booming economy, and it was able to become a major trading partner with this country. And when the Soviets tried to take the part of Berlin occupied by the Allies, we ran a round-the-clock airlift to keep the people there supplied with the necessities. We did so until we broke the back of the Soviets.

Speaking of the Soviets, they were a constant threat to what was then called the Bundes Republick, or Federal Republic of Germany, through their client state, the German Democratic Republic or East Germany. We maintained a huge force in what was then called West Germany to let the Soviets know that if they dared to attack it they would be dealing with us. We maintained that force until the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union imploded and the threat was gone. Moreover, we pressured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to allow the re-unification of East and West Germany, something German leaders told me at the time they thought would never, ever happen.

So now, when it is popular to do so, in order to stay in office, the ruling crowd makes a campaign out of America bashing. It was convenient to do so since then they didn't have to deal with domestic issues, such as the record number of unemployed Germans. In the postwar period, Germany enjoyed very low unemployment. The Socialists and their coalition partner, the Greens, have burdened business with more and more regulations and more and more entitlements for the workers to the point where almost no new jobs are being created in the German economy. Moreover, inflation has reached a level that would have been considered totally unacceptable by German governments only a few years ago. When these issues were being discussed, the opposition coalition of the CDU/CSU and the Free Democrats (FDP) were leading all through the summer. It was only in desperation that the ruling crowd played the America card.

German officials say that now that the elections are over, they can just put all of that nasty anti-American rhetoric behind them and pick up with Washington as if nothing had happened. Here is what I believe should be done. Right now we maintain around 125,000 troops in Germany not to repel a non-existent threat from the Russians, but for our own convenience. Those bases were used heavily in the Gulf War and will be used again if we are at war with Iraq. When we were hot and heavy into Bosnia, we used those German bases for training and for the change out operations that occurred every few weeks. But those bases are good for the German economy. We employ thousands of Germans to assist with logistics, handle secretarial type duties, act as interpreters and so on.

Well, I believe we should quietly negotiate with Poland, whose government is stable, to locate the bases there. If Poland for some reason doesn't want them, Romania and even Bulgaria would give anything to have our bases. The people who negotiate with our government would have to be told that if the deal would be announced prematurely it would mean no deal. Then once an agreement is signed in blood, the U.S. government should announce that we are shutting down our bases and moving every one to the new location.

The German ruling coalition should not be able to bash us one day and have business as usual the next. They should pay for what they have done. Moreover, if that government can be blamed for losing the Americans, perhaps the government would not survive or, at least, come the next election, I'll bet the results would be different.

Paul Weyrich is president of the Free Congress Foundation.

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