West Germany Borders

West German officials Friday marked the 50th anniversary of the start of World War II by acknowledging that Germans bear full responsibility for the cataclysm that cost more than 50 million lives. At the same time, an East German official praised the Soviet Union for resisting Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler during the war and warned the Bonn government not to attempt to reunite the nation, which was partitioned in the war's aftermath.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) urged the Bush Administration on Sunday to withhold approval of German reunification unless Germany pledges to respect its existing borders with neighboring nations. Pell said his committee will take up a resolution this week declaring that the termination of Allied occupation rights in Germany "should be contingent on Germany's unequivocal recognition that all its present borders are legal, permanent and unalterable."

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) urged the Bush Administration on Sunday to withhold approval of German reunification unless Germany pledges to respect its existing borders with neighboring nations. Pell said his committee will take up a resolution this week declaring that the termination of Allied occupation rights in Germany "should be contingent on Germany's unequivocal recognition that all its present borders are legal, permanent and unalterable."

West German officials Friday marked the 50th anniversary of the start of World War II by acknowledging that Germans bear full responsibility for the cataclysm that cost more than 50 million lives. At the same time, an East German official praised the Soviet Union for resisting Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler during the war and warned the Bonn government not to attempt to reunite the nation, which was partitioned in the war's aftermath.

The U.S. Army today said it has cut the number of patrols along West Germany's borders with East Germany and Czechoslovakia, which for decades formed the boundary line of the Cold War. The announcement was the first sign of change in the traditional vigilance along the border and reflected the democratic change sweeping the East Bloc. In all, the Americans are responsible for a 630-mile stretch of the border, Staff Sgt. Elayne Venema said. Several hundred of the 250,000 U.S.

East Germany has sent more attack dogs to its mined and fenced border with West Germany to stop people trying to reach the West, the Bonn government said Tuesday. The nearly 1,300 dogs appear to be the replacement for nearly 60,000 automatic shrapnel-firing weapons that were dismantled last year by the East Germans, the Interior Ministry said in its annual report on West Germany's borders. There were 235 more dogs on the East German border in 1984 than in 1983, the report said.

West Germany on Friday linked the thorny issue of guaranteeing Poland's western borders with war reparations that Warsaw may demand from a reunified Germany. Euphoria over the prospect of a reunified Germany has abated amid squabbling over borders. Poland was awarded large parts of prewar Germany by the victorious World War II allies.

Faced with a public outcry, West Germany is about to tighten up the liberal asylum law that has attracted refugees from as near as Czechoslovakia and as far away as Sri Lanka. More than 27,600 asylum-seekers arrived last year at the Schwalbach camp just outside Frankfurt, roughly one-quarter of the nationwide total.

President Bush, in his first public comment on a Central American peace initiative that he admitted took him by surprise, promised Thursday that the United States would not abandon Nicaragua's Contras or "leave them twisting out there" in the face of a plan to disarm them and close their bases. Talking to a small group of reporters in the Oval Office, Bush pledged to continue some form of "humanitarian" assistance to the Contras after the current $27-million aid package expires March 31.

At a crucial two-day meeting here that ended Wednesday, defense ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization initiated steps to both fundamentally and permanently change the nature of the Western alliance in light of the new order emerging in Europe. The officials ordered a sweeping review of alliance military strategy, moving toward reconstituting NATO military forces as multinational units, sharply curtailed training and exercises and a relaxed alert status of front-line units.

A new round of East-West negotiations begins in Vienna next week, seeking an agreement to shrink the NATO and Warsaw Pact armies that face each other in Central Europe. But behind the steely debates over tank divisions and troop levels, the superpowers and their European allies are grappling with a more fundamental question: After 40 years, can the Cold War be brought to an end? An increasing number of Western experts say changes in Soviet foreign policy made by President Mikhail S.

At first glance, this modest town in northern Germany seems an unlikely place for the headquarters of the world's largest media empire. Guetersloh is out of the way, to say the least. There is no major airport within 100 miles, and the express trains don't stop here. Signs at the railway station warn waiting passengers to watch out for the fast trains roaring past. But a mile or so from the station stand the executive offices of Bertelsmann AG, a firm with annual sales of $6.3 billion.