Correspondence
![handle is hein.journals/ajil72 and id is 122 raw text is: THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW [
and the role of both the Council and the General Assembly with regard to
the South African question, all receive detailed coverage here. As the
conflict potential for the major powers in southern Africa has steadily
come into clearer focus in recent years and with the growing importance
of the region in U. S. policy, the need for a precise understanding by the
war college student of the key role of international law in the situation has
become evident.
Rounding out the elective seminar series are sessions on Soviet, Chinese,
and Third World views of international law, on recognition and treaty law,
and on current problems being dealt with by the Office of the Legal Ad-
viser of the Department of State. The last named seminar reinforces the
linkages between international law and national security issues.
A final word as to trend. Some observers have expressed concern about
unevenness in the level and content of instruction in international law at
the senior service colleges during the past decade. At The National War
College, as the foregoing description suggests, an effort has been made
to expand and focus international law instruction in a manner appropriate
to the growing importance of the field to national security planners. A
way of approaching this instruction has been established which can form
the basis for bringing international law to bear within the curriculum of
The National War College.
WILLAM H. WITT
Professor of Foreign Affairs,
1974-1977
The National War College
CORRESPONDENCE
To THE EDITOR-IN-CIEF: Status of Germany
It is not astonishing that a foreign international law expert is puzzled
by the intricacies of inter-German relations, as they can only really be
understood in the context of historical and political developments in Ger-
many after World War II, including party politics in the Federal Re-
public. Nevertheless, Professor Grzybowski labors under a misapprehen-
sion which he asserts in his review of Der Rechtsstatus Deutschlands aus
der Sicht der DDR by Jens Hacker (71 AJIL 389-90 (1977) that the
West German Federal Constitutional Court had declared that the Grund-
vertrag [Basic Treaty] did not constitute recognition of the DDR as the
second German State.
Hacker himself points out (pp. 432 ff.) that the qualification of the
Deutsche Demokratische Republik as a state is no longer disputed. The
Federal Government officially declared this for the first time just after the
accession to power of the coalition of Social Democrats 'and Liberals on
October 28, 1969: Albeit two German states exist in Germany, they are
not, as to one another, a foreign country; their mutual relations can only
be of a specific kind. The Grundvertrag (e.g., Arts. 4 and 6) speaks
explicitly of both states. Accordingly, the Federal Constitutional Court
in its decision of July 31, 1973 emphasized (B.IV.3): The German Demo-
cratic Republic is in the light of international law a state. Nevertheless,
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