“Be afraid. Nuclear death threatens us all!” So read the banners unfurled at this June's biennial assembly of the German Protestant Churches in Hamburg. In Frankfurt a businessman was adamant. “The best days are behind us. Now the Americans will drag us into a nuclear war. And all for what?”

Fear is abroad in West Germany, fear of what may happen if American medium-range rockets are installed on West German soil to counter the threat from the Soviet SS-20, Opposition to the proposed deployment has emerged as the one issue that may crystallize the disparate strands of unease and discontent within the country into something much more powerful-something that could, if unchecked, not only hasten the collapse of the ruling coalition of Social and Free Democrats, but rock the foundations of the Atlantic Alliance until it collapses.