doc_text: Historians say the world need not fear that German jackboots will echo again on European pavements, but some still see the rush toward German reunification as a setback _
  a step away from the integration of Europe.
  For the most part, the historians say an East Germany collapsing into chaos represents a greater threat to stability than a united German state.
  "The West Germans are moving ahead not out of nationalistic fervor, but a perceived need to deal with a crisis," said Henry Ashby Turner of Yale, author of "The Two Germanies Since 1945."
  "There is no such a thing as indelible national character," Turner said.
  "I don't think there is any chance that the young men of Germany are going to slip out of their Adidas running shoes and pull on jackboots and start running around saying, `Heil!"
  He was one of several experts in German history discussing the implications of reunification following the decision Tuesday by the four World War II allies _
  the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union _ to accept the reunification of a Germany they divided 45 years ago.
  University of Chicago historian Michael Geyer, a native of Germany, said he feared the creation of a "strong, sovereign nation in the center of Europe" could reverse a more important development _
  the 40-year drive toward an integrated Europe in which industries, banks, trade unions and even government ministries have been collaborating across borders.
  "The East German state is collapsing," said Geyer.
  "So something has to happen very dramatically.
  But they have a choice _
  the Europeans and Germans and Americans.
  Do they want to opt for the European card or for the German card?
  I think they are opting for the German card."
  "I hear these days very little about what Gorbachev called `the house of Europe,"' he said.
  The result of a dominant "uncomfortably strong" German state, Geyer added, could be a setback to the diminishment of national borders.
  It could also mean, he said, that American troops might have to stay in Europe as a counterweight to Germany.
  "If I had my druthers reunifications would have happened after 1992, after the integration of the West German economy into the economy of Western Europe," said Charles J. Herber of George Washington University, expressing similar concern.
  "Then there would have been fewer chances for German adventurers," he said.
  West Germans were aware of their European neighbors' misgivings, said Richard Breitman of American University, and so they presented reunification within the context of European integration.
  They wanted to avoid arousing fear of a united Germany again dominating Europe.
  "Even if the history did not exist, there would be fears of that kind," he said.
  "We're dealing not just with rational calculation but a whole host of emotional memories."
  For all that, Breitman said, "One Germany is not only inevitable, but given the successful record of West Germany over the last 40 years, my feeling is it is better than having a regime in chaos."
  "The only alternative to reunification," added Turner, is an East Germany in ruins, "a basket case, a Bangladesh of Europe."
  He said Germans have "no significant interest in territorial revisions.
  Those misgivings are misplaced."
  Gerhard Weinberg of the University of North Carolina, considered a leading historian of the Nazi era, cautioned that reunification, if mishandled, could prove explosive.
  While the people of West Europe have gotten over nationalistic distrusts, East Europeans, living in closed societies, have not, he said, and fear of Germany is a reality in East Europe and Russia, he said.
  "I don't think the Germans are heading for Moscow again, but we have to give people _
  and the Germans have to give people _ time to think this through and get used to it. ...
  Mishandled, reunification could scare one or the other of the participants into starting something and scare others and goodness knows where it would end."
  Gordon Craig, emeritus professor at Stanford, said the division of Germany has been the basis of a peace settlement "which worked pretty well" but was "abnormal and sooner or later had to be corrected."
  German reunification, said Craig, gives the world the chance to build a new international system, one that "will prevent the use of international violence."
  He added, "We have to be careful that we don't fall back into the kind of system that existed before the Second World War, a Europe filled with nations that were suffering various grievances, rivalries, disputed frontiers, driven by what they considered to be legitimate reasons but pitted against each other _ the sort of things that gave rise to Hitler in 1933."
summary_text: Several German history experts discussed the implications of reunification after the Tuesday decision by the four World War II Allies decision to accept the reunification of a Germany they divided 45 years ago.
  Most of the historians think that an East Germany moving toward chaos is a greater threat to stability than a United Germany.
  They see Germany moving ahead not out of nationalistic fervor but as a way to deal with chaos.
  One thought that it would be better not now in 1992, but after the West German economy had been integrated into the western European economy.