United Germany

From French Canada to the California coast, from the Greek islands to newly united Germany: Those are some of the destinations for hiking and biking trips by American Youth Hostels Discovery Tours.Trips are rated from beginners to experienced, and are available for teens (ages 15-18), young adults (ages 17-25), adults (ages 18 and over) and those 50 and older.For a copy of the 24-page AYH Discovery Tours Catalog, write American Youth Hostels, Dept. 860, P.O. Box 37613, Washington, D.C. 20013-7613, or telephone (202)

WASHINGTON -- Expanding democracy and advancing technology are represented in National Geographic's sixth "Atlas of the World," which includes a map of a united Germany that was revised at the last minute."

A task force of eight young leaders from around the world launched a Web site in Baltimore yesterday geared toward helping youths effect positive social change. The site - youthactionnet.org - was launched at the International Youth Foundation building downtown. The task force worked the past five days setting goals for its development. Task force members will jointly maintain the Web site from their respective countries - the United States, Germany, Brazil, Nepal, Zambia, Jamaica, China and the Philippines - offering such resources as tips on writing proposals and a list of youth organizations.

The reactionary coup in the Soviet Union will not restoreCommunist dictatorships in countries of Eastern Europe that Mikhail S. Gorbachev let go free. And while it might bring inspiration and hope to orthodox Communists in those countries, it is unlikely to come to their aid.Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia have anti-Communist regimes that, whatever their own frailty, count for support on popular detestation of former Communist regimes. East Germany, a former enforcer of Soviet dictates, is no longer a country but a part of West Germany.

HELMUT Kohl was one of the great statesmen of the second half of the 20th century. He unified Germany when others thought it impossible or undesirable. He was the chief architect of European monetary and economic union. His stage-German bumpkin manner hides a fine mind. His preoccupation with nuts-and-bolts politics covered a far-sighted vision that was clearer and more purposeful than his adversaries'. That makes the Bonn prosecutors' decision to investigate the $1 million political slush fund that Mr. Kohl admits maintaining from 1993 to 1998 a tragedy -- not only for this 69-year-old gentleman and his Christian Democratic Party, but for Germany and the West.

Not since Harry Truman and Josef Stalin took one another's measure at nearby Potsdam in 1945 has there been such a seismic shift in the balance of power.At that moment, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan were crumbling. The United States and the Soviet Union were allies-turning-adversaries that were to rule a bipolar Cold War world for half a century.Now as President Bush and Chancellor Helmut Kohl prepare to meet tomorrow in Washington, they face a world in which the United States and Germany are dominant powers, the first global, the second a European colossus.

Berlin is already the official, ceremonial and historic capital of united Germany. The question now is whether it will become the actual seat of government, with the chancellor's office and most federal ministries moving from Bonn, or whether Bonn will remain the seat of real political power.As the Germans debate this problem with their usual angst, one calumny against Berlin should be put to rest: The idea that Hitler's brief association with the grand old city on the Spree somehow makes it a distasteful symbol and an unseemly capital.

GLOBALIZATION of the economy helps explain the Democratic fund-raising scandals of 1996 and may explain the scandal swirling around former Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany. With money and corporations leaping borders every day, more can be expected wherever politics is corruptible. Mr. Kohl led his Christian Democratic Union party for a quarter century and was chancellor of West Germany and united Germany for 16 years. He is a giant of the last century, a major architect of European institutions.

There is an old cliche that the peace treaties of one war are the causes of the next. Versailles is the preeminent case in point. At the end of World War I, the allies sheared off Germany's colonies, reduced its army to 100,000 men, denied it an air force, occupied part of the Rhineland, imposed huge reparations payments, permitted France upon non-payment to take over the industrial Ruhr and left Germany prostrate and Hitler-prone. So much for all the glittering ceremonies and Wilsonian rhetoric at Louis XIV's Versailles.

Soviet capacity to launch a quick, massive attack with non-nuclear forces in Central Europe will disappear in a mountain of scrapped military equipment under the most comprehensive disarmament treaty ever negotiated.More than 19,000 Soviet tanks, 30,000 heavy artillery pieces and 10,000 armored personnel carriers are likely to be dismantled. What's left of the once-mighty Warsaw Pact military machine, which in the end succeeded only in weakening Soviet bloc economies, will be subjected to international monitoring to foreclose future aggression.