Without saying who said what, or whether the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary agreed with them, the memorandum listed some of these negative characteristics as ''insensitivity to the feelings of others (most noticeable in their behavior over the Polish border), their obsession with themselves, a strong inclination to self-pity, and a longing to be liked.''

The Bad and the Good

Others, which he put in alphabetical order, were ''Angst, aggressiveness, bullying, egotism, inferiority complex, sentimentality'' and ''a capacity for excess, to overdo things,'' as well as ''a tendency to overestimate their own strengths and capabilities.''

On the positive side, the memorandum said, ''there was a strong school of thought among those present that today's Germans were very different from their predecessors.

''In sum, no one had serious misgivings about the present leaders or political elite of Germany. But what about 10, 15 or 20 years from now? Could some of the unhappy characteristics of the past re-emerge with just as destructive consequences?''

''The weight of the evidence and the argument favored those who were optimistic about life with a united Germany,'' it said. ''The overall message was unmistakable: we should be nice to the Germans. But even the optimists had some unease, not for the present and the immediate future, but for what might lie further down the road than we can yet see.'' Poor Choice of Words? In his letter of resignation to Mrs. Thatcher, Mr. Ridley denied that he associated present-day Germany with the aggression of the past, and recognized ''the difficulties which my failure to use more measured words have caused.''