New Mayor in West Berlin
HURWITZ, HAROLD
At 43, Willy Brandt is a Socialist 'comer' By Harold Hurivitz New Mayor in West Berlin Berlin Willy Brandt, Berlin's new Mayor, is one of the young Social Democratic reformers who pessimists...
...In 1937, he covered the Spanish Civil War in the Republican camp for Scandinavian newspapers...
...Now, after Brandt was named spontaneously by the non-partisan press as the people's candidate, Neumann tried to overrun the party with an unsolicited candidate of his own...
...In 1945, he wrote the first definitive history of the Norwegian war and resistance efforts, and then returned to Germany—first as a newspaper correspondent, then as a Norwegian press attache, and finally in 1947 as an SPD functionary...
...As party boss, Neumann had hectored more than one coalition Mayor...
...This, too, is an expression of the new style which is struggling to emerge in both major parties...
...In Oslo, Brandt studied history...
...others are unusual and reflect changes in social values...
...When colleagues in Copenhagen questioned this last step...
...But colleagues, supporters, mediators and elderly advisers find more in him, something unusual in an ambitious young politician...
...He escaped concentration camp by not being identified when taken a prisoner in a Norwegian Army uniform...
...suddenly there is a pause and a defenseless smile, and he asks: "Oder...
...It is more personal than the lonely authority of Reuter, Brandt's mentor, who could never communicate a doubt even to close friends...
...Though Brandt is only 43, for some time heavyweight German political commentators have been noting in him the "qualities of a statesman...
...With the late Ernst Reuter, this led to a series of crises—and a happy remark by CDU minister Lemmer that the CDU could hardly give Reuter more trouble than his own party...
...In 1954, Brandt missed replacing Neumann by only one vote...
...Brandt escaped the burden by emigrating to Norway in 1933 when he was 20 years old, young enough to "grow up" there politically...
...When the city assembly elected Brandt Mayor on October 3, only a dozen-odd diehards failed to vote for him...
...When their devoted Mayor Otto Suhr died after a long illness, Berliners of all parties acclaimed Brandt, speaker of the city assembly and Berlin's best spokesman on reunification problems in the Bundestag, as his successor...
...Something of the stigma of a lowly outsider still clings to being a "Sozi," no matter what his background or status, and this is also a psychological barrier for many German Socialists...
...East German and Red Army units were waiting...
...A democratic personality fits well on a politician in Germany today, but it is not surprising that Willy Brandt got this way with the help of a foreign environment...
...The West German Bundestag elections of September 15 showed that the CDU had become a broad people's party, but Social Democratic election gains hardly exceeded what eight years' opposition might be expected to bring...
...He sent part of the crowd home, led other thousands out of trouble in a march to the "victims of Stalinism" monument in the center of the city, and finally at the Brandenburg Gate pacified the angry remnants—several thousand youths who were trying to reach the Soviet Embassy on the other side...
...In talking with a colleague Brandt will lay out a position he is considering...
...It is not in the narrow interest of any other party to help the SPD solve its problems...
...At 43, Willy Brandt is a Socialist 'comer' By Harold Hurivitz New Mayor in West Berlin Berlin Willy Brandt, Berlin's new Mayor, is one of the young Social Democratic reformers who pessimists concede "may one day" help Germany's oldest democratic party break out of the horny cocoon that has prevented it from becoming an equal contender with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's Christian Democratic Union...
...Brandt replied: "It would be belter to be the only democrat in Germany than one among many in Norway or another country where everyone knows without thinking what democracy means...
...Before an audience Brandt knows no tricks, seeks no easy rapport, does not talk down or make winning allusions to his proletarian origin or later achievements...
...The kind of authority this encourages is democratic...
...In Germany, such attributes are seldom conceded to someone with an unsullied boyish manner...
...He wins by sheer conscientiousness, with a passionately sincere and clear-headed intellect...
...His mind is his own, but he can leave room for doubt...
...Neumann, long a respected figure in Berlin, who played a meritorious role in rejecting Communist merger overtures in 1946 and in building morale during the blockade, regarded Brandt as a newcomer, an outsider...
...Yet, when right-wing circles in a particularly unsavory manner tried to help Neumann stop Brandt, statesmanlike considerations prevailed in the CDU...
...Released from PW camp, he crossed the border to Sweden, where he worked with the Norwegian Government-in-Exile and became a Norwegian citizen...
...It is more fruitful than the authority of the late SPD leader Kurt Schumacher, who liked to thrash everything out with others in the strenuous Socialist manner, leaving the others feeling privileged but inferior...
...Among outsiders, there is a consensus that the trouble lies in the inertia of the Bonn machine, whose functionaries dominate virtually all of the party's activities...
...German Social Democrats have tended to lead a self-contained life, dedicated to but separate from the broader community —the result of a long history of social antipathy and political persecution at the hands of the other Germany...
...Notwithstanding pro-Brandt editorials in the non-partisan city press, letters to editors, and a rank-and-file revolt in both coalition parties (an SPD-CDU coalition governs in Berlin), for five weeks SPD chairman Neumann tried to prevent his party from nominating its own most popular candidate...
...The SPD, nevertheless, includes more administrative talent, more accomplished intellectuals, and—just below the summit— a larger number of attractive political personalities than its rival...
...Reuter encouraged Brandt to run against Neumann for the party chairmanship in 1952, but the newcomer could then muster only a third of the delegates' votes at the convention...
...Alluding candidly to the recent unpleasantness, Federal President Theodor Heuss complimented Brandt for his worthy "self-possession...
...Although Brandt remained active in emigre politics—he returned to Germany incognito for two extended trips to do resistance work—he found a home in the sovereignly democratic Norwegian labor movement...
...Although Allied misgivings prevent West Berliners from voting in Federal elections, in September this city helped one of the SPD's most promising young men surmount a first major hurdle to national leadership...
...He comes with questions...
...Some of the qualities that account for Brandt's popularity strike a familiar note in Germany...
...But the greater part of Neumann's organization bolted, and Brandt was nominated by 79 per cent of the delegates at an extraordinary party convention...
...Reuter remarked: "I would have made it...
...Brandt, who had not been "foreseen" as a speaker that day, intervened with five impromptu speeches...
...Enraged by an inappropriate speech by SPD chairman Franz Neumann, a gigantic demonstration began to run amuck...
...When the Nazis invaded Norway, he was one of the three secretaries of a prominent Norwegian labor charity...
...The city has not forgotten November 5, 1956, the day after the second Soviet intervention in Hungary, which almost ended in a massacre in Berlin...
Vol. 40 • October 1957 • No. 43
