Erhard Under Pressure

...Almost before Adenauer had a chance to move his collection of autographed statesmen's photographs out of the Chancellor's office, however, Bonn and the Germans decided they did not much like his heir...

...The Americans, although committed to the defense of Europe, were clearly not part of Europe, and Adenauer saw the future safety of Western Europe in terms of political federation for which a Franco-German alliance could be the only possible basis...

...Secondly, Germany does not have much choice in its foreign policy...

...When Erhard told de Gaulle during a visit to Germany last July that he was prepared for any arrangement with France "which does not prejudice Germany's relations with the United States," the Frenchman was visibly huffed and snapped: "Let us talk about policies and not philosophy...

...It is possible to trace Chancellor Erhard's troubles to the strange relationship that has grown up since 1958 between Adenauer and de Gaulle...

...He entertained a well-known antipathy for the British...

...I will reduce him to nothing yet...

...Still, Adenauer's cult of himself as a symbol of Macht eventually brought criticism of his overbearing manner, of his riding rough-shod over all opposition, and of his utter contempt for lesser mortals...

...But observation of the German scene over a period covering the last 18 years has demonstrated to me at least that Germans take willingly, and with relief, to some form of authoritarianism...

...There are circumstances-the total failure of sterling currency or intransigence in Washington-which could change German policy, but for the present there is no question that Germany is bound indivisibly to the U.S...

...He knew that economist Erhard had neither the stomach nor the knowhow for coping with political wars, that Erhard would be dazed by the cross-currents of conflicting interests which run through the German political body...

...One German commentator was moved to observe sardonically that Germany "has advanced from a Chancellor Democracy to an Interview-Anarchy...

...This would appear to be why Adenauer (and with him Strauss) has shifted his aim from the Chancellor to Foreign Minister Schroeder...

...Adenauer, the Rhinelander, the Catholic, whose riverside homeland has been captured and recaptured alternately by Prussian and French armies since Louis XIV, predicted his foreign relations from their very postwar beginnings on a rapprochement between Germany and France...

...In the past few weeks, there has also been a rash of newspaper interviews, given by Adenauer, Strauss and some of their supporters, sniping at Erhard...

...The dissension, of course, did not develop suddenly...

...From his strategic position at the helm of the party, irritable old Adenauer-by now pursuing hi, vendettas with childish, nonagenarian spite rather than with apparent reasoned purpose-kept up his campaign without interruption...

...One of the wonders of postwar Germany is that the nation ever managed to pull itself out of defeat to its present stature as the world's third power under the direction of two men as bitterly antagonistic as Adenauer and Erhard...

...and simulated action in the comfortable knowledge that the end results, the final responsibility for action, would always be taken by Der Alte...

...It may be possible for one man to run the government while somebody else controls the ruling party machine (though even past experience in the Soviet Union makes this questionable), but it rapidly became evident that this was not possible in contemporary Germany...

...Later, he felt slighted by what he saw as the young President Kennedy's brash tactics...

...Such is the complexity and camouflage surrounding German government appropriations, however, that nobody has yet been able to determine for certain the form or extent of this assistance...

...His object: to sow dissension in the CDU ranks and thereby discredit his intimate enemy Erhard...

...He left Bonn clearly angered at the relatively cool reception accorded him by the new German leaders...

...He had never been attracted by, nor adept at internal party intrigue...

...In a sense, the Old Autocrat was right...

...This means that Federal Germany's views must be carefully considered in decisions of its allies, regardless of whatever Adenauer or Strauss do or say...

...At the base of current rumblings and open acrimony about Chancellor Ludwig Erhard's failure to maintain cohesion in the Federal government, for example, there lies a latent German malaise, an inherent distrust of weak direction...

...He has covered events in some 60 countries...

...But in the long and difficult years when Adenauer was Chancellor and Erhard Economics Minister, each man and his policies complemented the other...

...In the end, the herd turned on him and began forcing him out of office...

...Among other undiplomatic outbursts, Adenauer insisted: "I am finished with that man...

...Without the political stability created by Adenauer and his Iron Chancellor methods, Erhard could never have designed and directed the Wirtschajtswunder...

...For German politicians, there was a certain pleasing indolence about the years under Adenauer...

...At de Gaulle's behest, it was subsequently modified into an arrangement which, stated at its simplest, has the other five members agreeing to subsidize French agriculture...

...And from that date until his eventual departure in October 1963, Adenauer mounted an unrelenting campaign to discredit Erhard as a potential Chancellor...

...He marvelled at the manner in which the French President was able to dictate affairs of state and run his country without recourse to public opinion or Parliament...

...But on several recent occasions, Erhard has summoned up enough courage to call Adenauer back into line and insist that he stop his political sabotage...

...Still, two facts remain: Economically, and therefore in true strength, Federal Germany is completely stable and increasingly powerful...

...They must belong to both communities, to the North Atlantic community dominated by the United States, and to the French-dominated community of Europe...

...In October 1963, Federal Germany finally moved-in the phrasing popular at that time-from a Kanzler Demokratie to a Kabinett Demokratie...

...It would be difficult to explain the political relationship which has developed between these two very diverse men in the past two years, except by saying that Strauss has an immense hold over his former chief, and that each is prepared to exploit the relationship to his own advantage-Adenauer to fight Erhard, Strauss to further his own ambitions of one day becoming Chancellor...

...Over a period of five years, Adenauer and de Gaulle had concluded a series of secret verbal agreements...

...This complex of under-the-counter, private arrangements between de Gaulle and Adenauer extends with even greater secrecy into the realm of military affairs...

...In this marathon campaign, which took nearly a year to come to a head, Adenauer had two major, but very dissimilar allies: Charles de Gaulle of France and Franz Josef Strauss of Bavaria...

...That enthusiasm for de Gaulle was not shared by Erhard, nor by Erhard's Foreign Minister, Gerhard Schroeder...

...Had Erhard realized this-or indeed had he been possessed of a little more political acumen-he would never have agreed to accepting the post of Chancellor without at the same time assuming the party chairmanship which Adenauer retained...

...That the removal proved a long and difficult process may perhaps be traced to the fact that Der Alte, despite his 87 years, found the affront impossible to comprehend...

...There has existed for years a suspicion that Bonn secretly helped finance France's involvement in the Algerian war, in exchange for some assurance of future support in other fields of endeavor...

...It is paradoxical yet true that the same people who complained loudly about Konrad Adenauer's arrogance and authoritarianism today accuse his successor of failing to give sufficiently forceful direction to his government...

...The chances are heavily in favor of the proposition that Erhard, and the much-maligned Schroeder, are embarked on the right path and are sufficiently competent to steer an accurate course between Scylla and Charybdis...

...Der Aile rescued Strauss from many an embarrassing crisis, but was eventually forced to ditch him by sheer force of public (and press) outcry...

...But it is known that one of these agreements concerned the European Common Market agricultural prices settlement which, under the Rome agreements, was intended to work to the advantage of all six Common Market members...

...One of the many things Erhard apparently did not understand was that his predecessor had every intention of continuing his virulent campaign even after giving up his office...

...Indeed, such was his indifference to the finer points of intraparty struggles that he was unwilling or unable to keep them secret from the public...

...To put it bluntly, while believing that he was using de Gaulle for his own purposes, Adenauer was gradually slipping into a position in which the French President was in fact using him...

...The full extent of them are today mysterious and may never come fully to light...

...A Man of Power himself, Adenauer began to develop something approaching adulation of Charles de Gaulle...

...But they believe that the days of the German-French "exclusive relationship" treaty are numbered...

...Moreover, after the death of his great and good friend John Foster Dulles, whose forthright, black-and-white concepts of world affairs Adenauer grasped easily, the Chancellor felt himself misunderstood by Washington...

...Bonn Parliament and Cabinet members lived through a kind of Mad Hatter's tea party of synthetic debate KENNETH AMES, a frequent contributor to these pages, is a Newsweek correspondent in Bonn...

...Over the past year, both men have collaborated successfully in a campaign to discredit Erhard's efforts at good government...

...One had only to observe the Bundestag in action and see the obsequious, schoolboy respect paid to Adenauer to understand the special position he enjoyed by virtue of his refusal to compromise or suffer fools-even those in his own party...

...Ludwig Erhard, as his irascible old predecessor had repeatedly warned, was not a man to rule a cabinet, a party or a parliament from a position of strength...

...For the first time in its new honeymoon with democratic government, Germany was forced to recognize that the ruling Christian Democratic CDU coalition was not a monolithic power machine but a government made up of individuals, each pusuing his own ends or attempting to promote his own special interests...

...Against the backdrop of de Gaulle's dreams of leading Europe as a third world force, and the slow but gradual disintegration of the new European community into the old collection of chauvinistic nation states, it has not been difficult to make Schroeder's performance as Foreign Minister (and thus Erhard's as Chancellor) look like a miserable failure...

...It is a tribute to the common sense of both men that they managed to work together for 14 years while remaining bitter personal enemies...

...He nurtured idealistic notions of "joint decisions" and "common responsibility...

...Germany suddenly found itself in an unfamiliar state of affairs, though one common to most other Western countries, as dissension among its leaders became a public issue...

...Foreign relations and foreign policy have always occupied Schroeder, a somewhat cold and reserved man, and have left him an easy scapegoat without the solid backing of a power bloc inside the Parliamentary party...

...Without it, they feel cheated and at sea...

...One man who might know is Franz Josef Strauss, Bavarian political baron and Defense Minister under Adenauer...

...Allied in a concerted effort to make Erhard look foolish, both have embraced the causes of de Gaulle-his European Third Force ideas, and his aspirations of making the French force de frappe the spearhead of an independent European deterrent...

...Without the economic prosperity and expanding markets created by Erhard's daring free-market economics-at the time, the rest of Europe was restricting purchasing power-Adenauer would never have succeeded in stabilizing Germany's political life...

...The full extent of Adenauer's contempt for Erhard as a politician was first revealed in 1959, when there was talk of elevating Der Aile to the Presidency and giving the Economics Minister the job of Chancellor...