Germany Worries About the Future

...About half of the nation's exports are investment goods...

...It should be stressed, however, that none of these elections can predict what the mood of the German people will be at the time the Bundestag is chosen a year and a half from now...

...People here claim that "when all is said and done," Strauss' hawkish foreign policy stance and Right-wing approach to domestic matters will block his path to the CDU leadership position...

...The man on the street condemns Bonn simultaneously for failing to control violence and for caving in because the victim was a VIP...

...the rest are consumer products and semifinished materials (mostly chemicals and steel...

...Despite an overall contraction of world trade, exports continue to expand because of high quality, punctual delivery and the servicing offered by manufacturers...

...But that, of course, is another problematic issue...

...Strauss' somewhat belated denial did not make much of a difference since the statement attributed to him precisely fit his image in both labor and liberal circles...

...Like their counterparts in the rest of the industrialized world, therefore, they are now trying to determine how to handle the situation without aggravating either inflation or unemployment...

...But the CDU has kept pointing to the Left-leaning Young Socialist (juso) sections of the SPD, saying that so long as they remain part of the Socialist party, it is senseless for the authorities to talk about suppressing Leftist terror...

...For the moment, the situation seems most satisfactory...

...These days and in these circles, it is fashionable to talk about "the decline of Helmut Schmidt," and to stress at the same time-since the Chancellor's personal prestige remains high-that what is really meant is the decline of the ruling Social Democratic party (SPD...

...and Franz-Josef Strauss, leader of the Christian Socialist Union (CSU), the Bavarian wing of the CDU...

...they now acknowledge the rule of the national SPD...

...Out of a working population of about 22 million, there are today over 1.2 million unemployed (i.e., about 5.5 per cent) and some 900,000 more on shortened schedules...

...Paradoxically, perhaps, he favors closer relations with Communist China and received a warm welcome not long ago in Peking...

...On another level, economists note that the ongoing export drive contributes directly and indirectly to inflation, by reducing the availability of goods that are also in demand at home while increasing the amount of money that is in circulation...

...The fourfold increase in the price of oil has been easily absorbed, and in trade last year the Federal Republic registered an unprecedented $20 billion profit, leaving-after reductions for invisible imports, investments abroad and transfers by foreign workers-a balance of payments surplus of about $10 billion...

...Lately, there seems to be yet another reason for the attractiveness of goods produced here: The comparative stability of German prices, thanks to a relatively low rate of inflation, compensates buyers for the constant rise in the value of the Deutsche mark...

...They would have sent my body to my wife with a letter full of condolences and ringing statements about the moral obligation not to capitulate to political terror...

...Ironically, the drop in the party's popularity is attributed to the very issues-inflation, unemployment, "controlling the extreme Left"-that Schmidt was thought most capable of dealing with when he replaced Willy Brandt after the Guillame, espionage affair...

...The contest appears far from decided, though, and three other contenders are still very much in the running: Karl Karstens, head of the CDU's Federal parliamentary group...

...The Lorenz incident made it difficult to gauge how much of the 7 per cent increase in the CDU's losing Berlin vote reflected a sympathy shift, and how much represented a more fundamental drift from the Social Democrats...

...That-and not Helmut Schmidt's internal-security statements or Franz-Josef Strauss' news-magazine denials-will determine the direction of the country...

...In addition, since the high value of the German mark and the general prosperity of the country attract the best commodities from all over the world, a keen competition of imported goods helps to keep down consumer costs...

...In some areas the mark's rising value did lower the competitiveness of German products...

...Whereas prices went up 6-7 per cent last year, wages rose some 10 per cent on the average...

...Or it may itself have become engulfed by the world slump...

...Extremist parties, Right and Left, have generally lost ground...

...Although the weekend editions of the papers are full of long "Employes Wanted" columns, the openings are mainly in business, administration and some service sectors...

...An oldtime Socialist who spent years in Hitler's concentration camps seemed less certain: "What interests people is unemployment and inflation...

...The picture is different in manufacturing, especially in the automobile and housing industries...

...The German public is not ready to swallow this...

...Yet there can be little doubt that a large portion of the foreign workers will have to go home should the unemployment situation become considerably worse...

...Actually, Kohl is acting and speaking as if the state vote did represent a "coronation victory...

...The automobile industry, for instance, is the most notable victim...

...Again, in contrast to conditions in the U.S...

...Nevertheless, German industry, more than any other in Europe, depends on exports, and a deterioration in economic conditions elsewhere creates difficulties for foreign sales...

...Since then, however, elections in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz have seemed to indicate that the kidnapping had a less permanent impact at the polls than in the pubs and the mass media: The CDU received 53.5 per cent of the vote, 4 per cent more than in 1971, and the SPD got 38 per cent, only 2 per cent less than four years ago...

...Last month another minus was added to Strauss' scorecard when the mass-circulation weekly Der Spiegel quoted him as opposing government intervention to alleviate unemployment because a little unemployment would improve efficiency and work morality...

...One increasingly hears comments that this nation needs somebody with a strong grip to put things in order...

...Consequently, Germany's foreign currency reserves at the end of 1974 reached $24.5 billion...

...To be sure, not everything about the West German economy is rosy, even if a visiting Israeli-or an average European, for that matter-would gladly trade problems...

...The Bonn government, aware that this is a sensitive matter, particularly in the case of workers from other Common Market or nato countries, is handling it very gingerly...

...The sum total of these is then presented by politicians, diplomats and commentators as "the trend" or "the mood" of the Federal Republic, at least as far as "official circles" and "well-informed observers" are concerned...

...Strauss is the most important and most vocal critic of the government from the Right, with Brandt's Ostpolitik, especially the efforts to improve relations with the Soviet Union, one of his main targets...

...True, Schmidt unequivocably lashed out at the kidnappers and further declared that those who harbored any sympathy toward the extremists were, in spirit if not in deed, collaborators...

...That the police have not turned up the slightest clue as to the perpetrators' whereabouts, not to date anyway, has even generated a small tinge of respect for the "clean work" of the criminals...

...It frightens me...

...If I was kidnapped," explained that spokesman of vox populi, the taxi driver, "they wouldn't have made any deal...

...More pressing is the matter of unemployment...

...During the last months of the Brandt regime, many if not most juso sections seemed ready to break away from the party...

...Under the tough, Right-leaning Schmidt these divisions have been narrowed...

...Strauss is finished...

...In short, there is definitely concern here about the future, possibly more than in lands much worse off...

...Instead, he "emerges," by elimination and through consensus, from among the leadership...

...In 1974, the DM increased by 9.7 per cent against the 10 other top free-world currencies, while the value of the American dollar fell, according to the same measure, by 10 per cent...

...Werner Stollenberg, Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, where the unimpressive CDU victory in the April 13 elections was a similar disappointment...

...Although this was unquestionably an important victory, it was far from the landslide the CDU expected-a fact that could affect the contest for the top position in the party...

...and they have lowered the tone of their public statements, accepting the argument that splits inside the parity serve only the opposition...

...Many of the intelligentsia charge that officials bent over backward lest any harm to Lorenz produce a large vote for the CDU in the West Berlin balloting...

...The man who would become Chancellor should the CDU gain a majority in the Bundestag (Lower House) elections scheduled for November 1976 is not formally chosen in advance...

...Interestingly, the total of 2.1 million is approximately the same as the number of foreign workers still holding jobs in West Germany...

...West German economists feel the "miracle" of 1974-growth in exports in the face of a world recession-will not repeat itself this year...

...West Germany looks like an island of economic and social stability that has nothing in common with sickly and foundering Europe...

...In other words, roughly 10 per cent of the labor force is feeling the pinch...

...Certainly the kidnapping five days before the March 2 Berlin elections of Christian Democratic party (CDU) mayoral candidate Peter Lorenz, and the government's subsequent acceptance of the terrorist June 2 Movement's demands, has provided the opposition with an excellent opportunity for scoring points against the SPD...

...The next test of the political atmosphere will take place in May when North Rheinland-Westphalia, one of the most important states of the Federal Republic, goes to the polls...

...It is felt, too, that the Protestant north would never accept a staunch Bavarian Catholic...

...or most other European countries, these two problems seem minor here...

...Occasionally one even sees prices drop, and a competent housewife, watching the ads, can find many a bargain not only in clothing or housewares but in food items as well...

...Except for a few small segments, the Young Socialists no longer talk of joining the Communist party...

...This accusation is an oblique reference to the interesting state of relations that has developed since Schmidt's takeover, between the juso sections seemed ready to break SPD party majority and leadership...

...Rheinland-Pfalz CDU politicians and State Prime Minister Helmut Kohl had hoped that a smashing victory under his direction would firmly establish him as the frontrunner for the number one post in Bonn...

...His is a program to create a crisis and anarchy similar to that which produced Nazism," an SPD functionary remarked...

...PROBLEMS OF PROSPERITY Germany Worries About the Future BY ELIAHU SALPETER Bonn Government being Bonn's biggest "industry," every event in Germany tends to be translated here into political equations...

...Indeed, it may be symptomatic of things to come that unlike last year-then one was often told of "pampered" West Germans taking unemployment pay rather than the menial jobs held by foreigners-Germans now state with pride that their countrymen do not hesitate to accept physically dirty or dangerous jobs in other European nations which local workers decline...

...West Germany, however, remains the richest and soundest of the Common Market partners, and could even succeed in helping the others weather the present crisiso-if all pulling together, could find a way to tackle the oil-price blackmail...

...The results of recent state elections do not indicate that his fear is justified...

...Eliahu Salpeter, a frequent NL contributor and a member of the editorial board of Israel's Ha'aretz, is currently taveling in Europe...

...By then, West Germany may have succeeded in helping the rest of Western Europe to pull out of the present recession...

...Still, the handling of the Lorenz crisis has not added any luster to the SPD's current reputation...