Germany's Postelection Mood
SALPETER, ELIAHU
WITH SCHMIDT IN THE SADDLE Germany's Postelection MOOd by eliahu salpeter nuremburg Arriving on a personal visit a fortnight before the recent West German elections, I found it interesting to...
...Alongside political stability, economic stability is what worries Germans most...
...Such implications successfully played upon the German voters' anxieties, especially since they were reinforced by the contrast between Schmidt's soothing air of diffidence and rationality and Strauss' boisterous pugnacity...
...Fears of high unemployment and runaway inflation still cast their shadow from the Weimar days that preceded Nazism...
...Even the neofascist bombing that brutally disrupted the annual beer festival in Bavaria's capital, Munich, just nine days prior to the October balloting failed to fire up the state campaign...
...That outcome has raised the question of whether postelection Germany will be as staunchly pro-nato as the country was until now...
...What infuriated the Social Democrats, though, was the bishops' contention that the nation was living beyond its means and sinking into debt...
...Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz...
...The previous week Strauss was honored with the inaugural stein of beer from the first barrel uncorked at the festival, and he duly commiserated that the price of the drink had gone up 5 per cent since last year...
...ties, while 38 per cent would prefer non-alignment...
...Technically, the argument over the letter—the only issue to liven up a rather dull campaign—centered on the propriety of influencing the Catholic vote from the pulpit...
...Public opinion polls do not determine what a party will do when in power, as Schmidt has shown in the past...
...The allied Christian Democrats and Christian Socialists (CDU/CSU) constantly implied that Prime Minister Helmut Schmidt's Social Democrats (SPD) were pro-Soviet, if not outright Communists...
...Perhaps in Bonn, which lives by politics, or in Frankfurt, the financial capital, the elections would have been absorbing...
...On a more substantive level, political and economic stability were the primary themes of every party...
...The Federal government and the city of Nuremburg have already spent several hundred million dollars on the new portion of the subway, for example, and although less than half of it remains to be completed, that will cost more than what is already built...
...The "small German" is convinced that expenditures are too high, and that too much is spent on welfare—notably for foreigners—at the expense of his children's future...
...Nevertheless, the old fears lurk just beneath the surface, even in the second and third postwar generation...
...The Emnid figures on Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher's small Free Democratic Party are perhaps most surprising...
...The overall mood in West Germany appears to have shifted in this direction, too, according to a study released last month by the Emnid Public Opinion Institute...
...Both major parties engaged in smear tactics...
...In Nuremburg the only exciting public event was the opening of a new section of the subway, celebrated with free beer and the suspension of fares on the weekends...
...Indeed, the major issue in Nuremburg and Munich was inflation...
...Since Strauss and the Christian Democrats had been preaching fiscal conservatism for years, pointing an accusing finger at the Social Democrats, the pastoral letter lent the moral authority of the Catholic Church to their charges...
...In a typical three-minute campaign film, Defense Minister Hans Apel appeared before a background of West German soldiers on maneuvers to explain that military strength and the ability to talk with the enemy were the two pillars of peace...
...Nuremburg is the "classic" city of Bavaria, the largest state in the Federal Republic and the home of defeated opposition candidate Franz Josef Strauss...
...The warning touched many Germans deep in their frugal Teutonic souls: Not the intellectuals or the upper middle classes, but the millions of blue-collar workers, minor civil servants and artisans who try to live within their incomes and still save up in advance for a new color television rather than buy it on installments...
...In the end, though, Schmidt's proven ability to skirt inflation and unemployment—particularly compared to other European statesmen—assured his victory...
...WITH SCHMIDT IN THE SADDLE Germany's Postelection MOOd by eliahu salpeter nuremburg Arriving on a personal visit a fortnight before the recent West German elections, I found it interesting to observe the closing stages of the campaign from this provincial metropolis rather than from Bonn, the usual haunt of the professional journalist...
...The SPD stressed steady relations with the Soviet bloc...
...And the Deutsche mark continues to be the most stable currency in Europe after the Swiss franc...
...In fact, they were the real cause of the great furor stirred up by a Catholic bishops' pastoral letter read in all churches two weeks before election day...
...But 34 per cent of these conservatives backed nonalignment and bewilderingly, 4 per cent expressed a desire for closer relations with Moscow...
...So prices do go up in relatively stable Germany, for everything from construction costs to beer...
...Other SPD material stooped to the same invidious comparison, not much more subtly...
...When, in addition, the strikes in Poland damaged the credibility of Schmidt's Ostpolitik, the clear-cut superiority of the SPD showed signs of erosion...
...The Free Democrats, who see themselves as heirs to the classical Liberals and a brake of sorts on the Leftist tendencies of their partner in the ruling coalition, nonetheless registered the largest percentage in support of closer ties with Moscow—a full 11 per cent, almost three times higher than the two major parties...
...51 per cent favor U.S...
...Still, the pull toward greater independence has been felt and the figures are something to ponder as the SPD-FDP coalition again prepares to guide West German policy...
...Surprising findings reveal, first of all, that among citizens of the Federal Republic as a whole support for the alliance with the U.S...
...Few doubt Schmidt's personal commitment to the alliance...
...Yet for the last year it has been no secret that he has grave misgivings about American leadership of the West—despite his taking care to avoid the kind of open conflict with Washington that has marked French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing's stance for some time...
...There is no serious unemployment, largely due to the cushion of foreign "guest workers" who have been sent back home to Turkey, Yugoslavia or Spain...
...But it did not give him the clear parliamentary majority he had hoped to achieve...
...Yet I had a sense that for all the hullabaloo and rhetoric, nobody here considered the outcome of the vote crucial...
...Predictably, a large majority of Christian Democrats would stick with the western alliance: 61 per cent...
...But the SPD outdid the opposition in mudslinging with a notorious campaign film prepared by its Leftish intellectuals, depicting Strauss and Hitler as interchangeable...
...then he claimed that Strauss was not capable of living peacefully with the leaders of his own party...
...Moreover, many Social Democrats would like to see Schmidt's occasional independence from the U.S., at present largely confined to tactics, extended to basic strategies...
...A widely distributed CDU /CSU pamphlet declared that SPD policies were formulated by its "Moscow wing...
...is considerably weaker than generally imagined: Only 52 per cent want close political ties with the U.S., while 43 per cent favor nonalignment and 4 per cent would prefer closer relations with the Soviet Union...
...Instead, the SPD's long-time coalition partner, the tiny Free Democratic Party (FDP), registered the greatest gain by increasing the number of seats it holds in the 497-member Bundestag from 39 to 53, while the Socialists barely advanced from 214 to 218, and the CDU/CSU fell from 243 to 226...
...Broken down to parties, the Social Democrats show a slight majority favoring nonalignment: 49 per cent, against 47 per cent who wish to continue the status quo, and 4 per cent who want closer Soviet ties...
...The public's cheers, however, went mainly to the bevies of young waitresses who decorated the floats following the huge, ancient beer-wagon drawn by six brewery horses in the traditional opening parade...
Vol. 63 • October 1980 • No. 19
