Too much politics, not enough sex

GERMANY NIGEL LAWSON

Those who complain about the lack of any 'great divide' between Conservative and Labour in England, ought to take a look at Germany, where the ideological difference between the two major parties is barely perceptible. When, for example, the present 'big' coalition between the Conservative CDU and the Socialist SPD was first formed, the German equivalent of Aims of Industry was particularly happy that the 'socialist' Dr Schiller, with his firm belief in sound finance, was going to take the reins of the economy from the hands of that bounder, the 'conservative' Dr Erhard (they didn't bar- gain for the unsettling 'conservative' Herr Strauss muscling in as he has).

This sort of paradox is most striking in West Berlin, sen-dominated ever since the war and home of Germany's leading socialist, Foreign Minister Willy Brandt. Of course it's not sur- prising that in West Berlin, a militarily inde- fensible enclave in the midst of East Germany, with the Red Army on its doorstep, the ruling sen senators should for the most part (the Mayor, Herr Schutz, is an exception) sound like the hardest hard liners and coldest cold warriors to be found in the mu, But it's not just in foreign affairs that this happens. Berlin's overriding domestic problem (students apart) is its serious housing shortage. The 'socialist' government of Berlin has just announced a pur- posive plan to eradicate this social evil: by next year all rent control is to be abolished.. -

Unhappily, in spite of the recent electoral comeback (from the brink of parliamentary ex- tinction) of Germany's little Liberal party, the 1-PD, which has caused the thoughts of both the (socialist) SPD and a wing of the (conserva- tive) CDU to turn MCC again to the delights of a small coalition, a continuation of the present arrangement still seems the most probable out- come of September's general election. The se) is unlikely to do well enough to form a par- hamentary majority with the FDP alone, while the EDP-wooers among the CDU, led by Herr Schroder, fresh from his defeat for the titular Federal Presidency last month, will have their work cut out to convince their colleagues that the Liberals—now far more radical than the Socialists—are their natural partners. There indeed, something rather curious in seeing Schroder, one of the most conservative figures in the CDU, wooing the radical FPO—especially when it was FPD votes which lost him the Presidency. But then the FPD voted against him only because the neo-nazi NPD was voting for him. And so, to complete the paradox, it was the neo-nazi vote which effectively made the Socialist, Dr Heinemann, Federal President.

There is, of course, a case for a big coalition when there is a commonly agreed national task to be undertaken—but even then an excep- tionally strong leader is needed to keep the various factions together. Today the Germans have neither. The original ostensible common task—restoring Germany's allegedly ailing eco- nomy—has been achieved with a degree of success that most other countries find positively embarrassing (chiefly, I suspect, because the economy was never really ailing in the first place); while, as a national leader, Chancellor Kiesinger, although (thanks to television) still reasonably popular with the masses, is regarded by his colleagues as a joke.

Originally, another 'common task' of the coalition was to seek a solution to 'the German problem' by abandoning cold war immobilism and trying a more flexible approach to the eastern bloc countries—the so-called ostpolitik. Solving the German problem means, of course, different things to different Germans, ranging from genuine reunification to simply making the conditions of life in East Germany more tolerable. Not surprisingly, the impetus behind the ostpolitik, whatever its precise objective, hasn't been the same since last August, when the Russian tanks entered Prague.

But the Germans are nothing if not optimists. Instead of lamenting the plight of the unhappy Czechs, they point out that even under Russian occupation the people enjoy infinitely greater freedom than they did under Novotny (which is true—but for how much longer?); and they argue that it was the German ostpolitik which made the Czech reforms possible--a most dubious proposition. Stymied by the Brezhnev -doctrine of the Socialist Commonwealth. which it is the sacred duty of the Red Army to main- tain in its pristine purity? Why, look at Hun- gary, quietly liberalising (at least economically) like mad, and the Russians do -nothing about i:.. Anyway, add the more credulous, the corn- muniqui after the recent Warsaw Pact meeting at Budapest, with its polite offer of a European security conference, shows that there is a real chance of doing a deal (and indeed Bonn is now busilj, preparing its response to that offer). And even those who are sceptical of the Budapest offer don't lose heart. Look at the

Sino-Russian battles on the Ussuri river, they argue. It's China that really worries Russia to- day. A little more trouble on her eastern frontier (and remember how much Chinese territory Russia pinched in the nineteenth century) and Moscow will be falling over herself to do a deal, involving Germany, with the West.

Now at one level all this wishful thinking is rather silly. But it does at least provide Ger- many with a living foreign policy objective and interest, which is arguably better than the in- - troversion that has gripped this country. Of course, it's partly a matter of differing national psychologies: we, I suspect, would find it im- mensely frustrating to be constantly pursuing an apparently unattainable foreign policy goal, and would soon settle with relief to reconciling ourselves to the status quo (this is partly why there is diminishing interest in this country in joining the Common Market). For the Ger- mans, however, nothing can possibly be as frustrating as the status quo, whatever it is; they must always be trying something new (as Tacitus pointed out a long time ago); a deal here, an approach there, moves everywhere. Ir.deed, I suspect that for many intelligent Ger- mans, strong supporters of the ostpolitik, its essential hopelessness is part of its attraction;

for it allows them to enjoy the psychological satifaction of constant movement, and the ap- pearance of change, while avoiding the risks of real movement and the agonies of genuine change. And it does incidentally mean that German politicians are infinitely better in- formed than ours are about what's going on in the communist bloc.

A new element in East-West German relations is the grudging respect many West Germans now have for the hated East German leader, Herr Ulbricht. This is partly because his coun- try is technically and economically far and away the most advanced of the eastern bloc countries—more advanced than Ru‘sia herself —and recent progress has been especially rapid. But most of all they respect Ulbricht for having been right, and the Russians wrong, when he warned Moscow that things in Czecho- slovakia were getting out of hand and that there would have to be intervention, and the numskulls in the Kremlin pooh-poohed him. Nowadays, they tell one, Ulbricht is listened to in Moscow.

And they're right. In a totally different context, Ulbricht is edging East Germany towards the sort of role in the eastern alliance that Britain has traditionally aspired to in the West: a 'special relationship' with its superpower partner in which it hopes to acquire a special and unique influence in return for guaranteeing its total and complete reliability - as an ally. Ulbricht is chasing the old German dream of a Berlin-Moscow 'axis, in which, while the other Warsaw Pact countries seek to pursue 'Their national ambitions through either liberali- sation or independence, he seeks East Ger- many \ through orthodoxy and dependence. And in playing Britain to Russia's United States he does have certain advantages that we lack —among them East Germany's strategic im- portance to Moscow. her technological super- ' iority over Russia, and the lingering Russian "trauma about what an unreliable German neighbour might do. I went into a gramophone record shop in East Berlin. There was a box on the counter which was meant to contain records of the national anthems of all the War- `saw Pact countries. There were a large number of records in it, to be sure. But they were all cf either the East German or the Russian nat- ional anthem. It seemed apt.

The notorious twenty-five mile Berlin wall is a drab oddity, and a symbol of communist weakness, but hardly very menacing. Certainly, in spite of Mr Le Carr& I wouldn't give it a high frisson-power rating. Curiously, the East Germans are now busily engaged in building a rather similar eleven-foot-high wall right round the sixty-mile frontier of West Berlin with East Germany proper, and no one is batting an eyelid. Inevitably, living inside this large compound is somewhat claustrophobic—rather like living on a small island. Which is what West Berlin is, but not all that small; bigger than the Isle of Wight, for instance; or bigger (for that matter) than St Kitts, Nevis and mighty Anguilla all lumped together. Nor is it in any way overcrowded, with woods, lakes, and ample building land. (In the largest of the woods, the Griinewald, BP are actually drilling for oil.) Indeed, the most genuine threat to Berlin is that in spite of the vast and growing subsidies (including, for many, negative income tax) that Bonn pays the Berliners, the population will gradually drift off to the mainland—unless, of course, the im- possible happens and they really do strike oil in a big way. There was a net emigration of some 10,000 last year.

This is one reason why the Berlin authorities, fully supported by the city's workers, have tended to overreact to the city's student dis- turbances. For the more trouble the students cause, the less people will want to move to Berlin, and the city needs 20,000 immigrants a year simply to keep its population static. Hence the students are seen as the enemy within : far more dangerous than the enemy at the gates.

The Berlin university situation has long been worse than anywhere else in Ger- many. It must now be the worst in Europe. The left-wing, anarcho-fascist revolutionary student movement in Berlin is by no means united : factions argue as to whether it is right, after Prague, to co-operate with communist elements in the APO (ausparlamentarische opposition—extra-parliamentary opposition: it is yet another achievement of the big coali- tion to have sparked off the creation of this movement, already familiarly known by its initials); and at the present time there is a fierce battle between the hawks, who believe in violence against people, and the doves, who argue that violence should be used only against buildings and other inanimate objects.

But in Berlin, unlike other universities, the extremists are no longer a minority : every student vote, however large the poll, has given the decision to the revolutionaries. Many professors claim that this 'majority' is pro- duced .by intellectual intimidation on the part of the revolutionary student leaders and their gangs; but although this certainly exists it may be less important than a climate in which engaging in 'revolutionary violence' has be- come the way in which a student 'proves' that he is a student and not a schoolboy. The result is that both the Free University and the Tech- nical University are now completely in the students' hands. At the Technical University even the most revolutionary students still spend part of their time studying, and courses tarry on. But at the most important faculties of the Free University (with, ironically, the most liberal constitution in Germany) wandering gangs of 200 or so students began fast term a

policy of physically breaking up any lecture or seminar they chanced to find in progress. God knows what will happen next term.

When I drove past the Technical University one morning the other week it was clear that at least one student had returned early from his vacation : all the windows on one floor of the steel-and-glass block had been painted with slogans, of which the largest were the word 'FUCK' and the legend 'BERLIN =POLIZEI-STAAT.' When I drove past again late that afternoon the authorities had removed the second, but the first remained as clear and bold as before. No room for doubt where the raw nerve is. It's Berlin's misfortune that its students are more interested in politics than sex.