FROM FREE BEER TO FREE DEMOCRATS
Andrew Gimson on how Herr Schroder
could stay in power for a dozen years
Bonn THERE WAS free beer at the Social Democrats' election night celebrations in Bonn, but getting hold of it took time. At the open-air bar erected in the street beside party headquarters, which I reached at about midnight, three waitresses were besieged by a crowd of intoxicated rev- ellers shouting 'beer', or simply 'two', `three', or however many glasses they wanted to take for their friends. The ground was strewn with broken glass and a group of young men seemed to be taking their clothes off in order to perform a dance in front of the television cameras.
The way to get things done in Germany, in my experience, is to ask for them with absurd politeness in an English accent, so on reaching the bar, I said, 'Might I per- haps have a glass of beer, please?' but this low-key approach drew a snarl of con- tempt from the woman next to me, who looked as if she'd already been celebrating for some time, possibly even since the SPD's triumph became known from the exit polls published at six in the evening. `Beer,' she shouted in an even louder voice than everyone else, waving her arms and pointing at me as a man in desperate need — an approach which was well-meant, but which naturally annoyed the waitresses and made them even slower to serve me.
Two days later, I still cannot decide whether this incident tells us what to expect from the SPD's social policy (gen- erosity tempered by scarcity); but if any- thing, the party has become even happier as the magnitude of its victory sinks in. `This is only the second time we've taken power in my lifetime,' said a woman who was in Bonn as a young reporter when Willy Brandt became Chancellor in 1969. She said there were many fewer press peo- ple in those days and only two television teams, and she found herself swept into the bungalow which is the Chancellor's official residence, where she ended up on a sofa next to Edward Kennedy. Next morning, Count Nayhauss, then as now the doyen of political gossip columnists in Bonn, wanted to know what had hap- pened. The answer was nothing — she is no Monica Lewinsky — but she did say that Brandt himself was incredibly charm- ing and never gave you the feeling he was chatting you up.
The Christian Democrats' vote fell last Sunday to 35 per cent, the lowest since the foundation of West Germany in 1949. Nobody in Bonn expected them to fall away that badly. Shortly before the elec- tion I spoke to a highly intelligent Social Democrat, a man close to their candidate Gerhard SchrOder, who said that the SPD campaign had gone from bad to worse and forecast they would win by only 0.5 to 1.5 per cent. This was impossible to reconcile with the tireless fieldwork carried out by my Berlin newsagent Rosemarie Lorenz, a former East German rowing champion whom I consult each morning before breakfast about the state of public opinion, which she assesses in man;y hours of con- versation with her customers. She said she was going to vote SPD with the sole pur- pose of getting rid of Helmut Kohl, and that many other people would do so too.
Frau Lorenz got it right while most of the German press and pollsters got it wrong, predicting a far smaller lead than the 5.7 per cent which the SPD achieved. They therefore failed to realise that the party would be able to command a parlia- ' That's another one this week. So Camilla really is gaining in popularity.' mentary majority with the help of the Greens, obviating any need to do a deal with Herr Kohl's lot. Cocooned in their dowdy modern office blocks, the Bonn establishment never quite understood how hated Herr Kohl had become.
They were also too impressed by Herr Herr SchrOder being not greatly admired. This is true but unimportant. Of course the Germans are too sensible to idealise Schr6der, or to believe that he can solve problems like unemployment with a wave of his hand. Now that he is in power it should be rather an advantage to him that he is not regarded as a saviour. Perhaps he will be able to surpass such low expecta- tions. He has already brought gusts of fresh air blowing through Bonn. He and Joschka Fischer, the Green star who is in the run- ning for foreign minister, have a sovereign lack of the inhibitions which cramped Herr Kohl's style.
Nor do they possess the power system which Herr Kohl used to cramp everyone else's style in his coalition. Much is being made of the troubles the two leaders will suffer at the hands of their own parties. I suppose they will, but both men's strength — and one of Herr Kohl's strengths too in his great days — is that they can reach beyond their parties to speak to the Ger- man nation.
The Green `fundis', or fundamentalists, will be a particularly rich source of alleged lunacies. On Tuesday, one of them said they should not have a coalition with Herr Schroder unless he promises to cancel the Transrapid, the incredibly expensive train which would run on a new track from Berlin to Hamburg and cut 20 minutes off the journey time. But, far from being lunatic, a demand like this is a glimpse of sanity. German industry wants to build the train at the taxpayers' expense, but why anyone else — including anyone trying to balance the government's books — should support it is a mystery.
So Herr Schroder will be able to yield with a fitting show of reluctance to those Green demands which actually quite suit him. But if, after a while, he gets fed up with them and decides the German econo- my needs pepping up with a dose of free- market economics, then in a few years' time he can drop the Greens and form a coalition with the Free Democrats instead, who have 44 MPs to the Greens' 47. That way, he could be in power for a dozen years.
At the end of the SPD party, I found myself talking to a Bonn political journalist about where in Berlin he should get a flat which is near to plenty of trees and within cycling distance of the Reichstag. For not the least of Herr SchrOder's virtues is that he hates Bonn and wants to leave it behind as soon as possible, probably around April next year.
Andrew Gimson is the Daily Telegraph's Berlin correspondent.
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