German Elections
Local elections and Federal elections are different things in Germany as elsewhere, and inferences from the one to the other should be drawn with caution. In between the two come the Landtag elections. That is worth mentioning, because in one of the Lander in which the Social Democrats improved their position in the Communal elections on Monday they lost a seat to a Free Democrat in a Landtag by-election. Altogether the hopes of the Social Democrats for victories that would bode well for their chances in next year's Federal elections have hardly been justified. They have moved up slightly in the Important and populous Land of North Rhine Westphalia, and with a fractionally larger vote than Dr. Adenauer's Christian Democratic Union. But the Bonn Coalition, as it is called, consisting of the C.D.U., the Free Democrats and the Deutsche Partei, secured between them 48.9 per cent. of the votes, against the Socialists' 362. In Lower Saxony, where politics are confused and liable to be efferves- cent, the Socialists have lost rather more than they gained in North Rhine Westphalia. The position here is complicated by the existence of the Refugee Party (B.H.E.), which secured 16.6 per cent. of the votes. The refugees, organised politically, could be a danger if they allied themselves with one of the " irreden- tist " parties of the Right; but there is ground for hope that they will gradually lose their particularist identity as they are absorbed in the general population. Communists fared badly everywhere, and though one or two military men well-known under the Hitler regime have been elected this seems to represent rather individual successes than any general swing to the Right. Both extreme Right and extreme Left, indeed have fared ill. Dr. Adenauer, whose C.D.U. Party has only lost a little over one per cent. has no need to be perturbed. There is nothing to warrant belief in the defeat of the Bonn Coalition in next year's General Election. It may be beaten, but the results of the local elections cannot be interpreted as foreshadowing that.
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