The Decline of Chancellor Erhard

From KONRAD AHLERS

HAMBURG

ponlickum Germany is in a mess. Since Chancellor Erhard's great victory in the elec- tion of September last year one crisis has fol-

lowed another. The latest one, the revolt of 'those German generals,' was the last but not the least, and round the corner looms a bigger one still : the Parliamentary fight over the constitutional

reform which is needed to pass the stabilisation law for Ludwig Erhard's W irtschaftswunder—the German equivalent of the British prices and

incomes freeze. The outcome of this fight will be make or break for the Chancellor. But even if he wins, which is probable, his fate will still depend on the outcome of the elections in Hessen, Bavaria and Rheinland-Pfalz, which are all due during the next six months.

So there will be no internal peace in the Federal Republic and no quiet hours for Dr Erhard, who a few days ago told a German journalist that the man who could do all this better than he is not in sight. Unfortunately for the Chancellor, however, there are quite a num- ber of people in Bonn who think otherwise : Kon- rad Adenauer, for instance, or Rainer Barzel, the Chief of the Parliamentary Party of the Christian Democrats, or Herr Strauss, not to speak of the Socialists or even the Liberals, who since 1949 have in fact been the most loyal supporters of the man who considers himself the Pope of all true Liberals in the world.

What has happened to the Pope? First of all, the economic situation got out of control in much

the same way as it has in Britain, although

nothing like as seriously. Nevertheless, people became discontented and anxious. Prices have risen faster than wages, employment is now merely full instead of overfull, the coal-mines and the steel industry are in real trouble, exports are becoming increasingly difficult while imports forge ahead and the balance of payments position has deteriorated. Yet for months and months the Chancellor has done no more than preach against the affluent society and tell his critics that he knows best.

This was not good enough for the coalminers between the Rhine and the Ruhr. It was mainly for this reason that Erhard lost the summer elec- tion in North Rhine-Westphalia, but only mainly.

Modern election analysis shows that the elec- torate changes its voting habits more slowly than its opinions. There is a time-lag between a shift in public opinion and its manifestation at the polls. Thus, what happened in North Rhine- Westphalia this year—parity between Christian Democrats and Socialists—should strictly have happened in the Federal elections of 1965. Large numbers of people in Germany feel that it is time for a change after more than fifteen years with the same party in power. But again, many people are reluctant to vote for the Socialists and to give them a clear mandate. (It is to overcome this reluctance, incidentally, that the Socialists are trying to step into the government by becoming the junior partner in a national coalition. Under- standably, they assume that once the German voter becomes accustomed to a Socialist defence or foreign minister, after a while he will easily accept and vote for a Socialist Chancellor.) But there is another point of discontent. Under Adenauer, the German people felt that their in- fluence on world affairs, at least within the Western Alliance, bore some relationship to their economic status: Bonn's voice was heard in Washington and, to a certain extent, even in Paris. Moscow did not matter, because nobody expected anything from the Russians; the same was true of London. Anyone else in the world who dared to do something hostile to the Federal Republic, such as talking to the East Germans, was punished by the withdrawal of German aid.

That usually was enough. But now nobody seems to listen to Bonn any more. President Johnson tries to make a disarmament deal with Moscow behind Germany's back, Prime Minister Wilson threatens to cut the Rhine Army in half, Presi- dent de Gaulle tries to rebuild both the little and the great entente as a means of encirclement of Germany, and the non-aligned nations take money from Bonn and from East Berlin alike.

There seems to be no place at the top for West Germany in world affairs, and the dream of a United Europe remains a dream. Although this is hardly a surprising situation, it is still a great disappointment to the Germans who thought that by fighting with the right side this time they would be able to correct the outcome of two world wars. Yet, at the moment, in spite of her gross national product, in spite of her twelve divisions, West Germany ranks very low among the great or even the middle powers. Rightly or wrongly, the Germans feel that there is a dis- crepancy between their economic and their political standing within the international com- munity and this gap is a source of a new German nationalism.

Chancellor Erhard is not the man to bridge this gap. His behaviour in foreign affairs is clumsy. Very often it appears that he lacks a full understanding of what is going on. But good- will alone is not enough for a statesman, and the trouble is that by now the Germans have recog- nised his weaknesses. His own party would like to get rid of him, but since there is no heir apparent to the throne nobody can do anything.

This again became startlingly clear last week, when the generals started their coup which ended

in complete failure. The Defence Minister, von Hassel, had informed Erhard on the Sunday of the letters of resignation from General Trettner (Chief of Staff) and General Panitzki (head of the Air Force). But the Chancellor replied, let us wait until Thursday—the day when he came back from holiday.

This was not the behaviour of a man who can put everything in its place, but it was Erhard's normal reaction to difficult problems. The generals put him in a strange position. During his holidays he had planned a major reshuffle of his cabinet and the dismissal of von Hassel.

Now he had to back von Hassel to the hilt be- cause otherwise it would have seemed that the General Staff had the power to fire their boss. Not even Erhard, who is not normally very re- sistent to pressure groups, could allow this.

Thus, after some hesitation, the generals' resignations were accepted and the crisis is temporarily over, even though the position of von Hassel as Defence Minister is now weaker than before and the Chancellor is unable to re- place him. Meanwhile the army, which was un- til recently a strong supporter of the govern- ment and which showed this at the polls, is looking to the Socialists for help and, in spite of its anti-militaristic tradition, the SPD is siding with the generals in, the fight against the government. A Gallup-poll has shown that more and more professional soldiers intend to vote Socialist in the next elections or, still worse, for the new right-wing party, the NDP.

What do the generals want? To understand this one must realise that officially there is no German general staff—because nearly all Ger- man troops are under the command of NATO— and that there is no supreme military commander of the German forces. In peace-time the supreme commander is Minister of Defence (in war the Chancellor); his deputy is his own number two in ' the Defence Ministry. The highest-ranking German general is only one of a number of chiefs of departments within that ministry. For two years the generals have tried to promote themselves and to give the so-called Inspector- General the same position as the Deputy Minister and thus become deputy to the Defence Minister as supreme commander. This cuts across the new established custom of civilian control over the armed forces.

It remains to be seen whether the Chancellor and the Bundestag will give in so that General Trettner's resignation will become a worth-while sacrifice, or whether his behaviour will only further persuade the politicians that the military should not be allowed to become a political force. The government's decision has yet to be made. It will be an important one for the future of Ger- many because—at least for the time being—there is no sign of a real reconciliation between de- mocracy and militarism.