MARX, MARKS AND MARILYN
By U. W. KITZINGER
&MA
THE German electoral law is an attempt to T get the best of all possible worlds : and in large measure it succeeds. It was designed to meet the chief objections levied both against single- member constituencies and against proportional representation; and it squares the circle by a system of 'personalised PR.' To forge a personal link between representative and represented, half the Bundestag is elected by relative majority in single-member constituencies. To overcome the gross distortion of political forces which a pure application of the British system would have brought about in Germany, the remaining seats are filled from party lists : as many list seats are given to each party as will make its total representation in the Bundestag proportional to the votes it received in the country. But that is not all: for thus far the Weimar problem of splinter parties remains unsolved. To prevent their pro- fusion, therefore, no list seats are given to parties that fail to win 5 per cent. of the federal vote or three constituency seats. Thus only five parties are represented in the old Bundestag, and of the eleven that have put up candidates now, no more than six stand a chance.
When, on Thursday, the Bundestag met in its final session, dozens of its members—many of them sitting for safe constituencies—knew it was their last day in the white glass house by the Rhine. Battles have been fought and lost in the local associations, and selection committees in Germany are no respecters of the sitting member.- The law required a secret ballot : members whose re-adoption was unquestioned may well have been in the minority, and some were thrown out against Bonn's advice. Party headquarters have a little more influence on the ten State lists: but these are elaborate balancing acts between geographical, professional and religious pressures (the Hesse CDU disposed of one problem by alternating Catholic and Protestant candidates right down its list) and the writ of Bonn often carries little weight against a sturdily independent State selection conference.
While members were thus making their fare- wells a little delegation appeared in the Bundeshaus: led by the Mayor of Leipzig it made for the Speaker, but got no farther than the Deputy-Speaker's secretary. Even Carl Schmidt had nipped into the Chamber at thsil approach and the deputation was left to give I press conference in a near-by pub. These three East Germans were only the cap of a large ice, berg that has been moving across the open infer' zonal frontier from the DDR to the Federt Republic. Squads of students bound for election meetings have already crossed over and more are expected. Ever since early in the year well over a million letters have been posted to privatt individuals each month in Western Germany b) East German agents. The leaflets-they contain are of 200 different types : the German Communists programme with Marilyn Monroe on the cove chain-letter appeals to vote only for Protestanl candidates, issued in the name of a spurious Protestant, organisation; and a forged ten-marl note that opens to reveal the slogan 'Vote SKY and is signed by the outlawed Communist Part! of Germany. When the eliullient young Minister of Defence, Franz-Josef Strauss, was shouted' down in a turbulent meeting in the Hofbrauhaus it took less than twenty-four hours for a tape' recording of the turmoil to be broadcast on the East German radio; and 'Freedom Station 904' laces its hot American tunes with incantation that Adenauer must go.
Apart from embarrassing the SPD this costly activity can have little effect except on the home market; and there is evidence that the electorate —in particular the very sceptical younger voters —are equally unresponsive to extremism from the three small parties of the extreme right. 00 Thursday a pre-1945 ideological training expert spent much of his speech taunting Adenauer with never even having been a corporal at a meeting of the Deutsche Reichspartei at which war books, a biography of Hermann Goering, and even more tendentious publications were on sale : the DO supporters were largely in their forties with a sprinkling of youths and girls in their teens, but the rest of the audience, initially open-minded students at Bonn, became increasingly exasperq ated and spontaneously broke up the meeting when anti-Semitism played too overtly into the discussion. The future is always uncertain : but for the moment the neo-Fascist groups hardly have a chance.
The real battle is thus waged over only a small area of the field : but it is all the fiercer for that. There is no limit on party expenditure, and con- tributions to party funds can be offset against income for tax purposes. Industry has been generous to four of the five parties represented in the Bundestag, giving each a share of the central funds, and the SPD too has in many cases been able to tap individual firms. The Socialists' ut I 'esti
sht
not it it • the ned bet, estimate of £10 million spent on propaganda for the CDU and its faithful ally the Deutsche Partei is almost certainly too high; but Big Brother Konrad is watching you from every hoarding with his wise and penetrating glance. The show, in fact, is all the Chancellor's, and he thrives on it. Ever since he declared in Nuremberg that an SPD victory would mean the ruin of Germany the Opposition has been on the defensive, the outgoing government on the attack.
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