The Side of the Sky

Grey and leaden skies hung over most of West Germany on election day, but there was no rain. In the north, in Hamburg and Bremen, a warm summer sun shone brightly as voters trooped to the polls clad in their Sunday best. North Sea excursion-boat operators dutifully changed their schedules to accommodate the voters. Far to the south at Berchtesgaden, a loyal supporter of Christian Democrat Konrad Adenauer closed down his ski lift all morning so that no votes would be lost on the Alps. In the beer-toping Bavarian capital of Munich, police recorded one brain concussion and two broken ribs in election-eve brawls.

But that was about all. Even the climaxes of the closing week seemed to do nothing to stir the long-foregone conclusion that Adenauer & Co. would win easily. Communist agents from East Germany brought in a last batch of pamphlets depicting Adenauer clad in a Nazi uniform. The Socialists tried vainly to whip up anti-Adenauer sentiments by calling him Atomkanzler.

Unsolicited Help. They also got some unsolicited last-minute help from Moscow, where Andrei Gromyko declared: "In his chase for the vote, Adenauer tries to hide from the German people his policy of militarization and of atomic armament." While the Socialists indignantly rejected Gromyko's support, Adenauer contented himself with I-told-you-so, told his audiences that Socialist Leader Ollenhauer was just playing Little Red Riding Hood to Khrushchev's Big Bad Wolf.

Octogenarian Adenauer himself observed election day first by attending St. Mary's church in Rhoendorf, where his son Paul officiated at Mass. The day's sermon included the reading of a papal message urging all to vote on pain of committing mortal sin. To the Pope's message, Father Heinrich Lemmen added one of his own, a thinly veiled swat at the Socialists: "When one recalls that two-fifths of the present Bundestag do not believe in God, one can only say 'God save us.' "

On the Venusberg, a hill in suburban Bonn, amiable little Socialist Erich Ollenhauer hiked a block and a half over a mud path to the polling station to cast his own vote. "I am quite optimistic," said Ollenhauer cheerfully. "Why not?" He grinned, and in a quiet near-acknowledgment of his impending defeat, added: "But maybe the sky is not on my side."

It wasn't. Dry weather has traditionally favored the CDU, bringing out the contented middle class that might otherwise stay home. By the time that returns were in this week, Konrad Adenauer and his party had won in a landslide. Ollenhauer and the Socialists ran a poor second. Some splinter parties, like Reinhold Maier's Free Democrats, scraped through, but only with minimal representation. Twelve years after the defeat of World War II, West Germany was well on its way to a working, two-party, democratic system. For 81-year-old Konrad Adenauer, the Christian Democratic sweep meant a third term with an even larger personal electoral victory than he rolled up in 1953.

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