Presidents Without Precedent

In Bonn last week scholarly, white-haired Professor Theodor Heuss, 75, stepped down after serving his constitutional limit of two five-year terms in the largely honorific office of President of West Germany. By so doing, he added a page to German history: never before had the German people witnessed the spectacle of an elected chief of state peaceably surrendering power to his duly elected successor.*

At a televised joint session of Parliament, scholarly, white-haired Dr. Heinrich Luebke, 64, onetime West German Agriculture Minister and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's hand-picked choice (TIME, June 29 et seq.) was sworn in as Heuss's successor. There was no pomp or strut about the transfer ceremony; 106 of Parliament's 564 vacationing members did not even bother to attend, and government employees had to be recruited to fill the empty seats so that TV audiences would not be scandalized by the absences. "Silly and arrogant," boomed well-loved "Papa" Heuss when the German Institute for Men's Fashion complained that he had prescribed "dark suit" rather than "white tie" for the inaugural reception that followed the telecast. "I have advised Dr. Liibke not to knuckle down to the dictatorship of associations, no matter who they are."

* Germany's pre-World War II Presidents, Friedrich Ebert and Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, died in Office. Hitler, who did not call himself President, but was, perished in his Berlin bunker.

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