The Cost of Adenauer

It was the fiercest, longest, and almost certainly the last big battle the old man would ever fight. Its cost may be reckoned for years to come. But after seven weeks of haggling, browbeating, trickery and galling compromise, Konrad Adenauer still reigned last week as West Germany's Chancellor.

To form a coalition government after his Christian Democrats lost their Bundestag majority in West Germany's September election, Adenauer had to stanch a revolt in his own party and stretch its program to the snapping point. All this took 80 hours of wrangling with Erich Mende's cocky minority Free Democratic Party, which is primarily a conservative businessmen's party but also harbors such ill-assorted bedfellows as former Nazis and militant socialists. Wrathfully, Adenauer signed an agreement to step down by the end of 1963, when he will have ruled West Germany for twelve straight years. Unkindest cut of all was a 16-page, four-year contract by which the Free Democrats, painfully aware that any less formal deal with Adenauer is subject to cancellation at whim, ensured that their key policies will be binding on the coalition.

Ministerial Scalp. Among other conditions worrisome to the Christian Democrats: the Free Democrats' insistence on curtailment of welfare state programs, recognition that West Germany's Bundeswehr should be equipped with nuclear weapons, a beefed-up defense budget (from $2.75 billion to $3.4 billion) that would take priority over all other expenditures. After endless wrangling, Adenauer agreed as well to a coalition committee that will pass on all government policy statements to the Bundestag, and a new Ministry of Development, handling foreign aid programs, which had been vehemently resisted by Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard.

Adenauer's gravest concessions may reshape Bonn's foreign policy. Some of the Free Democrats' nationalistic notions were recognized in the contract, such as support for an ''active'' policy by which Bonn would deal directly with Eastern European nations, notably Czechoslovakia and Poland. The more significant development was the resignation of Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano, whose scalp was offered by Adenauer as a sop to the Free Democrats, who are still smarting from his campaign attacks. In his six years at the Foreign Ministry, Brentano proved a zealous, high-principled advocate of European unity through such organizations as the Common Market and Euratom. His successor, sharp-tongued Gerhard Schroeder (see following story), was angrily opposed by West Berlin's Christian Democrats, since he is said to believe that West Berlin is "indefensible." The Free Democrats also captured five other government ministries: Finance, Justice, Treasury, Development and Refugees' Affairs.

The Real Mistake. The extent of Konrad Adenauer's capitulation prompted one young party member's bitter comment: "He is becoming very expensive." Mende's party, which at first had refused adamantly to join any government headed by Adenauer, was able to write virtually its own ticket as the price of der Alte's continuance in office. "If we want Adenauer," shrugged one minister, "we have to accept the agreement." If his last pitched battle yielded only a Pyrrhic victory, it proved that Konrad Adenauer is still, at 85, the most consummate politician in West Germany--at least as far as his own position is concerned. The Free Democrats' main campaign objective was to oust Adenauer in favor of Economics Minister Erhard, whom they would have accepted last week without even demanding a written contract specifying coalition agreements. In mid-negotiation, a public opinion poll reported that popular Ludwig Erhard was favored over Adenauer as Chancellor by 70% of the electorate.

Even when a solid core of Christian Democrats tried to push him into the arena, Erhard shrank from the challenge. Said he: "I can't possibly do it. The Chancellor's been conducting these negotiations, and he should be allowed to finish them. I just can't insinuate myself. Later people would say it was a mistake to let Adenauer go."

West Germany may well decide that the real mistake was Adenauer's decision to cling to power at any price. The Free Democrats, who got only 8% of the vote in 1957, captured 12.7% this year mainly by winning over Christian Democrats who resented Adenauer's highhanded refusal to quit in 1959 as promised. The price of his chancellorship was thus to inflate the Free Democrats' influence in the coalition out of all proportion to their voting strength or policies. More damaging yet to a young democracy may be Adenauer's obdurate suppression of proved and popular leaders in his own party. Ludwig Erhard--despite Adenauer's taunt that he is "soft"--Defense Minister Franz-Josef Strauss and Heinrich von Brentano could claim to have been victimized last week for showing that they were more firmly attached to their principles than was Konrad Adenauer.

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