Ready for a Fight

West Germany is also facing elections, though they are still quite a way off. Nonetheless, political maneuvering has already begun between the Socialists and the Christian Democrats, now joined in an uneasy coalition that will be dissolved just before the voters go to the polls some time in autumn 1969. Last week Willy Brandt, the Socialist leader who is also Foreign Minister in the Grand Coalition, took the occasion of a Socialist Party convention in Nuernberg to fire an opening salvo designed to shred some of the areas of agreement that have held the coalition partners together.

Defying the longtime policy of the Christian Democrats, Brandt called for recognition of the disputed Oder-Neisse line as the legal border between Germany and Poland; he thus became the first German politician to publicly cede the former German territories given to Poland by the victorious Allies in 1945. Brandt also differed with the Christian Democrats on the subject of the nuclear nonproliferation pact, asking for a quick and enthusiastic West German endorsement of the treaty. And, for good measure, he attacked the wait-and-see policy of the Christian Democrats toward the rightist National Democrats. Demanding an immediate constitutional ban on the fast-growing extremist party, Brandt cried: "Neo-Nazism is treason to this country."

Domestic Issue. Of the three issues, Brandt's pronouncements on the Oder-Neisse attracted by far the most attention. By tirelessly maintaining that the former German lands east of the two rivers--40,177 sq. mi. in all--were only temporarily under Polish administration, Bonn hoped eventually to use its nonrecognition as a bargaining point if and when a peace conference is held to end World War II. But West Germany actually lost most of this leverage as Poland incorporated the former German lands into its own country and expelled the Germans there. Brandt obviously feels that the issue's real use is in domestic politics--particularly since opinion polls show that 62% of West Germans have given up any hope of getting back the eastern territories.

There seems to be little doubt that Willy Brandt will be his party's stan dard-bearer in the national elections, in which he will probably face Christian Democratic Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Though he was roughed up by rebellious students and met with cries of "Labor traitor!" when he arrived outside the auditorium in Nurnberg, his party gave him only pleasant treatment inside. By a 325-to-8 vote, the delegates re-elected him party leader and cheered his new policies. Those policies are certain to cause severe strains within the coalition Cabinet, especially since Chancellor Kiesinger and his fellow Christian Democrats hope that they can win an outright majority next year and rule alone. In the coming months, the Grand Coalition will more and more become an arena in which Red and Black maneuver for favorable campaign positions.

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