A Most Unlovely Election

"Nazi, pfui! Nazi, pfui!" hissed the scores of West Germans who milled about in front of the state parliament building in Stuttgart, the capital of the big southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The object of the hisses paid no attention. Adolf von Thadden, 46, whose far-rightist party had just polled 10% of the vote in the Baden-Wuerttemberg elections, strode into the building to talk with newsmen. "Despite the efforts of everyone to keep us out of the state parliament," he said, "the National Democrats have won their most beautiful victory so far."

For West Germany, Von Thadden's victory was anything but beautiful. In fact, Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger was so upset by the National Democrats' surprisingly strong showing in his own home state that he immediately pledged that his--and his Christian Democratic Party's--No. 1 priority was to crush Von Thadden's party before next year's federal elections. Declared Kiesinger: "If the impression gets around that there is an awakening of Nazism in Germany, it would threaten our entire foreign and domestic policy."

Loss of Image. As Kiesinger realizes, the rise of the rightists, who have in the past 18 months won 60 seats in state parliaments, has already done serious harm to West Germany. The Soviet Union uses the specter of a new Hitler as a pretext for blocking West Germany's attempts to bring about a reconciliation with the East bloc. Walter Ulbricht's East German regime has cited the Nazi danger as an excuse for tampering with Allied guarantees of access to West Berlin. At home, though the National Democrats poll only a relatively small percentage of votes, they stir up trouble out of proportion to their numbers because of the nervous condition of the Grand Coalition that governs West Germany.

The big loser in Baden-Wuerttemberg was West Germany's Social Democratic Party, which has suffered nothing but setbacks in state elections ever since it joined the Christian Democrats in the 17-month-old coalition. The protest vote that the Social Democrats, as the opposition, used to attract now seems largely to go to the National Democrats; in Baden-Wuerttemberg, the Socialists dropped from 37.3% of the vote in 1964 to 29% last week, which meant the loss of ten seats. Disappointed at the loss of their old image as a tough, independent-minded party, the Socialists in Bonn have become in creasingly restless of late in their alliance with the Christian Democrats. One result is that some important legislation, including a plan for voting reform that would weaken the National Democrats, has been unable to attract the firm support it needs to pass.

Law & Order. The man who has upset West Germany's politics is a tall (6 ft. 2 in.), hard-driving Pomeranian who was a World War II Panzer of ficer.* Von Thadden manages to play skillfully on the self-pitying, nationalist feelings of many Germans. In Baden-Wuerttemberg, a region known for its unemotional, middle-of-the-road politics, he conducted a restrained and low-key campaign. His biggest pitch was for law and order, an issue that has become as topical in West Germany as in the U.S. Speaking about student disorders, Von Thadden proposed a simple solution: Jail the troublemakers. The recent burst of student street fights apparently helped his cause, adding some 2% to the vote.

Founded only four years ago from half a dozen rightist splinter groups, Von Thadden's party has bettered its percentage of the vote in successive state elections, now has delegates in seven of West Germany's eleven state parliaments, though none so far in Bonn. Unless Kiesinger can make good on his vow to stop Von Thadden before 1969, the National Democrats could win 30 to 60 Bundestag seats in the next federal elections. There, their presence would greatly tarnish West Germany's respectable postwar image.

* On British TV last week, a photocopy of a Nazi Party index card bearing Von Thadden's name was produced. While undoubtedly genuine--and indicating that Von Thadden once applied for membership--it does not conclusively prove that he actually joined the Nazi party.

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