A Case of the Willies

Willy Brandt has had to break a campaign promise. Before his triumph at the polls last month, the West German Chancellor declared that he would personally travel to East Berlin before Christmas to sign the historic treaty that will establish normal relations between the two German states and in effect end the cold war in Germany (TIME, Nov. 20). Now Bonn has let it be known that when the treaty is signed on Dec. 21, the pens will be held not by Brandt and East German Premier Willi Stoph but by their state secretaries, Egon Bahr and Michael Kohl.

Why have deputies witness so important a document? The two sides could not agree on a signing date that was acceptable to both Brandt and Stoph. It also seemed that the Communist leaders were not eager to welcome Brandt in East Berlin; they probably feared a repetition of the embarrassingly enthusiastic chants of "Willy, Willy!" that greeted the architect of Ostpolitik on his trip to the East German town of Erfurt in 1970. In the wake of Brandt's reelection, his popularity in the East is at a peak--which is why the Stoph regime is not likely to let him visit the German Democratic Republic until next year, at the earliest.

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