"A Dangerous Man"

As practiced by well-informed West Germans, it has become something of a national indoor sport. The game: coalition politics, or trying to outguess your friends on the composition of the next government in Bonn. Any number can play, and currently many are doing so. The reason: Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's coalition of Social Democrats and Free Democrats is in such trouble, largely on economic issues, that some observers fear it may not survive until the next scheduled federal election in November 1976. Last week Bonn was buzzing with rumors that the Free Democrats, who have suffered a string of losses in local elections and are annoyed at Schmidt's increasingly highhanded way of dealing with them, might soon pull out of the coalition.

The chief beneficiary of a Free Democratic defection would be the opposition alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian affiliate, the Christian Social Union, who together have 234 seats in the Bundestag. Schmidt's S.D.P. has 242 seats and the Free Democrats have 42. The so-called Union parties would be invited to join in a new coalition. If they refused, the result could be dissolution of the Bundestag and a call for an early national election the Christian Democrats might well win. The latest polls indicate that they would probably get 53% of the popular vote, compared with 38% for the S.D.P. and 7% for the Free Democrats.

Who would dominate a Christian Democratic return to power? The answer is none other than Franz Josef Strauss, 59, the ham-fisted Bavarian political boss who has once again made a phoenix-like return from the political grave. From his base as leader of the C.S.U., Strauss has emerged after several years of political eclipse to become one of the most important power brokers in Bonn.

Strauss's comeback began last October when the C.S.U., under his leadership, captured 62% of the vote in the Bavarian state elections, giving it the largest majority enjoyed by any party in any German state assembly. Since then, to demonstrate that he can draw crowds outside his rural, conservative and Roman Catholic bailiwick in Bavaria, he has barnstormed into Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and even the working-class, traditionally left-leaning Ruhr. This week Strauss flies off to Peking--at the invitation of the Chinese--to re-establish his credentials in foreign affairs.

Strauss has no need to establish credentials in domestic matters. Since 1949 he has represented Weilheim in the Bundestag and held important Cabinet posts in previous governments, including Defense and Finance. A champion of law-and-order, an advocate of a militarily strong Germany, and an uncompromising antiCommunist, he became the symbol of cold war intransigence.

Strauss has been a rallying point for Germans who still dream of reunification. His unconcealed hatred of the Soviet and East Berlin regimes made him the leading opponent in the Bundestag of former Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik. He has not budged in his position. Interviewed recently in his Munich penthouse, he told TIME Correspondent Christopher Byron: "Ostpolitik's trade deals are absurd. First we offer to sell the Soviets something; then we give them the money to buy it. That's a marvelous way of doing business, isn't it? We should concentrate on improving relations with our friends instead of our enemies."

Strauss's ideas are being more favorably received these days as West Germans seem to be moving politically rightward in reaction to the 4% unemployment and last year's 7% inflation that are following a generation of nearly uninterrupted prosperity. The worse things get for Germany, the better they get for Strauss, who is still viewed by many as a fiscal genius who kept the Wirtschaftswunder booming through the late 1960s.

Top Job. Three years ago Strauss, perhaps only half in jest, said, "I hope things never get so bad for the German people that they have to elect me Chancellor." Experts agree that conditions will have to get considerably worse if Strauss is to have a real chance of winning the top job. Despite the growing popularity of what he says, he personally remains intensely disliked and feared outside Bavaria as ein gefaehrlicher Mann (a dangerous man). That may be a reaction not only to his ultraconservatism but also to the authoritarianism he demonstrated in his Cabinet positions. Yet in person, Strauss is a witty intellectual who can readily toss off Latin and Greek epigrams--in an incongruously thick Bavarian accent. His fondness for German Sekt is well known, and before his 1957 marriage to a brewer's daughter, he frequented Bonn's winehouses and Munich's cafes.

According to experts, Strauss trails far behind both Helmut Kohl, national chairman of the Christian Democrats, and Gerhard Stoltenberg, who is minister president of Schleswig-Holstein, the two front runners for the C.D.U. chancellorship nomination. Instead of becoming Chancellor, Strauss may have to content himself with being a kingmaker whose support will be necessary for anyone seeking the nomination. Then, if the C.D.U. wins, Strauss's prize could be the Foreign Ministry, a post he covets second only to the Chancellor's office.

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