Until last week Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's Christian Democrats had won a majority among the rural, conservative voters of Rhineland-Palatinate in every election since the West German Republic was founded in 1949. But the latest vote for the state legislature gave the C.D.U. only 46 of 100 seats, and 44.4% of the popular vote, a loss of 4% since the 1959 election. The Socialists, by contrast, moved up from 37 seats to 43 in the conservative stronghold, taking 40.7% of the vote, a gain of nearly 6%. Cried Socialist Spokesman Fritz Barsig: "The ice is finally broken."
The C.D.U. would...
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