BISMARCK barred them from political life, and Kaiser Wilhelm scourged them as an unpatriotic rabble. Konrad Adenauer, who presided over the rebirth of West Germany, dismissed them as unfit to govern, and for years millions of his countrymen agreed. Last week, in the wake of one of the closest elections in the 20-year history of the Federal Republic, the Social Democrats, long the outcasts of German politics, prepared to take power. Unless the coalition carefully pasted together with the Free Democrats suddenly comes unstuck, Willy Brandt will be sworn in as the Chancellor of West Germany on Oct. 21, thus becoming...
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