Konrad Adenauer has always treated his Cabinet ministers as juniors, allowed to walk only in the stern paternal grip of der Alte himself. He has not hesitated to humiliate them in public when he thought it necessary to teach a lesson. But they all sit back and take it; in the ten-year history of the Federal Republic, only one has resigned. Last week West Germans watched fascinated to see if Ludwig Erhard, Vice Chancellor and Economics Minister, would be No. 2.
To a New York Times correspondent, Adenauer said for publication what he had been telling political cronies for weeks:...
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