"Pressure groups, pressure groupsI am being strangled by pressure groups!" grumbled Konrad Adenauer, pacing up and down his Palais Schaumburg study. "I would rather fight three elections than form one Cabinet."
Even when he went to the Bundestag to be sworn in for his third term as Chancellor, der Alte did not have his Cabinet list ready. The problem was pfennig-pinching Fritz Schäffer. As Minister of Finance in the old Cabinet, Schäffer had consistently resisted the plans of Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard to ease taxes to produce more investment capital; he had also...
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