Since last fall, the once exuberant West German economy has stumbled through what Economics Minister Karl Schiller likes to call its "Talfahrt," or trip down into the valley. The nation's economic growth, after averaging nearly 6% a year since 1950, slipped to barely 3% in 1966. So far this year, real gross national product has actually declined. New Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger shares the widely held view that the roots of the downturn can be traced to an orgy of overspending by the governments of Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. To restore public confidence, Kiesinger's seven-month-old coalition regime last week...
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