West German politicians were off and railing against each other last week in a Wagnerian opening to their eight-week national election campaign. Chancellor Willy Brandt lost his temper at a press conference. Karl Schiller, who had resigned as Brandt's Economics and Finance Minister in June, quit the Social Democratic Party completely, accusing his Cabinet successor, Helmut Schmidt, of "demagogic downplaying" of inflation. Another former Finance Minister, Christian Social Union Leader Franz Josef Strauss, likened Brandt's views on price increases to those of a simple hausfrau.
The West German press joined in with some tuba notes of its own. Die
Welt wondered...
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