West Germany: The New Strauss

In the caucus of West Germany’s Christian Democratic Party that two years ago picked Kurt Kiesinger to succeed Ludwig Erhard as Chancellor, 51 votes from Bavaria’s Christian Socialist Union (CSU) assured his victory. It was Franz Josef Strauss who threw these votes behind Kiesinger, earning himself a place in the Grand Coalition government. Last week Strauss was saying, “I would rather grow pineapples in Alaska than be the German Chancellor.” Hardly anyone in Bonn believed him.

At 53 no longer the ebullient prodigy of postwar German politics, but hardly mellowed in his political ambitions, Strauss seemed to be gradually maneuvering himself into position to unseat and possibly succeed the Chancellor he helped elect. Although Kiesinger took Strauss into his coalition Cabinet as Finance Minister, there is little closeness between the two men. In office, Kiesinger has shown a growing penchant for procrastination and indecisiveness, qualities Strauss dislikes and does not share. Kiesinger’s recent suggestion of a prolonged coalition with the Social Democrats also runs counter to Strauss’s highly developed partisan instincts. Increasingly reluctant to take part in a coalition Cabinet in which the Chancellor, as one Kiesinger aide put it, is no more than “a walking mediation committee,” Strauss has been touting himself as the dynamic leader of a right-wing movement that stands ready to take over the country’s leadership. Accordingly, he has come out against the coalition on three major issues.

Serious Difficulties. With greater or less enthusiasm, the Social Democrats and Kiesinger favor 1) signing the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, 2) banning Adolf (“Bubi”) von Thadden’s reactionary National Democrats in order to deprive neo-Nazis of a shield of respectability, and 3) eliminating the legal deadline on murder charges to allow the judiciary to weed out the last remaining Nazi war criminals. Strauss takes the opposite position on each issue, and has been using his growing strength in his Hausmacht (power base) to give weight to his views.

Last week, at a party congress in Munich that re-elected him as chairman with a 95% majority, Strauss also made clear that he will use the autonomous status of the Christian Socialists to threat en “serious difficulties” for the Grand Coalition if the government decides to override them on these issues.

At the Munich congress, party officials boasted that the CSU was being deluged with letters from all parts of the country lamenting the fact that it operates only in Bavaria. At a secret party meeting, Strauss aides seriously pondered the possibility of turning their Bavarian union into a national party. They confidently concluded that money would be no problem; enough businessmen could be found to bankroll the expansion. His adamant opposition to the worldwide nonproliferation treaty proposed by Washington and Moscow plays on the widespread German resentment of big-power Diktats. His rejection of a unilateral legal attack on the extreme right stems from his instinctive feeling that the German electorate is far more upset by the radicalism of the New Left. His opposition to the abolition of the statute of limitations echoes the feelings of many Germans that the sack-cloth-and-ashes period is over and the nation should look to the future.

Changing Image. In contemplating a nationwide party, Strauss has come a long way since 1962, when he was declared politically dead after personally initiating a police raid on the anti-Strauss newsmagazine Der Spiegel. The move had backfired on him. But today, the chief thing that Germans seem to remember about the Spiegel affair is the way Strauss bounced back from it. Besides his drive and brilliance both as an administrator and orator, the key to his resurgence is that he never lost control of his Bavarian Hausmacht. It paid off at the decisive caucus in 1966 at which he was able to act as kingmaker.

Of late he has also gone to great pains to improve his image, which used to be that of a thick-necked butcher’s son. He has slimmed down to a manageable 210 lbs. and rearranged his hair to present a more distinguished hairline. At last week’s CSU conference, a computer started churning out Strauss portraits. However, despite Kiesinger’s current headaches, it will take a lot more grooming for Strauss to match the Chancellor’s vote-getting charm.