(2 of 2)
Grand Debate. The National Democrats are prospering because they are the only effective nationwide opposition to the country's two dominant parties, which are united in the Grand Coalition. The leaders of the coalition are now engaged in a debate about how to handle the National Democrats, who pose, in the opinion of many Bonn politicians, a threat to West Germany's 18-year-old federal republic. Herbert Wehner, the strong-willed Socialist tactician, wants to outlaw them under the clause in the Bonn constitution that bans anti-democratic parties. But Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger and most of his Christian Democrats would rather get at the National Democrats through a change in the electoral laws. At present, Germans vote for a party, not a person, and seats in the Bundestag are allocated according to the percentage of the national vote won by each of the parties. Kiesinger wants to change to the Anglo-American system, in which a voter in a constituency casts his ballot for one candidate and the candidate who gets the most votes wins and represents that district. After all, the great bulk of the German people, including the trade unions and press, want nothing to do with anything resembling a new Führer. On a straight man-to-man voting system, the National Democrats in all likelihood would not win a plurality in a single constituency.
*The first stanza: Germany, Germany above all, Above all in the world; When it comes to defense and defiance, Stand united as brothers, From the Meuse to the Meinel, from the Adige to the Belt, Germany, Germany above all, Above all in the world. Today the Meuse River flows in France and Belgium, the Memel in Lithuania, the Adige in Italy, and the Belt in Denmark.