World: WEST GERMANY: OUTCASTS AT THE HELM

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to take an active role in shaping their surroundings. Emulating the questioning, self-critical approach of youth, Germans are beginning to examine their institutions and seek to run them. Parents, once the silent partners of the German Parent-Teacher Associations, demand a voice in how the schools are run. Churchgoers want a say in the allocation of the vast West German church tax resources and even in the selection of priests and higher church officials. Journalists seek the right to participate in the shaping of editorial policy. Germany finally seems to be developing what Novelist Günter Grass calls "voter initiative," a long step toward developing a true participatory democracy.

Recently the Germans have also begun to take a much more objective view of themselves. In the 1950s, according to opinion surveys, only 32% of them felt that their country alone was responsible for the war; now fully 62% believe that the blame was Germany's, a view more in line with the opinion of the rest of the world. In the 1950s, a majority of Germans felt that their image abroad was bad because foreigners were envious of Germany; now they concede that it might be because Germans have some negative characteristics and still have an abominable past to live down.

Even more striking perhaps than the restless mood of youth and the gradual erosion of traditional authority is that enduring wonder, the German economy, which continues to pour forth much of the world's most sought after goods. There are more jobs than workers to fill them. Unemployment in West Germany is a scant one-half of 1% in a labor force of 26.3 million, and 1,400,000 foreign workers, mostly from the Mediterranean countries, have been imported.

As befits Teutonic efficiency, West Germans enjoy the world's most perfect color TV, and some of the most incisive documentaries shown anywhere. In the past few years, however, the German literary scene has become less lively. Günter Grass's latest book, Örtlich Betäubt (roughly translated as Locally Anesthetized) is only a faint echo of Tin Drum; Uwe Johnson and Helmut Kirst have not published for several years. It may be that the wartime themes, the grist for German novels for the past 25 years, are beginning to pale. The best-received plays come from Vienna's experimental theaters. But the Stuttgart Ballet may be the world's most exciting dance group, and the German classical theater and opera remain first-rate.

In each successive phase in Germany's postwar development, the country has been seized by a different craze. First the hungry Germans gorged themselves in the Fresswelle (eating wave), then took to wheels in the Vespawelle (motor-scooter wave) that was followed by the Autowelle (auto buying). Next came the Wohnungswelle (home buying) and Reisewelle (traveling). Now Germans are inundated by the Sexwelle.

Naked girls adorn just about every magazine cover. Under the guise of adult sex education, film makers are cranking out movies with such titles as Your Wife, the Unknown Creature, in which live models demonstrate an astonishing variety of positions for intercourse, while a narrator (naturally a Herr Doktor) supplies clinical comments. Beate Uhse's sex boutiques in eleven cities offer all manner of sexual paraphernalia. Complains one Austrian, who deplores the Germanic lack of spontaneity: