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But the overwhelming majority in the C.D.U.—and among the opposition Social Democrats as well—are Atlanticists, and that includes Ludwig Erhard and Gerhard Schroder, the Foreign Minister he inherited from Adenauer. They want a Common Market that includes
Britain, as well as a Europe firmly allied to the U.S. They support the U.S. in the creation of MLF and in its detente probes, as long as they are conducted with due caution.
Ludwig Erhard has said little on foreign policy in recent years, but he insists, it is "stupid chatter" to suggest that he is uninformed on the subject. He was gravely disturbed by Charles de Gaulle's veto of Britain in the Com mon Market and called it "a black hour for Europe." While he supported Adenauer's treaty with France, privately he makes no secret of the fact that De Gaulle leaves him mystified. The two have met on several occasions, and do not really hit it off. In any case, says Ludwig Erhard somewhat nervously, "De Gaulle should not expect me to make advances to him. I will let him make the first move."
Down on the Farm. The man who will have to lead Germany into the "new phase" of Western policy has three outstanding characteristics: he is well aware of Europe's great and tragic past, he is strongly committed to Ger-man-U.S. friendship, and he has unshakable faith in the destiny of free men and a free economy.
Erhard's instincts were molded in the easy atmosphere of Southern Germany's pre-World War I petite bourgeoisie. He was born (1897) in Fiirth, the quiet Franconian town that today is virtually a suburb of spreading Niirnberg. Son of a retail cloth merchant, he assumed from early age that he would follow his father in the family business: "I had no doubt about the adequacy of the firm social order about me." That social order collapsed with World War I. Serving in the artillery, Corporal Erhard was severely wounded during the murderous battle of Ypres. After seven operations, his left arm was still shorter than the right and one leg was badly shattered, an injury that still forces him to wear orthopedic shoes.
His father having sold the family shop, young Erhard decided to go back to school after the war; economics fascinated him. From Nurnberg's Academy for Economics and Sociology, he went on to do graduate work at Frankfurt University, where he became a protege of famed economist Franz Oppenheimer, a leading exponent of free enterprise. A dedicated mountaineer, Oppenheimer once took Erhard on a climb in the Alps. There, atop Mount Piz Corvatsch (11,339 ft.), the professor asked his student one final question about economics and forthwith an nounced that young Erhard had passed his Ph.D. examination. Chuckled Oppenheimer: "You are now the highest doctor on earth."
Herr Doctor Erhard married Luise Letter, a widowed Frankfurt University classmate who had been a childhood friend, moved back to Niirnberg to join a market research institute. Soon he was deputy director in charge of