It was the fiercest, longest, and almost certainly the last big battle the old man would ever fight. Its cost may be reckoned for years to come. But after seven weeks of haggling, browbeating, trickery and galling compromise, Konrad Adenauer still reigned last week as West Germany's Chancellor.
To form a coalition government after his Christian Democrats lost their Bundestag majority in West Germany's September election, Adenauer had to stanch a revolt in his own party and stretch its program to the snapping point. All this took 80 hours of wrangling with Erich Mende's cocky minority Free Democratic Party, which is primarily a conservative businessmen's party but also harbors such ill-assorted bedfellows as former Nazis and militant socialists. Wrathfully, Adenauer signed an agreement to step down by the end of 1963, when he will have ruled West Germany for twelve straight years. Unkindest cut of all was a 16-page, four-year contract by which the Free Democrats, painfully aware that any less formal deal with Adenauer is subject to cancellation at whim, ensured that their key policies will be binding on the coalition.
Ministerial Scalp. Among other conditions worrisome to the Christian Democrats: the Free Democrats' insistence on curtailment of welfare state programs, recognition that West Germany's Bundeswehr should be equipped with nuclear weapons, a beefed-up defense budget (from $2.75 billion to $3.4 billion) that would take priority over all other expenditures. After endless wrangling, Adenauer agreed as well to a coalition committee that will pass on all government policy statements to the Bundestag, and a new Ministry of Development, handling foreign aid programs, which had been vehemently resisted by Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard.
Adenauer's gravest concessions may reshape Bonn's foreign policy. Some of the Free Democrats' nationalistic notions were recognized in the contract, such as support for an ''active'' policy by which Bonn would deal directly with Eastern European nations, notably Czechoslovakia and Poland. The more significant development was the resignation of Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano, whose scalp was offered by Adenauer as a sop to the Free Democrats, who are still smarting from his campaign attacks. In his six years at the Foreign Ministry, Brentano proved a zealous, high-principled advocate of European unity through such organizations as the Common Market and Euratom. His successor, sharp-tongued Gerhard Schröder (see following story), was angrily opposed by West Berlin's Christian Democrats, since he is said to believe that West Berlin is "indefensible." The Free Democrats also captured five other government ministries: Finance, Justice, Treasury, Development and Refugees' Affairs.