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The Real Mistake. The extent of Konrad Adenauer's capitulation prompted one young party member's bitter comment: "He is becoming very expensive." Mende's party, which at first had refused adamantly to join any government headed by Adenauer, was able to write virtually its own ticket as the price of der Alte's continuance in office. "If we want Adenauer," shrugged one minister, "we have to accept the agreement." If his last pitched battle yielded only a Pyrrhic victory, it proved that Konrad Adenauer is still, at 85, the most consummate politician in West Germany—at least as far as his own position is concerned. The Free Democrats' main campaign objective was to oust Adenauer in favor of Economics Minister Erhard, whom they would have accepted last week without even demanding a written contract specifying coalition agreements. In mid-negotiation, a public opinion poll reported that popular Ludwig Erhard was favored over Adenauer as Chancellor by 70% of the electorate.
Even when a solid core of Christian Democrats tried to push him into the arena, Erhard shrank from the challenge. Said he: "I can't possibly do it. The Chancellor's been conducting these negotiations, and he should be allowed to finish them. I just can't insinuate myself. Later people would say it was a mistake to let Adenauer go."
West Germany may well decide that the real mistake was Adenauer's decision to cling to power at any price. The Free Democrats, who got only 8% of the vote in 1957, captured 12.7% this year mainly by winning over Christian Democrats who resented Adenauer's highhanded refusal to quit in 1959 as promised. The price of his chancellorship was thus to inflate the Free Democrats' influence in the coalition out of all proportion to their voting strength or policies. More damaging yet to a young democracy may be Adenauer's obdurate suppression of proved and popular leaders in his own party. Ludwig Erhard—despite Adenauer's taunt that he is "soft"—Defense Minister Franz-Josef Strauss and Heinrich von Brentano could claim to have been victimized last week for showing that they were more firmly attached to their principles than was Konrad Adenauer.