Letter from the Continent: Katzenjammer

Katzenjammer — a German expression known in America mainly through the comic strip “The Katzenjammer Kids”— means, literally translated, “cats’ distress” and stands for “hangover,” “the morning after.” This mood is felt today in Bonn, following recent efforts to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union on the final liquidation of World War II. What it might lead to, however, is the end of West Germany’s presence in. West Berlin.

A careful study of the projected treaties with the USSR and Poland as well as the current negotiations with Czechoslovakia evokes the question: What is the Brandt government (composed of West Germany’s second and third largest parties) really after? Has the coalition government, which is running into considerable economic difficulties, engaged in these negotiations in order to have some genuine successes in foreign politics to point to? The man in the street could occasionally be made to believe that a new relationship between East and West was in the offing, that peace was, at long last, in sight and that the remaining shadows of World War II were about to disappear forever. But a careful analysis of the last local elections shows that, by and large, the electorate is anything but convinced and that the opposition (the combined CDU-CSU, Germany’s largest party)—vide the elections in Schleswig-Holstein a few weeks ago—is moving up. In a national election it might today gain an absolute majority.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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Katzenjammer — a German expression known in America mainly through the comic strip “The Katzenjammer Kids”— means, literally translated, “cats’ distress” and stands for “hangover,” “the morning after.” This mood is felt today in Bonn, following recent efforts to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union on the final liquidation of World War II. What it might lead to, however, is the end of West Germany’s presence in. West Berlin.

A careful study of the projected treaties with the USSR and Poland as well as the current negotiations with Czechoslovakia evokes the question: What is the Brandt government (composed of West Germany’s second and third largest parties) really after? Has the coalition government, which is running into considerable economic difficulties, engaged in these negotiations in order to have some genuine successes in foreign politics to point to? The man in the street could occasionally be made to believe that a new relationship between East and West was in the offing, that peace was, at long last, in sight and that the remaining shadows of World War II were about to disappear forever. But a careful analysis of the last local elections shows that, by and large, the electorate is anything but convinced and that the opposition (the combined CDU-CSU, Germany’s largest party)—vide the elections in Schleswig-Holstein a few weeks ago—is moving up. In a national election it might today gain an absolute majority.