LETTER FROM BONN

‘FREEDOM INSTEAD OF Socialism,” proclaim posters in West Germany, where people will go to the polls on October 3. This is the official slogan of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the somewhat more conservative Christian Social Union (CSU). They are challenging the ruling coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD) and the influential, liberal Free Democrats (FDP), a small but growing party. The CDU slogan was originally going to be “Freedom or Socialism,” but the party leaders decided the present version was more constructive. The Socialists are protesting it bitterly because, they claim, their socialism is part and precondition of freedom, not its alternative. At least half the German people seem to disagree with that view.

The CDU battle cry was chosen, as its authors explained to me, because it seemed advisable to boil the contest down to essentials, to concentrate on a basic theme rather than get lost in specific issues. Whether there are indeed any “real issues” in the campaign is itself one of the most hotly debated issues. There are, in fact, few major questions of policy to divide the electorate. Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, initiated after the Social Democrats came to power in 1969, is now a fait accompli. The Christian Democratic opposition admits that there is no use crying over the ratification of the Oder-Neisse line, though it promises to be tougher in implementing other agreements with the Communist East European governments than the SPD has been. At the same time, the euphoria which Ostpolitik originally evoked has completely disappeared as hopes for reduction in Soviet and East German harassments in Berlin have evaporated.

NM

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Norbert Muhlen

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‘FREEDOM INSTEAD OF Socialism,” proclaim posters in West Germany, where people will go to the polls on October 3. This is the official slogan of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the somewhat more conservative Christian Social Union (CSU). They are challenging the ruling coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD) and the influential, liberal Free Democrats (FDP), a small but growing party. The CDU slogan was originally going to be “Freedom or Socialism,” but the party leaders decided the present version was more constructive. The Socialists are protesting it bitterly because, they claim, their socialism is part and precondition of freedom, not its alternative. At least half the German people seem to disagree with that view.

The CDU battle cry was chosen, as its authors explained to me, because it seemed advisable to boil the contest down to essentials, to concentrate on a basic theme rather than get lost in specific issues. Whether there are indeed any “real issues” in the campaign is itself one of the most hotly debated issues. There are, in fact, few major questions of policy to divide the electorate. Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, initiated after the Social Democrats came to power in 1969, is now a fait accompli. The Christian Democratic opposition admits that there is no use crying over the ratification of the Oder-Neisse line, though it promises to be tougher in implementing other agreements with the Communist East European governments than the SPD has been. At the same time, the euphoria which Ostpolitik originally evoked has completely disappeared as hopes for reduction in Soviet and East German harassments in Berlin have evaporated.