Trail's End

The uproar in Bonn last week sounded little like the usual well-oiled functioning of the Federal Republic of Germany. All the factions in Bonn seemed to want weary Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, 86, to cross the Rhine to his rose gardens in Rhoendorf, and stay there. At week's end der Alte at last agreed to do so--in about a year.

Caught in the riptide of the Der Spiegel scandal, Adenauer did not go down without a fight. When his own coalition was endangered, Adenauer proposed that the potent opposition Social Democrats (S.P.D.) join with him" in a "grand coalition." Unconcerned by the fact that he had described the S.P.D. leaders in the past as godless, irresponsible and crypto-Communist, Adenauer told the Social Democrats that their "sense of responsibility" required that they help maintain a stable German government at this time of crisis. Socialist Chief Erich Ollenhauer listened but made no promises.

Unlikely as the "grand coalition" appeared, it was an unnerving thought for the Free Democrats, the splinter group in Parliament that had allied itself with the old man in the past. "We are going over there and lay it on the line," cried a Free Democrat chieftaifi. "Do they think they can negotiate with both of us at the same time?" It was an emotional meeting, but Free Democratic Party Leader Erich Mende quieted things down. He knew that neither Adenauer's C.D.U. nor the Social Democrats could swallow the idea of a coalition. Inevitably, Adenauer and Mende would be drawn together again.

Sure enough, the Socialists, after a parliamentary caucus, refused to join the grand coalition. After conferring with such close cronies as Minister Without Portfolio Heinrich Krone, Konrad Adenauer listened to the news with stony-faced indifference, and seemed bone-tired as he bowed to the inevitable. Next morning the deputies of his party were hastily assembled. Floor Leader Heinrich von Brentano announced that Adenauer had, in effect, agreed to one of the key Free Democratic conditions: he would step down as Chancellor next fall. Brentano then drew cheers by adding that Vice Chancellor Ludwig Erhard would be included in all discussions on the new government's constitution, clear indication that Erhard--West Germany's idol, and Adenauer's belittled foe--would very likely be the next Chancellor. Now it was up to der Alte to set about the tedious task of building a new coalition Cabinet that would carry him through the final months of his public life.

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