Adenaullism

When Konrad Adenauer stepped down as West Germany's Chancellor last October, the Christian Democrats who took over hoped that he would fade into political oblivion. Not a prayer. Der .Alte has not hesitated to snipe at the policies of his successor. Last week he bounced right back into center stage. In the first open challenge to Ludwig Erhard's leadership, Adenauer berated his successor for rejecting the "complete union" of France and West Germany that Charles de Gaulle had proffered in Bonn earlier in the month.

Backed by other powerful "Gaullists" in the ruling Christian Democratic Union, Adenauer urged support for a loose association of sovereign states, the European Third Force that De Gaulle envisions, rather than the Atlantic-oriented federal union advocated by Erhard and most other European leaders. Echoing this line, former Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss challenged the Chancellor's constitutional right to determine foreign policy.

Word of the new Adenaullism reached Erhard while he was paying a visit to Denmark. On his return to Bonn, Erhard growled: "In Denmark I did more for the consolidation and cohesion of Europe than was achieved by some of the talk back here."

Then, with a forcefulness that has often been lacking in his chancellorship, Ludwig Erhard angrily told a Cabinet meeting that De Gaulle had specifically "tried to place before us the alternative of choosing between Paris and Washington." As a top government official summarized Erhard's position: "A Europe that consists of two states is not the Europe that the federal government has in mind. Close cooperation between France and West Germany is a precondition for the creation of Europe. But it is not an end in itself."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.