The First 100 Days

When pollsters asked West Germans last August if they knew who Kurt Georg Kiesinger was, fully 45% said: Sorry, never heard of the fellow. Last week, 100 days after Kiesinger became Chancellor, the polls showed not only that 96% of all West Germans know their man, but also that 60% think he is doing a good job and only 6% criticize his work. The new fame of Baden-Wuerttemberg's former minister-president is by no means undeserved. Since he put together the unprecedented black-red coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, Kiesinger has brought to Europe's most populous (59 million) and economically powerful country a new direction at home and a fresh and assertive voice in world affairs.

West Germany is no longer an acquiescent partner of the U.S., nor the abominable no-man of East-West relations. Under Kiesinger, it is an increasingly self-confident nation that is searching for solutions to cold war problems on its own and putting its economic house in order without whining for U.S. help. Its attitudes, however bothersome they may occasionally be to the U.S., are a refreshing change from the search for reassurance that marked the West Germany of Ludwig Erhard. U.S. diplomats, in fact, are not unhappy at accepting a bit of independence and even some nose-tweaking--as when Kiesinger last week accused the U.S. and the Soviet Union of "complicity" in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty--in return for a more self-assured German government.

Eastward Initiatives. Kiesinger's first aim when he took office last December was to balance the budget, whose looming $1.2 billion deficit had caused Erhard's Cabinet to break up. With some sleight of hand, he did so, and he managed to put some steam back into the lagging economy by speeding up federal spending. He also struck at the root cause of Erhard's financial distress: the billion-dollar offset payments that Bonn makes yearly to support U.S. and British forces in Germany. Contending that Bonn no longer had the financial health to afford such large payments, Kiesinger stuck to his position until the U.S. last week suggested a new, less painful monetary scheme under which Bonn may buy Treasury bonds to offset the outflow of dollars from the U.S. Softly underlining his determination to be his own master, Kiesinger made his first state visit to Paris. But he will probably go to Washington in June before his second scheduled meeting with Charles de Gaulle.

Kiesinger's boldest initiatives by far have been made toward the Soviet bloc. Adenauer and Erhard cold-shouldered East Germany and anyone who had anything to do with it. But Kiesinger, influenced by his Socialist Foreign Minister, Willy Brandt, and by All-German Affairs Minister Herbert Wehner, has offered a policy of friendship to the Eastern countries, including East Germany, in hopes of creating the relaxed atmosphere in which German reunification might eventually be permitted. Unfortunately, Poland and Russia are so alarmed by this initiative that they have become even more hostile than usual. The Russians have started a new propaganda campaign in the East bloc that paints West Germany as the haven of unrepentant Nazis, who lust for nuclear weapons and a chance to use them to regain lost land in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Said Kiesinger last week: "I address a modest suggestion to Moscow: Let us stop scolding and accusing each other."

Until 1973? The Grand Coalition thus has had its measure of trouble as well as success. Still, on balance, it has so far been good for Germany. In fact, Germans by and large are so pleased with having a government that governs effectively that there is some talk among the moderates in both parties about not dissolving the coalition in 1969 as originally planned but continuing it until 1973.

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