Stalemate on the Rhine

West German workers poured out of their factories onto the streets in sudden wildcat strikes. In several cities, there were spontaneous demonstrations by young people in support of Chancellor Willy Brandt. "Ah, oh, eh,/ Willy is okay," they chanted. At other times, West Germans huddled round their televisions and radios with a rapt attention that customarily is reserved only for championship soccer matches.

What excited West Germans was their country's worst political crisis in more than two decades--one that threatened to bring down the 2 1/2-year-old coalition government of Social Democratic Chancellor Willy Brandt. The crisis also endangered the Chancellor's Ostpolitik, the innovative foreign policy through which Brandt hopes to improve West Germany's relations with its Communist neighbors by renouncing Bonn's claims to onetime German territories, which were seized by Poland and Russia after World War II.

Confidence Vote. The crisis began building after last week's state elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where the opposition Christian Democratic Union polled an absolute majority of 53.1% v. 37.5% for Brandt's Social Democratic Party and 8.9% for his coalition partners, the Free Democrats. Emboldened by those results, and heartened by the defection of yet another Free Democratic Deputy from the ruling coalition, the Christian Democrats decided to try to replace Brandt with their own leader, Rainer Barzel, 47, a tough and clever political infighter who affects long sideburns and flashy suits.

As the Bundestag began its debate on Brandt's request for a record $35 billion budget for 1973, the C.D.U. introduced a "constructive vote" of no confidence, a parliamentary procedure that is unique to West Germany. Mindful of the governmental instability during the Weimar Republic, the framers of West Germany's postwar constitution had provided constructively that a Chancellor could only be ousted by a secret vote that installs a new one.

Faced with a showdown, the Social Democratic leaders decided on an unusual tactic. Fearing defections from their own ranks, they ordered their Deputies to refrain from voting. Thus anyone who approached the voting urn from the Social Democratic benches would be presumed to be a traitor to his party. However, Vice Chancellor

Walter Scheel, the leader of the allied Free Democrats, allowed his remaining 25 Deputies to participate in the voting. Eight vote counters, seated at a green baize table in the Bundestag and surrounded by scores of anxious Deputies, tallied the white ballots.

Suddenly, before there was any official announcement of the results, the Social Democratic Deputies around the vote counters began to grab each other in joyous bear hugs as they saw from the tally sheets that they had won. Clanging an old town crier's bell for attention, Bundestag President Kai-Uwe von Hassel read the final vote: 247 votes in favor of Barzel, ten opposed and three abstentions. Barzel had failed to muster the 249 votes necessary to unseat the Chancellor. Declared Brandt: "The results show that there is no majority except the one that elected me Chancellor in 1969." His claim rang hollow the next day when the Bundestag split 247-247 on a vote over appropriations for the Chancellor's office. After that, the Bundestag adjourned for the week in hopes that Brandt and Barzel could find a way out of the stalemate.

The crisis could hardly have come at a worse time. Barring a last-minute change of plans, Brandt this week will present to the Bundestag for ratification the treaties of Moscow and Warsaw that he negotiated in 1970 as the key elements of his Ostpolitik. Rejection of the treaties would endanger other major developments in East-West diplomacy, including the signing of the Big Four Agreement on improving the status of West Berlin, the convening of the Conference on European Security, and mutual arms-reduction talks.

Even so, the Christian Democrats are publicly committed to vote against the treaties, and some Free Democrats might join them. The Christian Democrats complain that the treaties jeopardize Germany's right for eventual reunification and give diplomatic assent to Moscow's hegemony in Eastern Europe. But privately the Christian Democrats are aware that the defeat of the treaties not only would damage Bonn's improving ties with the East bloc but would also disappoint many detente-minded Western Europeans and Americans. As one coalition Deputy observed: "During the day, the C.D.U. Deputies fight against the treaties. By night they pray for their passage."

It was partly to avoid direct responsibility for defeating the treaties that the Christian Democrats moved when they did to oust Brandt, instead of waiting until the ratification vote. Barzel claims that as Chancellor he would reopen negotiations and persuade the Soviets to include extra clauses to satisfy C.D.U. objections. But Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko has warned that Moscow will not change one word. Soviet leaders are also threatening to exclude West German firms from the Soviet Union's joint economic deals if the treaties are defeated.

At week's end, in a meeting with Brandt and Scheel, Barzel suggested that the three parties should agree to hold national elections for a new Bundestag. But Brandt and Scheel demurred, partly because Scheel's Free Democrats are fearful of new elections and partly because the coalition hopes to replace defecting Free Democrats with new and loyal Deputies. Then Brandt flew to West Berlin where he told a rally of 50,000 cheering West Berliners that despite the crisis, the treaties will be ratified. But Brandt would have to exert some strong leadership to achieve that goal. Otherwise, his imaginative and carefully constructed foreign policy, which rightfully won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, is in danger of running aground on the complexities of a domestic power struggle.

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