World Notes West Germany

Personality seemed more important than party last week in two West German state elections, both of which produced surprises. In the Saarland, the country's smallest and poorest state, Oskar Lafontaine, 41, a shrewd and charismatic leftist, led the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to an absolute majority in a state assembly that had been dominated by conservatives for three decades. By contrast, in West Berlin, long a stronghold of the SPD, the ^ winner was a conservative, Christian Democratic Mayor Eberhard Diepgen, 43. Two elements common to both votes were the resurgence of the center-right Free Democrats, thought to be in danger of extinction as a party just a few weeks ago, and the poor showing of the anti-Establishment Greens and their allies, whose cause had seemed unstoppable in the past five years.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl conceded that the setback for his Christian Democrats in the economically depressed Saarland was "very painful." Privately, he ascribed it to the tireless zest of Lafontaine, who represents an emerging group of left-wing Social Democrats who are calling for their country's withdrawal from NATO's military structure and an end to U.S. missile deployment in West Germany.