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Equilibrium, Structure of Interests and Leadership: Adenauer's Survival as Chancellor1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Peter H. Merkl
Peter H. Merkl
Affiliation:
University of California (Santa Barbara)
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Extract

In studies comparing the Bonn Republic with the Weimar Republic, few aspects of the former have received more attention from political scientists than its extraordinary political stability. Contrary to all expectations in the immediate postwar era, and under the same leadership, Germany's second try at parliamentary democracy has already outlasted the Nazi millennium and will soon have exceeded—successfully—the life span of its ill-fated democratic predecessor, the Weimar Republic. Interpretations abound which attribute the political stamina of the Bonn government to the economic prosperity of Western Germany, its Allied tutelage, its firm Western-oriented course, or its disenchantment with political extremism of either variety. Of particular interest to political scientists, however, are the theories which identify the political stability of the Bonn Republic with the “reign” of Konrad Adenauer from the beginning to this day.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , September 1962 , pp. 634 - 650
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1962

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References

2 The popular vote was distributed as follows: CDU/CSU 45.4% (1957: 50.2); SPD 36.2% (31.8); and FDP 12.8% (7.7).

3 “Protest ist keine Denkmalsschaendung mehr,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung (hereafter referred to as SZ), Sept. 13, 1961Google Scholar.

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5 On this occasion, Adenauer at first decided to go into semiretirement by running for the largely honorific office of Federal President. He changed his mind, however, when he learned that his successor as Chancellor would be Ludwig Erhard, of whom Adenauer declared in public that he lacked the ability and stature for this position.

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16 (Stuttgart-Degerloch: Seewald, 1960), pp. 31, 37, 41–2.

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20 The morning after the Bundestag elections, Adenauer called a press conference without consulting his party in order to assert his leadership toward the public from the start. Three days later he disarmed his Party Executive Board so successfully that they appointed him as chief negotiator for the coalition talks, thereby prejudging the question of his continued leadership.

21 According to Time (Atlantic Edition), Nov. 10, 1961, p. 30, a public opinion poll gave Erhand 70% of the electorate over Adenauer as Chancellor. I have not been able to ascertain the source or verify the statistics.

22 For details, see Schulz, Gerhard, “Die Organisationsstruktur der CDU,” Zeitschrift fuer Politik, Vol. 3 (1956), p. 161Google Scholar. On the theory of parties of integration, see Neumann, Sigmund, “Towards a Theory of Political Parties,” World Politics, Vol. 6 (1954), p. 501 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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26 Duesseldorfer Leitsaetze, July 15, 1949, Sonderdruck des Deutsohland-Union-Dienstes. See also Friedrich, Carl J., “The Political Thought of Neo-Liberalism,” this Review, Vol. 49 (June 1955), pp. 509–25Google Scholar.

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36 ?Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (hereafter referred to as FAZ), Sept. 21, 1961.

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39 When in February, 1956, the Institut fuer Demoskopie asked a national sample: “Would you welcome it if only the CDU/CSU and the SPD were left in Germany?”, only 36% of the respondents answered yes. Forty per cent said no and 24% were undecided. Jahrbuch der Oeffentlichen Meinung, 1957 (Allensbach: Verlag fuer Demoskopie, 1957), p. 260Google Scholar.

40 About the socio-economic changes since the 1920's, see Wellmann, Thomas, “Die soziologische Grundlage der Bundesrepublik,” Deutsche Rundschau (June 1953), pp. 591–600Google Scholar. Regarding the “status symbols,” about 30% of West German households in 1961 had television sets arid washing machines, mostly of the wringer type. Forty-two per cent had refrigerators and there was one automobile for about every ten persons or three families.

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43 As Drs. Wolfgang Kralewski and Rupert Breitling of the Institut fuer Politische Wissenschaft of Heidelberg University told this writer, this aspect of Chancellor democracy has become more and more prominent during the last term of Adenauer. See also Altmann, op. cit., p. 47.

44 To the question “Do you feel that the SPD is a bourgeois party?”, 36% of the respondents said yes and 35% no. Among workers the percentages were 40% yes and 30% no, among SPD adherents 48% yes and 34% no, and among adherents of the CDU/CSU 34% yes and 39% no. The question is ambiguous, to be sure, but the percentages of positive responses are far too large to have come from the extreme left wing with the exception of a small fringe. Jahrbuch der Oeffentlichen Meinung 1957, p. 266.

45 See also Schroeder, Dieter, “Mende's Ziel: Eine liberate Volkspartei,” SZ, Sept. 23/24, 1961, p. 4Google Scholar. For more details about the Sponsor Societies, see the forthcoming publication of Rupert Breitling on this subject.

46 One of the most popular election posters of the FDP in the 1961 campaign read “People who think ahead vote FDP.” Toward the end of the coalition negotiations, a new version of this slogan made the rounds: “People who think ahead might as well vote CDU to begin with.”

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51 SZ, Oct. 2, 1961.

51a XII. Ordentlicher Bundesparteitag der FDP 23. bis 25. Maerz 1961 in Frankfurt/Main (Bundesparteileitung der FDP, Bonn, no date), pp. 20–3, 81–4, 126.

52 Soziale Ordnung, November, 1961.

53 Der Spiegel, Nov. 22, 1961, pp. 25–6.

54 For a list of the new ministers, see FAZ, Nov. 15, 1961.

55 Aufruf der Freien Demokratischen Partei, zur Bundestagwahl 1961.

56 Mende, Erich, “Regierungspartnerschaft und Koalitionsausschuss,” SZ, Nov. 25/26, 1961, p. 4Google Scholar; and Dehler, Thomas, “Die Stimme der FDP,” Abendzeitung (Munich), Nov. 9, 1961Google Scholar.

57 A perhaps less obvious but quite real purpose of this clause might also have been the prevention of cooperation between the CDU/CSU and SPD in matters of foreign policy and European integration, two other fields in which the SPD position is much closer to Adenauer's policies than that of the FDP.

58 Schroeder, Dieter, “Der grosse Zank um das Koalitionspapier,” SZ, Nov. 4/5, 1961, p. 3Google Scholar; also the Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Nov. 4, 1961.

59 The coalition contract violates arts. 38 and 65 of the Basic Law. Art. 38 declares that Bundestag deputies are not bound by instructions such as the injunction against voting with the SPD but only by their consciences—which apparently have never been an obstacle to strict party discipline. Art. 65 designates the Federal Chancellor and not a coalition commission as the agency which determines the principles of government policy. See Gaus, Guenter, “Ein Koalitinoşabkommen ist nicht bindend,” SZ, Nov. 11/12, 1961, p. 4Google Scholar.

60 FAZ, Oct. 18, 1961.

61 Der Spiegel, Oct. 25, 1961, p. 28Google Scholar.

62 SZ, Oct. 23, 1961.

63 Schroeder, Dieter, “Bonner Planspiele um Ministersessel,” SZ, Oct. 14/15, 1961, p. 3Google Scholar. For the cartoon, see the reprint in Der Spiegel, Nov. 1, 1961, p. 21Google Scholar.

64 Gaus, Guenter, “Adenauer,” SZ, Nov. 4/5, 1961Google Scholar.

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