GERMANY: A Test of Strength

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While U.S. voters this week looked to the northeast (New Hampshire) for the national political portent, the signs in Germany last week were in the southwest. Germany's Socialists, led by vituperative Kurt Schumacher, have long insisted that the bulk of Germany's people are dead set against Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's plans to tie Germany into the Western European defense. A local election for assembly members in the southwestern state newly formed from the merger of Württemberg-Baden, Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern gave them, they thought, an ideal chance to prove their case.

Schumacher dragged himself from a sickbed to harangue the southwest voters by radio. Adenauer's Housing Minister Eberhard Wildermuth died of a heart attack in Tübingen after strenuously pleading the government's cause. From ancient Heidelberg to the Black Forest and all through the area known principally for its vacation resorts, its cuckoo clocks and its conservative politics, other leading ministers and oppositionists campaigned tirelessly.

The result: a bitter disappointment to Schumacher's Socialists. Of 2.73 million South German voters who trooped to the polls, 54% voted for candidates from the two coalition parties who support Adenauer, only 28% voted Socialist, a seemingly clear victory for Adenauer—and the West.

Said Adenauer: "I am facing the 1953 national elections without any anxiety."