West Germany: The Grand Coalition

After five weeks of political crisis, the leaders of West Germany's two major parties decided last week to form a grand coalition for the first time in the republic's 17-year history. Into the klieg lights of waiting TV cameras in Bonn's Bundeshaus stepped the Christian Democrats' candidate for Chancellor, silver-haired Kurt Georg Kiesinger, 62. "We had an eight-hour discussion of all essential questions, which led to a convergence of views," said Kiesinger. Beside him, nodding approval and sealing the agreement with a handshake, stood Willy Brandt, 52, West Berlin's mayor and the leader of the Social Democrats. Barring a last-minute hitch, the two parties this week will begin the task of forming a new government to replace the fading minority Cabinet of Ludwig Erhard.

The Christian Democratic Union was certain to approve the agreement, and the Social Democrats were to meet early this week to make their decision. A good many of the Social Democrats opposed the coalition, but heavy pressure from the leadership was expected to win party approval. Under the agreement, Kurt Kiesinger would become West Germany's third postwar Chancellor, Willy Brandt would be Vice Chancellor and probably Foreign Minister, and the 20 Cabinet posts would be split between the parties. Together the two parties would control a commanding 447 members of the Bundestag. The only opposition would come from the 49 members of Erich Mende's Free Democrats, who sparked the crisis in October by quitting Erhard's government in protest against tax increases needed to balance next year's budget.

Weary Role. Though a grand coalition had been much discussed, few Germans felt that it would ever come off. Why would the free-enterprising Christian Democrats want to have Marxists, however mild, as partners? Why would the Social Democrats want to become half a government when they could perhaps win it all at the next elections? Self-interest, of course, prevailed.

Having never won a national election in postwar Germany, the Social Democrats were becoming weary of their opposition role, and longed for a taste of power. The Christian Democrats, for their part, could not stomach another coalition with the Free Democrats who had brought down their government, and were glad of the chance to leave Erich Mende out in the cold.

Moreover, the two major parties are no longer all that far apart; both, for example, espouse similar welfare-state programs, and the Socialists are expected to go along with a tax increase on some consumer items (beer, cigarettes, gasoline) so long as personal income tax rates remain unchanged.

When it comes to foreign policy, the coalition government will almost certainly make some changes. Under Willy Brandt's influence, the government can be expected to launch new initiatives toward the East, aimed at relaxing tensions with the Soviet Union and at trying to forge new economic and cultural links with East Germany. As a concession to the influential Gaullists among the Christian Democrats, a new government will also probably attempt to repair its bridges with France, a move that would imply considerably more independence of the U.S.