Germany: Special Delivery in Berlin

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Rival Cliques. In West Germany, the Social Democrats are becoming painfully aware that the intransigence of East Germany and its East-bloc allies is the main cause of tension within the Grand Coalition. Kiesinger is under increasing pressure from the right-wingers of his own party not to go so far in seeking to deal with the East. Herbert Wehner, the chief Socialist tactician, and Socialist Foreign Minister Willy Brandt insist that the government must keep on trying even in the face of continued negative responses.

If East Germany rebuffs Kiesinger's newest gesture, the Socialists will be hurt, since rapprochement with the East is just about their only issue that Kiesinger has not entirely usurped. Their policy has already caused the party to split into rival cliques in the traditional Socialist stronghold of West Berlin. A far-left group wants West Berlin to become a neutral "bridge" between East and West, while others maintain that West Berlin must remain committed to the West for protection. Caught in between the two factions, Mayor Heinrich Albertz, 52, who was Brandt's successor, last week found himself so isolated that he resigned. Alarmed by the disarray in Berlin, Brandt sent in as a replacement his No. 2 man in the Foreign Ministry. He is Klaus Schiütz, 41, a native Berliner who, as a student in 1948, helped found the Free University in West Berlin in protest against dictatorial Communist policies at the old Berlin University in the city's East sector. He seemed well-suited to talk some reason into the heads of West Berlin's cold-war-weary Socialists.