Basic HTML Version
by
Gene Hogberg
U
NWILLING
to take political
chances in an increasingly
uncertain world, West Ger–
man voters, on Sunday, October 5,
returned Chancellor Helmut
Schmidt to a new four-year term
of office.
The electoral challenge of Franz
J osef Strauss, candidate of the
conservative opposition parties,
was decisively turned back.
Tbe elections in the Federal
Republic deserved far more at–
tention in the world press than
they received. Unfortunately they
were submerged under media
overki ll coverage devoted to tbe
election campaign in the United
States. Nevertheless, the conse-
Helmut Schmidt, considered by many to be a realleader in the
Western world, has won re-e/ection in West Germany. But major
problems Ioom on the horizon during his new term of office.
WHERE
Is
WESTGE
Headed?
2
quences of Mr. Scbmidt's victory
should prove to be as signi ficant
for the Western world in the
early 1980s as the outcome of the
American election.
" Associat e Superpower"
Americans and many other people
in the free world do not fully
comprehend West Germany's stat–
ure today. The Federal Republic,
wbich is only half the geographical
size of the prewar German Reich of
1937, is, by many important yard–
sticks, the world's premier financia!
and commercial power. The Ameri–
can economy, by virtue of popula–
tion (221 million to 62 million) is
understandably Jarger. Nevertbe–
less West Germany possesses the
world's greatest currency reserves,
the second largest gold reserves, the
world's biggest exports per capita
and the hardest currency of any
major industrial country.
West German per-capita an–
nual income is now considerably
ahead of that of the United States
($9,278 in 1978 compared to
$7 ,572). West Germans have
supplanted Americans as the
world's greatest travelers. And as
any American who has visited the
Federal Republ ic in recent years
knows full well, tbe once mighty
dollar doesn't "travel" very far in
West Germany any more.
Chancellor Schmidt, in office
since 1974, presides as the most
powerful leader in Europe west of
the Soviet Union's President
Leonid Brezhnev. And while the
source of his power is largely
economic, sorne of it is g radually
being translated into political
strength as well- much of this
because of the crisis of Jeadership
in the United States.
Growing West German politi–
cal influence was confirmed two
years ago when the leaders of the
West 's "Big Three"- the United
States, Britain and France-in–
vited Mr. Schmidt to take part on
an equal basis with them at the
Western world summit in Guada–
loupe in January, 1979.
This past s ummer, Mr.
Schmidt began to talk openly for
the first time about West Germa–
ny's "leadership role"- a phrase
not used before in a nation still
stigmatized by its comparatively
recent Nazi history.
The New
York Times Magazine
perhaps
put it best when it said, in its
September 21 , 1980, issue, that
Bonn is haltingly, but s teadily,
being pushed by world events into
the "inevitable consecrat ion as
leader of Western Europe and,
perhaps, a role as a kind of asso–
ciate superpower."
Preserving the Fast-Paced
" German Way of Life "
Helmut Schmidt reminded Ger–
mans during the campaign that
The PLAIN TRUTH