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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MAY 15, 1981
Page 14
Some observers feel the current SPD-FDP coalition in Bonn won't be able to
survive until the next elections in 1984. That's why West Berlin is a test
of the federal coalition's staying power.
"Historically," noted the Christian Science Monitor on May 12, "West
Germany's legislative majorities have changed only with a change in coali
tion preference of the swing-vote FDP--and any national FDP shift so far
has been scouted first by a shift of a regional FDP."
"Law and Order" and Strauss
There is little doubt that much of the increased strength for the CDU in
West Berlin came from voters demanding that authorities clamp down on
spreading leftist/anarchist unrest in the city.
Radical leftists in Berlin and elsewhere have capitalized on Germany's
nationwide housing shortage to justify occupying abandoned buildings.
"Squatter demonstrations" are now the biggest protest phenomenon in the
country, along with anti-nuclear power demonstrations.
On one recent weekend, bands of angry young men and women ran riot in a
score of West German towns. In Nuremberg, 141 youths were rounded up--the
biggest mass arrests in Germany, according to one report, since Nazi times.
The arrests were not ordered by Nuremberg's SPD-ruled city government, but
by state authorities under orders of Bavaria's Interior Ministry.
Bavaria's Minister-President (governor) Franz-Josef Strauss has no time for
squatters. Strauss's tough line on demonstrators contrasts sharply with
pleas by West Berlin's SPD rulers urging city police to "show restraint."
Says Strauss, "As long as I am in office, I will oppose squatter demon
strations with all the force at my disposal."
If the present coalition in Bonn collapses, Strauss may yet have a chance to
inject a bit of "law and order" from the federal level. A writer for the
New Zealand newspaper, The Dominion, reported from Germany in an article
headlined, "Is Strauss On Way Back in Germany?": "In the federal elections
six months ago, Strauss, at the head of the Christian Democrats, was de
feated in his bid for the Chancellorship. On May 10, Berlin will show
whether the tide is turning in his favor."
Many Germans, viewing social unrest in their country and the leftist
victory in France, will no doubt opt for a tougher line in the future.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau