762A.00/8–3153: Telegram
No. 217
The United States High Commissioner
for Germany (Conant) to the Department of
State1
847. It is view of most competent observers here, with which we find no reason to differ, that Chancellor will emerge from coming elections as dominant figure in German political scene and as head of a coalition with sufficiently wide Parliamentary support to formulate and execute a forceful governmental policy, but probably at price of concessions to his coalition partners, especially FDP. We estimate that SPD would have to win 200 seats in Bundestag or more than 35 percent of popular vote to prevent formation of an Adenauer Government. We view this as highly unlikely. Such an SPD victory would represent a considerable increase over SPD performance in recent local and land elections whereas in our view SPD popularity has, if anything, waned somewhat in recent months while Chancellor’s national prestige has tended to mount since the low point of the constitutional court issue of December 1952. This increased prestige arises from Chancellor’s constructive leadership, his skill in seeming to deprive SPD of its claim to be only champion of German unification, and from lack of an effective opponent. Furthermore, relatively satisfactory economic and social conditions have worked to advantage of government in power. SPD, lacking a positive policy of its own, has had its electoral chances hurt by failure of Kremlin to make tempting concessions to [Page 532] German public opinion. This has emphasized SPD’s inability to present constructive alternative platform to Adenauer’s foreign policy.
Although we believe major outcome can be fairly safely anticipated, precise statements of chances of individual parties are rendered impossible by existence of series of incalculable factors. No one can foresee how the four million new voters who represent more than 10 percent of eligible electorate will act. In addition, there is an unpredictable number of undecided voters whom some competent observers place as high as 20–25 percent. Another element of uncertainty results from fact that new electoral law permits voter to split his vote between a candidate of one party and a list of another party. It is not unlikely that some voters may split their votes between a government party and SPD. Another enigma is the drawing strength of BHE which did not run in 1949 federal elections. If BHE does as well in federal elections as it has done in land and communal elections, it may win as many as 40 seats. Most observers here expect BHE easily to exceed the 5 percent limit, but do not anticipate it will win more than 25 or 30 seats.
There may well be shifts from one of government coalition parties to another, but it is unlikely such changes will affect overall strength of present coalition. Furthermore, Chancellor’s ability to maneuver during formation of new Cabinet should be greater than in 1949 because two of former parties in opposition in 1949 (Center Party and Bavarian Party) have now pledged themselves to vote for Adenauer as Chancellor. He can presumably count also, if necessary, upon BHE support because that party has frankly stated that it is ready to hop on anybody’s bandwagon.
- Repeated to London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Moscow, Berlin, The Hague, Brussels, Stuttgart, Bremen, Hamburg, Munich, Dusseldorf, and Frankfurt.↩