German Journalist Predicts Victory For Adenauer in September Contest

The political editor of a leading German newspaper predicted an easy victory for Konrad Adenauer in the forthcoming general election in West Germany at the International Seminar Forum in Burr Hall last night.

Hans Gresmann, of Die Zeit, an independent paper in Hamburg, asserted that only a miracle can give Willie Brandt's Social Democratic Party a ruling majority in September's contest, the fourth since the establishment of the Boun Republic in 1949. In the 1957 election Adenauer's Christian Democratic Union gained 50.2 per cent of the national vote, against 30 per cent for the Socialists.

Gresmann analyzed current tendencies in German political and social life, pointing to parallel trends on the American scene. He especially emphasized the development in West Germany of a two-party system on the American model. Both the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats have abandoned their traditional ideological positions in an attempt to win broader support among all groups in the population, he noted.

In an attempt to compete more effectively with the incumbent Christian Democrats, led by the 85-year old Adenauer, the Socialists have soft-pedalled the Marxist line and backed down on their previous stands on demilitarization, disarmament, nationalization of industry, and the German position vis a vis the United States and NATO.

Rather than wage their campaign on major national problems, Brandt and the Socialists have stressed minor domestic welfare reforms, such as in air pollution, and have warned that a vote for "Der Alter" may be a vote for Franz Josef Strauss, the Christian Democrat's controversial Defense Minister, should Adenauer die in office.

All in all, Gresmann concluded, the Socialist program has come strikingly to resemble that of their opponents, who have held power in West Germany contrasts sharply with the harshly antago is tic program of four years ago, he noted, with Brandt now pressing hard on the matter of Adenauer's age and, with an eye on the recent Kennedy victory, a 'tempting to convince the populace that this is a time for young men.