Professor Sees German Vote As Traditional

Last Sunday's German elections, in which Chancellor Helmut Schmidt won a narrow victory over his conservative challenger Helmut Kohl represents a return to the "more traditional German mainstream politics," Guido Goldman '59, senior lecturer in Government, said yesterday.

"Schmidt's trouble in the election of 1972 was a very unusual one that took place in the middle of a legislative period, and many thought it was a kind of illegitimate event. Schmidt's coalition this year is enough of a majority to launch a strong and successful coalition," Goldman said.

Projections yesterday indicated that the 46-seat majority of Mr. Schmidt's Social Democratic Party and its governing coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, would shrink in the lower house of the German parliament by only six to ten seats, considerably less of a loss than had been expected.

Kohl, the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate, who campaigned on the slogan "Freedom Instead of Socialism," criticized the government's deficit budgets, welfare programs and detente policies with East Germany.

Professor Goldman said that he saw "a sense of worry among the people about the apparent erosion to the left in Italy and France, and a desire to temper it."

Karl W. Deutsch, Stanfield Professor of International Peace, said yesterday he is "very glad that the Schmidt government is retaining power. No matter what misgivings others have, the effort by Mr. Kohl's party to have a tougher anti-Communist line in mid-Europe could only have increased tensions among the European countries."

He added that he believes the coalition is going to be successful because the Germans "don't wish to rock the boat.