German Cabinet Will Not Be Formed For Some Time

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1949, Page 6

German Cabinet Will Not Be Formed For Some Time

LONDON, August 16.—Dr Konrad Adneauer, leader of the German Christian Democrats, who topped the poll in Western Germany’s Federal Parliamentary election, said last night that it would be some time before a Cabinet was formed. The Frankfurt correspondent of the Daily Express says that Dr. Adenauer is inviting the near-Nazi German Party to join his Cabinet; He adds that Dr Adenauer, on American advice, asked the Social Democrats’, who wore second in the election, to help him to form a Government. The Social Democrat leader, Dr Kurt Schumacher, is reported to have replied: “Not unless you make a Socialist your. Economics Minister.” Dr. Adenauer's Character

The Berlin correspondent of the Daily Herald, describing the character of Dr Adenauer, says: “Dr Adenauer’s bitter struggle with the Social Democrats reflects his unflinching opposition to all forms of socialisation. Dr Odenauer is a defender of free enterprise and private property. He has no love for Great Britain or its Socialist Government. “He is holding his fire on the Americans because of Marshall aid and the prospect of the investment of foreign capital in Ruhr industries. Dr Actenauer despises the French for their occupation tactics, and hates everything Soviet Russia stands for,”. The deputies elected on Sunday will meet on September 7 to elect a President. , ‘ , The Manchester Guardian says that German Social Democrats estimate that the stand by the British Foreign Secretary (Mr Ernest Bevin) on the continuation of dismantling cost the German Socialists-1,000.000 votes. “National Socialist catch phrases have not vet .lost their attraction, in spite of bitter experience," says the British-licensed Berlin newspaper, Montags Echo, commenting on the election results. “A cheap nationalism is again in being which lives on differences with the occupying Powers and which will not admit that the occupation Powers would nob have been in Germany, if the vilest form of na ; tionalism —National Socialism—had not misused the German nation and the world."

Vote Against Communism The American occupation organ, the Neue Zeitung, however, says: “The high voting figure can be taken as indicating that political determination is gaining in strength and that Germans have seriously decided to take a course towards democratic public life.” The Christian Democratic Frankfurter Neue Presse hails the election as a clear vote against Communism and in favour of the economic policy followed so far.

'The Soviet-licensed National Zeitung says that the Western Berlin electorate will be disillusioned if it believes that economic recovery is in sight. '.‘They will recognise in a few weeks that American bananas and oranges will remain forbidden fruits." The Manchester Guardian says: “The new West German Government will have to co-operate with the same occupying Powei-s whose reputation the German parties have been trying to destroy. The occupying Powers must make up their minds what they intend to do about dismantling and whether they can find homes for refugees. Germans must be made to realise that most of their 1,300,000 unemployed are out of work not because synthetic plants are being dismantled in the Ruhr but because of overcrowding and lack of capital. The Daily Telegraph thinks that the most satisfactory features of the election are the size of the poll and the poor showing of the Communists. The Daily Herald says that Socialists in other corm tries will regret that the German Social Democrats failed to win the election. It adds: “It has to be remembered that it was largely the policies pursued by the Right in Germany, backed by some persons nearer home, which prepared the way for Hitler ” The British Communist Party’s newspaper, the Daily Worker, says that under the rule of “Right-Wing reaction” Western Germany will in the immediate future be a danger to all Europe. French Express Anxiety

French newspapers express anxiety at the number of votes that went to the extreme Right parties. Le Parisian Libere says that the Allies should not forget that all German parties based their electoral programmes on a nationalism directed against them. The Communist L’Humanite” warns the French people against the threat it sees represented by the sussess of “revenge parties.” The French Socialist leader, M. Leon Blum, writing in Le Populaire, says that a great people like the Germans cannot live indefinitely in remor.se and penitence. and that the time has come when they must be given hope. The Communist Le Soir says: “The trend of the election brings out the danger of the reconstitution on France’s borders of an undenazified and revengeful Western Germany.” The United States State Department has hailed the election results as a return to democracy and a big defeat for Communists. In a formal statement the department said: “One striking feature was the failure of the Communist Party even to hold the small strength it had shown in the former State elections. It will now be little more than a splinter party in the new Assembly.” The department added that the outcome of the election showed a return to normal democracy after a gap of 16 years.