Sniping at Erhard

Troubles have been piling up for Ludwig Erhard ever since his Christian Democrats suffered a severe setback in July's state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia. Critics inside and outside his own party have blamed him for everything from a revolt within Germany's top military command to the sinking of an overage U-boat in the North Sea.

Not even a mission to the White House seemed to stem the anti-Erhard muttering. In fact, as he stepped from the Lufthansa jet that brought him home from Washington a fortnight ago, Erhard was greeted by a blaze of unsettling headlines. They spoke of closed-door meetings among politicians anxious to get his scalp. His own deputy party chairman, Rainer Barzel, had huddled with former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Erhard's severest critic. In a hunting lodge in the Vierherrenwald, Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier had canvassed powerful C.D.U. state leaders on Erhard's strength in their regions. It remained for Adenauer last week to bring it all out in the open with a public endorsement of Gerstenmaier as Erhard's replacement.

Levels of Loyalty. A candidate's role seems to suit Gerstenmaier, a former lecturer in theology who was imprisoned by the Nazis for his part in the July 20, 1944 attempt on Hitler's life. Though he recently promised to support Chancellor Erhard to "the point of exhaustion," he also indicated that the point might be quickly reached. "The time might come," said Gerstenmaier, "when loyalty toward country would be greater than loyalty toward party and person."

The spectacle of such intraparty sniping has done nothing to enhance the C.D.U.'s prestige in West Germany. Poll results show substantial defections to the Socialists and Free Democrats.

After a party caucus last week, Barzel announced: "Erhard is and remains Chancellor. We want the public debate to stop." Barzel's pronouncement rang a little hollow, since he is among those angling for Erhard's job.

Erhard feels that a fight is beneath his dignity. Instead, his strategy, as one aide puts it, is to remain silent and "let the whole thing run out of steam." Constitutionally, he cannot be ousted unless a majority of the Bundestag can agree in advance on a successor, and that is out of the question as long as Erhard wants to stay. He realizes that the potshots are intended to wear down his will and lead him to resign. The Chancellor seems to have no such in tent, confided to a visitor last week: "I will survive all this."

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