The Oldest Young Man

The man picked as West Germany's new Foreign Minister is a tall, smoothly handsome Saarlander who owes his job and much of his political style to Konrad Adenauer. But Gerhard Schroeder, 51, is far more insular than the Chancellor, has at best an opportunist's interest in European unity. Though his views may change in office, Schroeder is loosely allied to West Germany's "new nationalism," which holds that the time has come for the young and powerful nation to assert its own voice in international affairs, relying on its allies only for the nuclear might to back it up. Most dubious part of his record: he is a onetime Nazi party member who explains that he joined in 1933 only as a way to get ahead.

In Germany's postwar politics, Schroeder has shared Adenauer's impatience with parliamentary institutions, argues that the nation needs "a strong government, strongly led." Schroeder, who was named deputy floor leader for Adenauer's Christian Democrats in 1952 and has been Interior Minister since 1953, has not hesitated to warn opponents that a vote against the Chancellor is a vote for Communism. Among politicians, Schroeder's boyish subservience to Adenauer has earned him the title "Bonn's oldest young man." He is nonetheless a seasoned political infighter whose cunning and ambition make him difficult to dislodge. One reason for Schroeder's seeming invulnerability, according to politicos, is his habit of keeping copious dossiers on colleagues' lapses and foibles.

Son of a minor railroad official, Schroeder was perennial head of his class and still, say his foes, has the star pupil's condescending manner. From Koenigsberg University, Law Student Schroeder went to the University of Edinburgh, finished his studies with a doctorate from Cologne. He says he quit the Nazi Party in 1941, when he married a part-Jewish woman. After the war, in which he served as an enlisted infantryman on the Russian front, Schroeder joined the Christian Democrats, at Adenauer's urging campaigned in 1949 for the Duesseldorf seat in the Bundestag that he still holds. As Interior Minister, Schroeder was famed for inept statements, most notably his breathless announcement that defecting Counterspy Otto John had been "kidnaped" by the East Germans in 1954. Cracked one nightclub comic: "Schroeder has some more good ideas, but he can't spell them out--the wrong moment hasn't come yet."

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