Willy Wins

In municipal elections held at the darkest hour of the Berlin blockade in 1948, West Berliners showed their defiance of the Reds by giving their beloved mayor, Ernst Reuter, a record 64.5% of the popular vote. Communism's Wall has done nothing to reduce their solidarity. Last week, urged on by posters that warned "Whoever stays at home votes for the Wall," 90% of eligible West Berliners trudged through foggy, snowy streets to give able Mayor Willy Brandt, Reuter's protege, a landslide victory for another term in office. Brandt's Socialists got almost 62% of the 1,571,820 votes cast; in the workers' stronghold of Wedding, the district which Brandt chose as his personal constituency, he won more than 75% of the ballots. City wide, the puny Communist Party lost one-third of its support, attracting just a shade more than 1% of the vote.

Brandt's victory was no surprise, for West Berlin traditionally votes Socialist. What was startling was the size of the Socialist gain, and the sharp loss suffered by the West Berlin faction of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's Christian Democratic Union. C.D.U. Deputy Mayor Franz Amrehn lost to a little-known Socialist, and overall C.D.U. strength in the Berlin House of Representatives dropped 25%. There were, of course, local issues, but no one doubted that the C.D.U. suffered from the tarnished image of Adenauer's national party, which has been slipping in local and state elections. Recent discontent focuses on the government's clumsy "treason" crackdown on the newsmagazine Der Spiegel last November, and more important, on the stubborn refusal of Adenauer to clear the way for his own retirement and choice of a new C.D.U. leader.

With new national elections due in 1965, it is none too early for the Christian Democrats to start building up a new candidate, whether he turns out to be Vice Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, the fast-rising Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder, or one of the party's dark horses. As for a Socialist candidate for the chancellorship, Willy Brandt, who was beaten once by Adenauer, was sure to be it again. And Willy was willing. "My work might be more needed elsewhere," he said.

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