Word: bundestag
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Even opposition critics find it hard to fault Schmidt's handling of the economy. Since taking over from Willy Brandt last May, Schmidt, 56, has whipped the Cabinet into shape, told off his party's left-wingers, and zipped through the Bundestag a tax-reform program that had been stalled for years...
...Policy. In Bonn, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt immediately summoned a meeting of Cabinet ministers, Bundestag leaders, Minister-Presidents of all the federal states and party chairmen. Bonn, like most Western European governments, has long followed a policy of meeting terrorist demands, most recently in the kidnaping of West Berlin Mayoral Candidate Peter Lorenz two months ago (TIME, March 17). This time, however, government leaders decided unanimously not to budge. The crimes of the Baader-Meinhof gang have shocked and enraged West German sensibilities for three years, and government leaders decided that the nation had had enough. They reasoned that...
...grim and exhausted Chancellor Schmidt appeared Friday morning before the Bundestag. "We didn't make it easy on ourselves yesterday," he admitted, to applause from all sides of the house, "but today I am convinced that we fulfilled our duty correctly." He noted that the Baader-Meinhof gang was believed responsible for the murder of nine people and the wounding of more than 100 others. "To have released these criminals, some of whom are still awaiting trial," he declared, "would have meant an inconceivable shattering for our security and our state...
Strauss has no need to establish credentials in domestic matters. Since 1949 he has represented Weilheim in the Bundestag and held important Cabinet posts in previous governments, including Defense and Finance. A champion of law-and-order, an advocate of a militarily strong Germany, and an uncompromising antiCommunist, he became the symbol of cold war intransigence...
Strauss has been a rallying point for Germans who still dream of reunification. His unconcealed hatred of the Soviet and East Berlin regimes made him the leading opponent in the Bundestag of former Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik. He has not budged in his position. Interviewed recently in his Munich penthouse, he told TIME Correspondent Christopher Byron: "Ostpolitik's trade deals are absurd. First we offer to sell the Soviets something; then we give them the money to buy it. That's a marvelous way of doing business, isn't it? We should concentrate on improving...