Word: schmidts
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...Scheel, who is Foreign Minister and leader of the Free Democrats, which form the ruling coalition with Brandt's Social Democrats (S.P.D.), immediately assumed power as interim Chancellor. He will hold that office until this week, when the Bundestag, barring some unforeseen development, will elect Finance Minister Helmut Schmidt (see following story) as Brandt's successor. Scheel is also scheduled to be elected as successor to the retiring Heinemann...
...Helmut Schmidt must attempt to pull the Social Democrats out of their tailspin after he takes the oath of Chancellor next week. He has his task well cut out for him. The urgent problems that depressed Brandt have not gone away. Moreover, a public opinion poll released last week showed that voter preference for the S.P.D. is at an all-time low of 21%; only 7% favor the Free Democrats, while 62% support the Christian Democrats. Schmidt and the Social Democrats are lucky that they do not have to face another national election until the fall...
Shortly after the Social Democratic Party suffered a serious setback in a Hamburg state by-election last March, Helmut Schmidt, 55, went on television and bluntly accused his boss, Willy Brandt, of weak leadership and laxity. That kind of pugnacity long ago earned West Germany's new Chancellor-nominate the nickname "Schmidt-Schnauze" (Schmidt the Lip). Friends and enemies alike describe him as an "American-style" politician, in reference to his rough-and-tumble skill as an infighter. Certainly no one has ever accused him of indecision or timidity- or of hiding his ambition to take over Brandt...
...Hamburg schoolteacher, Schmidt joined the Hitler Youth when the Nazis came to power in 1933 and later served as an artillery battery commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II until he was captured by the British. After the war, he studied economics at the University of Hamurg, where he was a star pupil of Karl Schiller, who later served as Brandt's first Finance Minister. Schmidt entered politics while still a student and became leader of the German Socialist Student Union, precursor of today's vociferous, left-wing Young Socialists (Jusos). He won a seat...
After the Social Democrats won the 1969 election, Brandt chose Schmidt -who would have preferred to be Foreign Minister-as his defense chief. In that thankless job, Schmidt modernized the West German arsenal and shook up the creaky officer corps, earning high marks from NATO leaders. One top American diplomat in Bonn called him "the best German Defense Minister since the war." He raised military morale and attracted volunteers by improving barracks life and allowing them to sport Beatle-length hair. To traditionalists' complaints that he was turning the Bundeswehr into the "German hair force," Schmidt asserted: "I couldn...