Strauss, anticipator of contemporary Germany

Crowds of visitors are expected for the commemorations marking one hundred years since his birth, September 6 in Rott am Inn, where repose the remains of Franz Josef Strauss, a tomb-mausoleum pilgrimage destination since October 1988 when, at 73, one of the best known and discussed German politicians suddenly passed away. And while for Germany he had been a protagonist, Bavaria considered him a father of the country for having transformed an agricultural federal state into one of richest regions of the Federal Republic, with leading industries and a GDP that all of Europe still envies. Without undermining the environmental and regional balance. Seven days of mourning were announced when he died, as had occurred a few years earlier for eminent Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. It never happened since. An exhibition in Monaco of Bavaria, coinages of coins and stamp issues will be dedicated to him along with solemn ceremonies and a memorial at the Bundestag. Strauss, between light and shadow, is a piece of the history of post-war Germany. Indeed, the story of the Hamburg-based weekly “Der Spiegel” weighed on his figure: a day of autumn 1962 chief editor Rudolf Augstein and Conrad Ahlers, the author of an article that revealed deficiencies in the apparatus of NATO defence during Fall 62 military operations in Germany, were arrested on charges of high treason. The warrant – eventually judged arbitrary, with the acquittal of the accused – was issued by the same Strauss, the then Minister of Defence. Ahlers was arrested in Spain, while during the night Der Spiegel news offices were subjected to a search. The event had a tremendous impact. The political earthquake was coupled by public protests, accusations of acting as the Nazi regime and of menacing the freedom of the press. The government entered a crisis and Adenauer got rid of his cumbersome collaborator. However, Strauss served again as Minister in the years 1966-69: the only Minister of Finance who did not increase public debt. The “Der Spiegel” case conditioned the career of the Bavarian politician, defeated in his run as chancellor for the CDU-CSU party by Social-Democrat candidate Helmut Schmidt in 1980. Thus he never became Foreign Minister, a post he strongly wanted. But for twenty-seven years he served as leader of the Christian Socialist Union of Bavaria, for ten as Minister-President in Munich, MP at the Bundestage from 1949 until the day of his death. He was always influential, on the government and on the opposition alike. With no doubt, Strauss embodied the popular spirit of his Bavaria. Like it or not, he led CSU to win regional elections with flying colours for forty years and contributed to government coalitions with a significant number of Members of Parliament. Such political success does not happen by chance, nor is it customary to obtain over 50% majority votes. It should be remembered today, at a time of “absolute minorities”, considered group forces, that popular consensus used to be the result of free decisions. And that’s because Strauss was not alone. He was the result of a ruling class with Christian roots: it stemmed from the Catholic Bavarian People’s Party whose leaders had been persecuted and imprisoned by the Nazis; from the firm moral resistance of members of the clergy, amongst whom figured the Cardinal of Munich Michael Faulhaber (“the Jewish bishop”, as he was named with scorn by the SS press); from the small group of university students of the White Rose who paid with their lives the aversion to the Nazi dictatorship; and, it can be said, also from the popular revolt which in the post-war years prevented the enforcement of a Constitutional Court ruling to remove crucifixes from classrooms. When he died, his “intimate enemy” Rudolf Augstein, founder of the “Spiegel”, wrote: “Not what he said or did, but what he was, constituted his appeal, certainly the most consequential Bavarian political leader since 1918” .The authoritative daily “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, that usually referred to him with criticism, remembered him with the headline: “A great man has died”.