Of
Heribert Prantl
Rainer Candidus Barzel kept shaking his head in disbelief. He was, he said later, “struck by lightning.” He, the head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, sat in the front row of the Bundestag, distraught and devastated – a defeated man who had been sure of his victory too early. He stood up as if in a trance, congratulated the winner, Chancellor Willy Brandt, who had surprisingly survived the no-confidence vote that Barzel had called for. It was not he, Rainer Barzel (CDU), who became Federal Chancellor, as should have been the case given the majority in Parliament; Willy Brandt, the protagonist of the new Eastern and détente policy, remained so.