It was clear to me from the uproarious applause which greeted this remark that Little Red Riding Hood had a cousin somewhere in the Black Forest.
I had been keen to visit West Germany for several reasons. It was, of course, right on the frontier of freedom in Europe at a time when the perimeter of freedom globally was steadily contracting. The West’s strategy for defence depended to an important degree upon the policies of West Germany’s political leaders and the will of the West German people. Konrad Adenauer and his successor Chancellors of the German Federal Republic had staunchly resisted the blandishments and threats of the Soviet Union and its East German satellite. But Willi Brandt’s Ostpolitik, the hidden agenda of which was German reunification on Eastern terms, had shaken many assumptions. It had the unintended effects of promoting neutralist attitudes in West Germany (including in the ruling SPD) and of endorsing the legitimacy of the governments in Eastern Europe. Doubts about Ostpolitik and the soundness of the SPD lingered on, in spite of the robustness of Willi Brandt’s successor Helmut Schmidt, who soon set about strengthening Atlantic links with his call for NATO’s stationing of American intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe. In turn, Helmut Schmidt conceived an increasing distrust for the meanderings of US foreign policy under Jimmy Carter.
The other reason I was eager to make the trip was the importance of the CDU itself, which was, with the Conservatives, the other largest right-of-centre European party. The idea of setting up a joint organization — what became the EDU — originally came from the Austrian (Christian Democrat) People’s Party leader, Alois Mock. But the Germans and ourselves were bound to be the two key elements in it. Although I was later to discover the important differences between the German Christian Democrat and British Conservative traditions, these were not nearly as great as those between Christian Democrats in countries like Italy or Belgium and ourselves. In Germany the social-market approach pioneered by Ludwig Erhard had imposed a more free-enterprise orientation than on most other Christian Democrat parties, which remained heavily confessional and usually somewhat directionless in economics.
My first visit to West Germany as Leader was from Thursday 26 June to Saturday 28 June 1975. That first Thursday evening at the British Ambassador’s residence in Bonn my mind was focused, however, on what was happening back home, where the count for the Woolwich West by-election was under way. Unlike my predecessors, I had decided to campaign personally in by-elections, which carried risks but which was an advantage when things went well, as they did on this occasion, for we won the seat on a swing of 7.6 per cent. Since, as usual, the Party was strapped for cash, I was not accompanied by a press officer and, knowing this, Gordon Reece had advised me what to say and do in the event of the expected success. We agreed that I would say something on the lines of ‘This is the first step on the road to the end of socialism,’ and then I would make a Churchillian victory sign — all the more appropriate since I was in Germany. Gordon did not consider coaching me in the gesture itself. So when, the following day, I was asked to comment on the result I smiled and raised two fingers, unfortunately the wrong way round, which was taken by delighted cameramen as an expression of lighthearted if vulgar contempt for the Labour Party rather than satisfaction with our own success.
Later that day I had my first meeting with the socialist Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. By the end of our discussion I was concluding that he was a good deal less socialist than some members of my own Shadow Cabinet, two impressions which did not diminish as the years went by. We did, though, disagree about the role of trade unions. On the basis of German experience, Helmut Schmidt could not understand why in Britain we did not just get all the union leaders around a table and work things out sensibly. I pointed out that thanks to the reforms which the British occupying power had made in the structure of German trade unions after the war, reducing their number and making them industry-based rather than craft-based, this was a practical possibility in Bonn. In London a small stadium would be required. (My knowledge of these reforms was due to Paul Chambers, the British member of the Control Commission which had run the Western sectors of Germany during the Allied occupation: I had known him since the 1960s.) I was tempted to add that most British trade union leaders, unlike their German equivalents, were at least as interested in socialist politics as sensible wage bargaining. But I decided that could wait for another occasion.
A late lunch had been arranged for me by my CDU hosts. The three German celebrities present were Helmut Kohl, the CDU leader and Chancellor-candidate for the following year’s federal elections, Kurt Biedenkopf, the CDU General Secretary and — most celebrated of all — Ludwig Erhard, the great German Finance Minister of the 1950s and sixties. I had had some discussions with Helmut Kohl earlier in the day. My first impression was that he was amiable and instinctively sound on the important issues. But neither of us spoke the other’s language and our discussion tended, therefore, to be somewhat halting. For the next decade, however, we were to be broadly on the same wavelength on the East-West issues that dominated European politics. Professor Biedenkopf was a more cosmopolitan character, fluent to a fault, deeply intelligent and extraordinarily energetic. He bubbled with ideas and reflections so that I found it difficult to get a word in. He was plainly determined, as I was, that when his party returned to power it would do so with a cohesive and well thought-out programme for government. Ludwig Erhard had by this time retired from any involvement in active politics, but apparently he had heard that my politics (and economics) were sufficiently different (that is to say similar to his own) to make a discussion appealing. I was glad to discover that the former Chancellor, as well as being the architect of German prosperity, had a considerable presence and shrewdness. He asked me a number of searching questions about my economic approach, at the end of which he seemed satisfied. I felt I had performed well in an important tutorial. In their different ways these three men symbolized the considerable strengths of German Christian Democracy and I went away feeling that our two parties, both in opposition but both preparing for power, had much in common.
My reception on my next visit the following year at the CDU Conference, which I have already described, in part confirmed this. But I could never quite adjust to the style of West German politics which I witnessed there. Successive speakers approached the microphone and, from an inch or two away, bellowed into it at great length. The technique for evoking applause appeared to be to shout at such volume that words were lost amid the crackling of overstrained loudspeakers. Neither a Conservative Party Conference, nor in all probability Conservative Central Office equipment, would have stood it.
Meanwhile, discussions between European conservative and Christian Democrat parties continued about the formation of the EDU. I tried to persuade the less enthusiastic parties, nervous of being seen as right-wing in countries where a tradition of coalition governments had blunted principled politics. In December 1976 I visited The Hague for talks with Dutch politicians — an occasion of longer-term personal importance to me because this was when I first met Ruud Lubbers, the then Economics Minister and future Prime Minister with whom in the years to come I was to strike up a mutually beneficial friendship. I also spoke to the British Chamber of Commerce there:
I am anxious that… there should be a closer cooperation between like-minded political parties across the Community. Of course I understand that history has put difficulties in our way… Nevertheless, I feel sure that as we examine our policies we will find that the common ground is much greater than we supposed at the outset.