The `Chancellor Of Unity' Is Up Against A New Wall

If Bundestag elections were held now, Chancellor Helmut Kohl would be tossed out after 11 years in power. Some polls show his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) trailing the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) badly, and much of the German press has already written him off.

But the 63-year-old Kohl, a skilled political infighter, is far from beaten. In a feisty 90-minute speech at the CDU's party congress in Hamburg on Feb. 21, the usually stolid Chancellor noticeably energized the worried party regulars on hand. "We have to fight whether we've got the wind in our sails or, as now, we are sailing into a head wind," he roared.