1949 West German federal election

none January 2024 1949 West German federal election West Germany parliamentary no 1938 German parliamentary election and referendum 1938(pre-partition) 14 August 1949 1953 West German federal election 1953 List of members of the 1st Bundestag List of Reichstag deputies in the Third Reich (4th electoral term) All 402 seats in the BundestagAs well as the 22 Berlin Bundestag members de Berliner Bundestagsabgeordneter non-voting delegates for West Berlin, elected by the West Berlin Legislature. 202 31,207,620 78.5% Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F078072-0004, Konrad Adenauer.jpg 130 120 160 0 5 Konrad Adenauer CDU/CSU 139Plus two non-voting delegates for West Berlin. 7,359,084 31.0% Kurt Schumacher US Army Edit 3x4.jpg 120 120 160 0 0 Kurt Schumacher Social Democratic Party of Germany 131Plus five non-voting delegates for West Berlin. 6,934,975 29.2% Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-P001512, Franz Blücher 3x4.jpg 125 120 160 Franz Blücher Free Democratic Party (Germany) 52Plus one non-voting delegate for West Berlin. 2,829,920 11.9% Joseph Baumgartner 3x4.jpg 120 120 160 0 0 Joseph Baumgartner Bavaria Party 17 986,478 4.2% Heinrich Hellwege 1953 3x4.jpg 120 120 160 0 0 Heinrich Hellwege German Party (1947) 17 939,934 4.0% Max Reimann 1947.jpg 120 120 160 0 0 Max Reimann Communist Party of Germany 15 1,361,706 5.7% 1949 West German federal election.svg 400px The left side shows constituency winners of the election by their party colours. The right side shows party list winners of the election for the additional members by their party colours. Government Government after election First Adenauer cabinet CDU/CSU–FDP–DP A federal election was held in West Germany on 14 August 1949 to elect the members of the first Bundestag,Nohlen Dieter Dieter Nohlen Stöver Philip Elections in Europe: A data handbook Nomos 31 May 2010 762 978-3832956097 with a further eight seats elected in West Berlin between 1949 and January 1952 and another eleven between February 1952 and 1953. They were the first free federal elections in West Germany since 1933 and the first after the division of the country. The CDU/CSU formed a centre-right coalition government with the FDP and the DP.Barnes Samuel H. Grace Frank Pollock James K. Sperlich Peter W. 1962 The German Party System and the 1961 Federal Election https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/german-party-system-and-the-1961-federal-election1/4DE5C1ABE2EC179628BFA39AAC3C14E2 American Political Science Review en 56 4 899–914 10.2307/1952792 1537-5943 subscription Campaign After World War II, the German Instrument of Surrender and the country's division into four Allied occupation zones, the elections were held in the Federal Republic of Germany, established under occupation statute in the three Western zones with the proclamation of its Basic Law by the Parlamentarischer Rat assembly of the West German states on 23 May 1949. Most West German parties at the time of the 1949 Bundestag election were committed to democracy, but they disagreed on what kind of democracy West Germany should become. thumb|CDU election poster: With Adenauer for peace, freedom and unity in Germany. right horizontal 150 300 KAS-Wiederaufbau-Bild-4-4.jpg KAS-Bolschewistische Bedrohung-Bild-11-3.jpg 1949 election poster of the CDU reading "We cannot do magicbut we can work/do our job. Help us. Vote for CDU. It's about Germany!" 1949 election poster of the CDU reading "The Rescue: CDU" center centre The Christian Democratic (CDU) leader, 73-year-old Konrad Adenauer, former mayor of Cologne and party chairman in the British Zone since March 1946, believed in moderate, non-denominational and Christian democracy,Dennis L. Bark and David R. Gress, A History of West Germany, volume 1: 1945–1963: From Shadow to Substance, London, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1989Erling Bjöl, Grimberg's History of the Nations, volume 23: The Rich West, "The Giant Dwarf: West Germany," Helsinki: WSOY, 1985 social market economy and integration with the West. In 1948 he had become president of the Parlamentarischer Rat, an office that added to his popularity as protagonist of a "state-to-be". He attacked social democracy and the British, especially, dismantling of industry.Charles Williams (2000) Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany, p342 thumb|SPD election poster: All millionaires vote for CDU-FDP. All other millions of Germans for the SPD The Social Democratic (SPD) leader, Kurt Schumacher, wanted a united, democratic and socialist Germany. Schumacher had heavily agitated against the forced merger of the Communist Party (KPD) and SPD (both in the Soviet occupation zone) into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and he had also turned the party's course away from the working class advocacy group of the Weimar Republic towards a left-wing big tent party with distinct patriotic features. He constantly accused Adenauer of betraying national interests, culminating in his heckling at the Bundestag session of 25 September 1949: "The Chancellor of the Allies!". Schumacher criticized the Catholic Church, calling it the fifth occupying power and criticized denominational education. Results In the end and to the great disappointment of the Social Democrats, the CDU/CSU outnumbered them by 31.0% to 29.2% of the votes cast. Enough participating West Germans favoured Adenauer's and his coalition partners'the liberal Free Democrats' (FDP) and the conservative German Party's (DP)policies and promises over Schumacher's and the other left-wingers' policies to give the centre-right parties a slight majority of deputies. To enter the Bundestag, a party had to surmount a threshold of 5% at least in one of the states or to win at least one electoral district; ten parties succeeded. A number of non-voting members (elected in 1949:2 CDU, 5 SPD, 1 FDP; joined in February 1952 by: 3 CDU, 4 SPD, 4 FDP) indirectly elected by the West Berlin legislature (Stadtverordnetenversammlung) are included below in parentheses. The French Saar Protectorate did not participate in this election. 41 of the members elected to the Bundestag were refugees.Long 1968 116 File:Bundestag composition 1949.svg FPTP First-past-the-post constituencies PR Party list proportional representation TotalExcludes the non-voting delegates for West Berlin (5 SPD, 2 CDU, 1 FDP) Social Democratic Party 6934975 96 35 131 Christian Democratic Union 5978636 91 24 115 Free Democratic Party 2829920 12 40 52 Christian Social Union 1380448 24 0 24 Communist Party of Germany 1361706 0 15 15 Bavaria Party 986478 11 6 17 German Party 939934 5 12 17 Centre Party 727505 0 10 10 Economic Reconstruction Union 681888 0 12 12 Deutsche Rechtspartei 429031 0 5 5 Radical Social Freedom Party de Radikal-Soziale Freiheitspartei 216749 0 0 0 South Schleswig Voters' Association 75388 0 1 1 European People's Movement of Germany de Sammlung zur Tat 26162 0 0 0 Rheinish-Westfalian People's Party de Rheinisch-Westfälische Volkspartei 21931 0 0 0 Independents 1141647 3 0 3 763216 242 160 402 31207620 BundeswahlleiterBundeswahlleiter Results by state Constituency seats StateTotalseatsSeats wonSPDCDUCSUFDPBPDPInd.Baden77Bavaria47122411Bremen33Hamburg8431Hesse221237Lower Saxony3424415North Rhine-Westphalia6625401Rhineland-Palatinate15411Schleswig-Holstein14671Württemberg-Baden2051122Württemberg-Hohenzollern615Total242969124121153 List seats StateTotalseatsSeats wonFDPSPDCDUKPDDPWAVDZPBPDRPSSWBaden523Bavaria3176126Bremen211Hamburg51211Hesse145162Lower Saxony244875North Rhine-Westphalia439123910Rhineland-Palatinate104321Schleswig-Holstein922131Württemberg-Baden135512Württemberg-Hohenzollern4112Total16040352415121210651 Aftermath Schumacher had explicitly refused a grand coalition and led his party into opposition, where it would remain until December 1966, assuming the chair of the SPD parliamentary group as minority leader. On 12 September 1949, he lost the indirect German presidential election, defeated by FDP chairman Theodor Heuss in the second ballot. Schumacher died on 20 August 1952 of the long-term consequences of his concentration camp imprisonment during the Nazi years. Adenauer had favoured the formation of a smaller centre-right coalition from the beginning. Nominated by the CDU/CSU faction, he was elected the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany on 15 September 1949 by an absolute majority of 202 of 402 votes. Adenauer had ensured that the votes of the predominantly Social Democrat West Berlin deputies did not count and later stated that he "naturally" had voted for himself.David Reynolds (2015) One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945, Penguin UK On 20 September, he formed the Cabinet Adenauer I of CDU/CSU, FDP, and DP ministers. Chosen as an interim Chancellor, he held the office until 1963, being re-elected three times (in 1953, in 1957 and in 1961). Notes References Works cited Long Wellington The New Nazis of Germany Chilton Company 1968 https://archive.org/details/newnazisofgerman0000well Further reading Kirchheimer Otto Otto Kirchheimer 1950 The Composition of the German Bundestag, 1950 Western Political Quarterly 3 4 590–601 10.2307/442516 442516 Category:Federal elections in Germany West Category:Konrad Adenauer Federal election West Germany