1957 West German federal election

none September 2022 West Germany parliamentary 1953 West German federal election 1953 1957 09 15 y 1961 West German federal election 1961 List of members of the 2nd Bundestag List of members of the 3rd Bundestag All 497 seats in the BundestagAs well as the 22 non-voting delegates for West Berlin, elected by the West Berlin Legislature. 249 35,400,923 ( 6.9%) 87.8% ( 1.8pp) Konrad Adenauer - 7. CDU-Bundesparteitag-kasf0031 (3x4 cropped).JPG Konrad Adenauer CDU/CSU 45.2%, 243 seats 270As well as 7 non-voting delegates for West Berlin. 27 15,008,399 50.2% 5.0 pp Adenauer en Ollenhauer, Bestanddeelnr (3x4 cropped).jpg Erich Ollenhauer Social Democratic Party of Germany 28.8%, 151 seats 169As well as 12 non-voting delegates for West Berlin. 18 9,495,571 31.8% 3.0 pp Freiburg Rathaus; Empfang der Stuttgarter Regierung in Freiburg; Presseempfang im Rathaus; Ministerpräsident Dr. R. Maier und Oberbürgermeister Dr. Ho - W134Nr.022203b - Willy Pragher 3x4.jpg 120 120 160 0 0 Reinhold Maier Free Democratic Party (Germany) 9.5%, 48 seats 41As well as 3 non-voting delegates for West Berlin. 7 2,307,135 7.7% 1.8 pp Heinrich Hellwege 1953 3x4.jpg 120 120 160 0 0 Heinrich Hellwege German Party (1947) 3.3%, 15 seats 17 2 1,007,282 3.4% 0.1 pp 1957 West German federal election.svg 325px 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 Second Adenauer cabinet CDU/CSU–FDP–DP Government after election Third Adenauer cabinet CDU/CSU–DP A federal election was held in West Germany on 15 September 1957 to elect the members of the third Bundestag. The Christian Democratic Union and its longtime ally, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, won a sweeping victory, taking 270 seats in the Bundestag to win the first–and, to date, only–absolute majority for a single German parliamentary group in a free election.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 This was the first West German federal election to take place in the Saarland, which–as Saar protectorate–had been a separate entity under French control between 1946 and 1956. Only four parties won seats in the 1957 election, which was a consolidation of the party system relative to the 1953 and 1949 elections where six and ten parties won seats respectively. As the CDU/CSU won a majority of seats, it formed a government without coalition partners. Campaign Economy Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had some solid advantages over his Social Democratic Party (SPD) opponent, Erich Ollenhauer; West Germany had become fully sovereign in 1955 and The Law on Pension Reform (backdated to 1 January 1957) was enormously popular when passed in the spring of 1957, while the economy had been growing on average 7% per year since 1953 in part due to young, skilled and highly educated workers immigrating from East Germany keeping productivity high and earnings growth low.Charles Williams (2000) Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany, pp442–445 West Germany had joined the European Economic Community in March 1957. Its economy was growing steadily with very low unemployment, and most West Germans felt more prosperous and more secure than in 1949 or 1953.Erling Bjöl, Grimberg's History of the Nations, volume 23: The Rich West, "A Giant Dwarf: West Germany," Helsinki: WSOY, 1985Dennis L. Bark and David R. Gress, A History of West Germany, volume 1: 1945–1963: From Shadow to Substance, London, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1989 Defence Although Adenauer had said that he would confine the Bundeswehr to conventional weapons, on 5 April he said "Tactical atomic weapons are nothing but the further development of artillery... it goes without saying that... we cannot dispense with having them for our troops... we must follow suit and have these new types – they are, after all, practically normal weapons." On 12 April eighteen physicists from the Max Planck Institute released the Göttingen Manifesto calling on West Germany to not produce, test or use nuclear weapons. Adenauer at first tried to brush the matter aside, but under heavy criticism from the press decided instead to meet with five of the physicists in Bonn. After a seven-hour meeting a joint communique was issued saying "The Federal Republic will not produce its own nuclear weapons, and consequently the Federal Government has no reason to approach German nuclear scientists about their participation in the development of nuclear weapons." The row continued, having been fuelled by an aggressive note from the Soviet Union in April and ended at the NATO Spring conference in May. Ultimately the row was too far away from the election itself to damage a surprisingly healthy looking Adenauer's prospects. Results The All-German Bloc lost all of their seats, but the ideologically similar German Party maintained theirs. The 1957 election was the last time that a right-wing populist party would return members to the Bundestag until Alternative for Germany's entrance in 2017. The election also marked the last time until 1990 that any party other than CDU/CSU or SPD won any constituency seats. File:Bundestag 1957.svg Party-list Constituency Elected West Berlin Total +/– Christian Democratic Union 11875339 68 11975400 147 215 7 222 +25 Social Democratic Party 9495571 123 9651669 46 169 12 181 +19 Christian Social Union 3133060 8 3186150 47 55 0 55 +2 Free Democratic Party 2307135 40 2276234 1 41 2 43 –10 All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights 1374066 0 1324636 0 0 0 0 –27 German Party 1007282 11 1062293 6 17 0 17 +2 Deutsche Reichspartei 308564 0 290622 0 0 0 0 0 Federalist Union 254322 0 295533 0 0 0 0 New Bund der Deutschen 58725 0 37329 0 0 0 0 New German Middle Class 36592 0 3024 0 0 0 0 New South Schleswig Voters' Association 32262 0 33463 0 0 0 0 0 German Community 17490 0 16410 0 0 0 0 New Patriotic Union 5020 0 2250 0 0 0 0 0 Party of the Good Germans 356 0 0 0 0 0 Free German People's Party 0 1 1 New Independents and voter groups 845 0 0 0 0 0 1167466 916680 +10 35400923 35400923 Bundeswahlleiter Results by state Constituency seats StateTotalseatsSeats wonCDUCSUSPDDPFDPBaden-Württemberg33321Bavaria4747Bremen33Hamburg817Hesse2211101Lower Saxony342185North Rhine-Westphalia665313Rhineland-Palatinate15123Saarland5311Schleswig-Holstein1414Total247147474661 List seats StateTotalseatsSeats wonSPDCDUFDPDPCSUBaden-Württemberg34175111Bavaria352546Bremen321Hamburg112621Hesse249942Lower Saxony2714643North Rhine-Westphalia884134112Rhineland-Palatinate16763Saarland312Schleswig-Holstein9711Total2501236840118 Aftermath Konrad Adenauer led the CDU-CSU coalition to a landslide victory. The CDU-CSU won an outright majority— the only to date. Since the CDU and the CSU form a single bloc in the Bundestag, this is the only time that a political party in Germany has been elected to a majority government in a free election. Notes References Category:Federal elections in Germany Federal Category:Konrad Adenauer Federal West Germany