West German federal election, 1953

Election for the 2nd German Federal Diet^[1]

6 September 1953 (1953-09-06)[1]
All 509 seats in the Bundestag 255 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	86.0% (voting eligible)[2]
First party Second party Third party   Leader Konrad Adenauer Erich Ollenhauer Franz Blücher Party CDU/CSU SPD FDP Seats before 144 140 57 Seats won 249 162 53 Seat change 105 22 4 Popular vote 12,443,981 7,944,943 2,629,163 Percentage 45.2% 28.8% 9.5% Swing 14.2% 0.4% 2.4%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Party GB/BHE DP Centre Seats before 0 17 10 Seats won 27 15 3 Seat change 27 2 7 Popular vote 1,616,953 896,128 217,078 Percentage 5.9% 3.3% 0.8% Swing 5.9% 0.7% 2.3%
Election results (party list) by state: the lighter blue denotes states where CDU/CSU had the plurality of votes; darker blue denotes states where CDU had the absolute majority of the votes; and pink denotes states where the SPD had the plurality of votes
Chancellor before election Konrad Adenauer CDU/CSU Resulting Chancellor Konrad Adenauer CDU/CSU

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Federal elections were held in West Germany on 6 September 1953. The Christian Democratic Union emerged as the largest party.

Campaign

Federal Chancellor Adenauer (who was also the Christian Democratic leader) campaigned on his policies of economic reconstruction and growth, moderate conservatism or Christian democracy, and close relations with the United States. The new Social Democratic leader – Kurt Schumacher had died in 1952 – was Erich Ollenhauer, who was more moderate in his policies than Schumacher had been. He did not oppose, in principle, the United States' military presence in Western Europe. In fact, he later – in 1957 – supported a military alliance of most European countries, including Germany.^[3][4] Adenauer managed to convince clearly more West German voters of his leadership abilities and economic and political success to easily win a second term, although he had to form a coalition government with the Free Democrats and the conservative German Party to gain a majority in the Bundestag.

Results

^† — includes the non-voting delegates for West Berlin (11 SPD, 6 CDU, 5 FDP).

^‡ — previously the German Right Party.

Aftermath

Konrad Adenauer remained Chancellor, governing in a broad coalition (two-thirds majority) with most of the minor parties except for the SPD.

References