West German federal election, 1957

Germany

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The 3rd German federal election, 1957, was conducted on September 15, 1957, to elect members to the Bundestag (lower house) of West Germany.

Issues and Campaign

Federal Chancellor Adenauer had some solid advantages over his Social Democratic opponent, Erich Ollenhauer: West Germany had become fully sovereign in 1955, it had joined the European Economic Community in March 1957, its economy grew steadily with a very low unemployment, and most West Germans felt clearly more prosperous and more secure than in 1949 or 1953. Although the West German economic growth was more directly enhanced by the social market economy policies of Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard, most non-socialistically inclined West German voters gave Adenauer the credit for it (see, for example, Erling Bjöl, Grimberg's History of the Nations, volume 23: The Rich West, "A Giant Dwarf: West Germany," Helsinki: WSOY, 1985; Dennis L. Bark and David R. Gress, A History of West Germany, volume 1: 1945-1963: From Shadow to Substance, London, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1989). The result was the first and so far only time in the history of German Federal Republic that a political party has won a majority of votes in a federal election.

Results

A number of non-voting members (7 CDU, 12 SPD, 2 FDP, 1 other) indirectly elected by the West Berlin legislature are not included in the totals below.

Party	Party List votes	Vote percentage (change)		Total Seats (change)		Seat percentage
Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	11,875,339	39.7%	+3.3%	215	+24	43.2%
Christian Social Union (CSU)	3,133,060	10.5%	+1.7%	55	+3	11.1%
German Party (DP)	1,062,293	3.4%	+0.1%	17	+2	3.4%
Free Democratic Party (FDP)	2,307,135	7.7%	-1.8%	41	-7	8.2%
Social Democratic Party	9,495,571	31.7%	+2.9%	169	+18	34.0%
All Others	2,032,030	7.0%		0	-30	0.0%
Totals	29,905,428	100.0%		497	+10	100.0%

Seat results -- SPD in red, FDP in yellow, CDU/CSU in black, others (moderate right) in gray

Post-election

Konrad Adenauer led the CDU-CSU coalition to a landslide victory. The CDU-CSU won an outright majority--to date, the only time a German party has been elected to a majority government in a free election (the CDU and CSU sit as a single bloc in the Bundestag).

Sources

• The Federal Returning Officer
• Psephos