1961 West German federal election

1961 West German federal election

17 September 1961 (1961-09-17)
All 521 seats in the Bundestag 261 seats needed for a majority
Registered	37,440,715 5.8%
Turnout	32,849,624 (87.7%) 0.1%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Konrad Adenauer Willy Brandt Erich Mende Party CDU/CSU SPD FDP Leader since 21 October 1950 29 January 1960 Leader's seat Bonn Berlin North Rhine-Westphalia Last election 277 seats, 50.2% 181 seats, 31.8% 43 seats, 7.7% Seats won 251 203 67 Seat change 26 22 24 Popular vote 14,298,372 11,427,355 4,028,766 Percentage 45.3% 36.2% 12.8% Swing 4.9% 4.4% 5.1%
Results by constituency for the first votes. Grey denotes seats won by the CDU/CSU; red denotes seats won by the SPD.
Chancellor before election Konrad Adenauer CDU/CSU Elected Chancellor Konrad Adenauer CDU/CSU

Federal elections were held in West Germany on 17 September 1961 to elect the members of the fourth Bundestag. CDU/CSU remained the largest faction, while the Social Democratic Party narrowly became the largest individual party in the Bundestag, winning 203 of the 521 seats.

Campaign

Election posters

For the first time, the SPD announced a Chancellor candidate who was not chairman of the party: Willy Brandt, the Governing Mayor of West Berlin. After the building of the Berlin Wall, he gained more and more sympathy, while chancellor Konrad Adenauer was criticised for not showing enough support for the people of West Berlin. Adenauer had to save the absolute majority of CDU and CSU, but, considering his age and his long term as chancellor, there were big doubts if he should lead the country in a fourth term.

Results

↓

251	67	203
CDU/CSU	FDP	SPD

Popular Vote CDU/CSU   45.32% SPD   36.22% FDP   12.77% GDP   2.76% DFU   1.93% Other   1.00%

Bundestag seats CDU/CSU   48.50% SPD   38.08% FDP   13.43%

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

Aftermath

The absolute majority was lost by the conservative union due to the gains of the liberal FDP under Erich Mende. From 1961 on, the Union, SPD and FDP established an electoral "triopoly" in the Bundestag that would last until 1983.

Konrad Adenauer remained Chancellor, building a coalition between the CDU/CSU-FDP. In 1962 he had to announce a fifth cabinet: The FDP had temporarily left the coalition after the secretary of defense, Franz Josef Strauß (CSU), had ordered the arrest of five journalists for publishing a memo detailing alleged weaknesses in the German armed forces (known as the Spiegel scandal). In 1963 Adenauer finally resigned; Ludwig Erhard took over his position as head of the coalition and government.

Further reading

• Barnes, Samuel H.; Grace, Frank; Pollock, James K.; Sperlich, Peter W. (1962). "The German Party System and the 1961 Federal Election". American Political Science Review. 56 (4): 899–914. doi:10.2307/1952792.

External links

• The Federal Returning Officer
• Psephos