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1949 German Federal Election
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 14 August 1949 to elect the members of the first Bundestag, 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. 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. The Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag was established by Title III of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany () in 1949 as one of the legislative bodies of Germany, the other being the German Bundesrat, Bundesrat. It is thus the historical successor to the earlier Reichstag (Weimar Republic), Reichstag. The members of the Bundestag are representatives of the German people as a whole, are not bound by any orders or instructions and are only accountable to their conscience. As of the current 21st Bundestag, 21st legislative period, the Bundestag has a fixed number of 630 members. The Bundestag is elected every four years by German citizens aged 18 and older. Elections use a mixed-member proportional representation system which combines First-past-the-post voting for co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Instrument Of Surrender
The German Instrument of Surrender was a legal document effecting the unconditional surrender of the remaining German armed forces to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe. It was signed at 22:43 CET on 8 May 1945 and took effect at 23:01 CET on the same day. The day before, Germany had signed another surrender document with the Allies in Reims in France, but it was not recognized by the Soviet Union, which demanded among other things that the act of surrender should take place at the seat of government of Nazi Germany from where German aggression had been initiated. Therefore, another document needed to be signed. In addition, immediately after signing the first document, the German forces were ordered to cease fire in the west and continue fighting in the east. Germany under the Flensburg Government led by the head of state, Grand-Admiral Karl Dönitz, also accepted the Allied suggestion to sign a new document. The document was signed at the seat of the Soviet Mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communist Party Of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party in Allied-occupied Germany and West Germany during History of Germany (1945–1990), the post-war period until it Merger of the KPD and SPD, merged with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD in the Soviet occupation zone in 1946 and was banned by the West German Federal Constitutional Court in 1956. The construction of the KPD began in the aftermath of the First World War by the Rosa Luxemburg, Rosa Luxembourg's and Karl Liebknecht's faction of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) who had opposed World War I, the war and Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD)'s Burgfriedenspolitik, support of it. The KPD joined the Spartacist uprising of January 1919, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merger Of The KPD And SPD Into The Socialist Unity Party Of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the east German branches of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) merged to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) on 21 April 1946. Although nominally a merger of equals, the merged party quickly fell under Communist domination and developed along lines similar to other Communist Parties in what became the Eastern Bloc. The SED would be the One-party system, ruling party of the German Democratic Republic until the end of the republic in Revolutions of 1989, December 1989. In the course of the merger, about 5,000 Social Democrats who opposed it were detained and sent to labour camps and jails. Background Among circles of the workers' parties Communist Party of Germany, KPD and SPD there were different interpretations of the reasons for the rise of the Nazis and their electoral success. A portion of the Social Democrats blamed the Communists for the devastation of the final phase of the Weimar Republic. The Communist Party, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Democratic Party Of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together with Lars Klingbeil, who joined her in December 2021. After losing the 2025 federal election, the party is part of the Merz government as the junior coalition partner. The SPD is a member of 12 of the 16 German state governments and is a leading partner in seven of them. The SPD was founded in 1875 from a merger of smaller socialist parties, and grew rapidly after the lifting of Germany's repressive Anti-Socialist Laws in 1890 to become the largest socialist party in Western Europe until 1933. In 1891, it adopted its Marxist-influenced Erfurt Program, though in practice it was moderate and focused on building working-class organizations. In the 1912 federal election, the SPD won 34.8 percent of votes and became the largest party in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Market Economy
The social market economy (SOME; ), also called Rhine capitalism, Rhine-Alpine capitalism, the Rhenish model, and social capitalism, is a socioeconomic model combining a free-market capitalist economic system with social policies and enough regulation to establish both fair competition within the market and generally a welfare state. It is sometimes classified as a regulated market economy. The social market economy was originally promoted and implemented in West Germany by the Christian Democratic Union under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1949 and today it is used by ordoliberals, social liberals and social democrats alike. Its origins can be traced to the interwar Freiburg school of economic thought. The social market economy was designed to be a middle way between ''laissez-faire'' forms of capitalism and socialist economics. It was strongly inspired by ordoliberalism, which was influenced by the political ideology of Christian democracy. Social market refrains from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cologne
Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and over 3.1 million people in the Cologne Bonn Region, Cologne Bonn urban region. Cologne is also part of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, the List of EU metropolitan regions by GDP#2021 ranking of top four German metropolitan regions, second biggest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union. Centered on the left bank of the Rhine, left (west) bank of the Rhine, Cologne is located on the River Rhine (Lower Rhine), about southeast of the North Rhine-Westphalia state capital Düsseldorf and northwest of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. The city's medieval Cologne Cathedral () was the History of the world's tallest buildings#Churches and cathedrals: Tallest buildings between the 13th and 20th century, world's talles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany ( , CDU ) is a Christian democracy, Christian democratic and Conservatism in Germany, conservative List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. It is the major party of the Centre-right politics, centre-right in Politics of Germany, German politics. Friedrich Merz has been federal chairman of the CDU since 31 January 2022, and has served as the Chancellor of Germany since 6 May 2025. The CDU is the largest party in the Bundestag, the German federal legislature, with 208 out of 630 seats, having won 28.5% of votes in the 2025 German federal election, 2025 federal election. It forms the CDU/CSU Bundestag faction, also known as the Union, with its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). The group's parliamentary leader is also Friedrich Merz. Founded in 1945 as an interdenominational Christian party, the CDU effectively succeeded the pre-war Catholic Centre Party (Germany), Centre Party, with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CDU Wahlkampfplakat - Kaspl001
CDU may refer to: Education * Catholic Distance University, a private online Roman Catholic university in Charles Town, West Virginia. * Cebu Doctors' University, a medical university in the Philippines * Charles Darwin University, a university in Darwin, Australia * Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, a university in Willowbrook, California, USA * Chengdu University, a university in Chengdu, Sichuan, China Organizations * CentrumDemokraternes Ungdom, a youth organization in Denmark * Country Development Unit, a non-governmental organization in Afghanistan Political parties * Cameroon Democratic Union, a political party in Cameroon * Caribbean Democrat Union, an alliance of centre-right political parties in the Caribbean * Christian Democratic Union of Germany, ''Christlich Demokratische Union'', a German political party ** CDU/CSU, political alliance of the CDU and Christian Social Union parties in Germany ** Christian Democratic Union (East Germany), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
States Of Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany is a federation and consists of sixteen partly sovereign ''states''. Of the sixteen states, thirteen are so-called area-states ('Flächenländer'); in these, below the level of the state government, there is a division into local authorities (counties and county-level cities) that have their own administration. Two states, Berlin and Hamburg, are city-states, in which there is no separation between state government and local administration. The state of Bremen (state), Bremen is a special case: the state consists of the cities of Bremen (city), Bremen, for which the state government also serves as the municipal administration, and Bremerhaven, which has its own local administration separate from the state government. It is therefore a mixture of a city-state and an area-state. Three states, Bavaria, Saxony, and Thuringia, use the appellation ("free state"); this title is merely stylistic and carries no legal or political significance (similar t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parlamentarischer Rat
The ''Parlamentarischer Rat'' ( German for "Parliamentary Council") was the West German constituent assembly in Bonn that drafted and adopted the constitution of West Germany, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, promulgated on 23 May 1949. Convening The Council was implemented by the minister-presidents of the eleven states of Germany within the three Western Allied occupation zones and inaugurated on 1 September 1948. It included 70 state delegates selected by the ''Landtag'' parliaments specifically for this purpose (including five non-voting representatives of West Berlin), many of them state ministers, government officials or legal academics. The deputies could rely on a draft document prepared by the constitutional Herrenchiemsee convention held in August. The Council was officially opened by North Rhine-Westphalia minister-president Karl Arnold as host. The second speaker was Hessian minister-president Christian Stock as current head of the Ministerial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
