1972 West German Federal Election
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 19 November 1972 to elect the members of the 7th Bundestag. In the first snap elections since the resumption of democratic elections in 1949, the Social Democratic Party became the largest party in parliament for the first time since 1930, winning 230 of the 496 seats. The coalition with the Free Democratic Party was resumed. Campaign The Social-liberal coalition of SPD and FDP had lost its majority after several Bundestag MPs (like former FDP ministers Erich Mende and Heinz Starke or SPD partisan Herbert Hupka) had left their party and become members of the CDU/ CSU opposition to protest against Chancellor Willy Brandt's ''Neue Ostpolitik'', especially against the ''de facto'' recognition of the Oder-Neisse line by the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw. On 27 April 1972 the opposition had tried to have CDU leader Rainer Barzel elected new chancellor in a constructive vote of no confidence, but Barzel surprisingly missed the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Erich Mende
Erich Mende (28 October 1916 – 6 May 1998) was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was the leader of FDP from 1960 to 1968 and the vice chancellor of Germany from 1963 to 1966. Early life Mende was born on 28 October 1916 in Groß Strehlitz, in the Province of Silesia, a province in the Kingdom of Prussia. Today it is Strzelce Opolskie, part of Opole Voivodeship in Poland. He was the third of four children of Max Mende (1885–1943) and his wife Anna (1889–1968), née Krawietz, of Polish descent. He had a seven-year-older brother Walter and a five-year-older sister Amalie. His father was the director of a secondary school (''Volksschule'') and, as was usual among Catholics, a supporter of the Centre Party. He grew up in region of Silesia heavily fought over during the Silesian Uprisings of 1919 to 1921 that culminated in the Battle of Annaberg (21–26 May 1921). He also experienced the Upper Silesia occupati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1972 Summer Olympics
The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and officially branded as Munich 1972 (; ), were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. It was the second Summer Olympics to be held in Germany, after the 1936 Summer Olympics, 1936 Games in Berlin, which had taken place under the Nazi Germany, Nazi rule. Germany became only the second country at that point after the United States to have two different cities host the Summer Olympics. The West German government had been eager to have the Munich Olympics present a Democracy, democratic and optimistic Germany to the world, as shown by the Games' official motto, ''"Die Heiteren Spiele"'', or "the cheerful Games". The logo of the Games was a blue solar logo (the "Bright Sun") by Otl Aicher, the designer and director of the visual conception commission. The hostesses wore sky-blue dirndls as a promotion of Bavarian cultural heritage. The Oly ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung
The Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (; , ) was the foreign intelligence service of the Ministry of State Security (''Stasi''), the main security agency of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), from 1955 to 1990. The HVA was an integral part of the Stasi, responsible for operations outside of East Germany such as espionage, active measures, foreign intelligence gathering, and counterintelligence against NATO-aligned countries and their intelligence agencies. The Stasi was disbanded in January 1990 and the HVA's mode of operation was revealed to the public, including its internal structure, methods, and employees. The HVA became the subject of broad interest and intensive research under the responsibilities of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records. The HVA is regarded by some as the most effective foreign intelligence service during the Cold War and the second largest after Soviet Union's intelligence forces. It provided up to 80 percent of all informatio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Markus Wolf
Markus Johannes Wolf (19 January 1923 – 9 November 2006), also known as Mischa, was a German spymaster who served as the head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (), the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Ministry for State Security (, , commonly known as the ). He was the Stasi's number two for 34 years, which spanned most of the Cold War. He is often regarded as one of the best-known spymasters during the Cold War. In the West he was known as "the man without a face" due to his elusiveness. Early life and education Wolf was born 19 January 1923, in Hechingen, Province of Hohenzollern (now Baden-Württemberg), to a German-Jewish father and a non-Jewish German mother. His father was the writer, communist activist and physician Friedrich Wolf (1888–1953) and his mother was the nursery teacher Else Wolf ( Dreibholz; 1898–1973). He had one brother, the film director Konrad Wolf (1925–1982). His father was a member of the Communist Party of Germany, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stasi
The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive police organisations in the world, infiltrating almost every aspect of life in East Germany, using torture, intimidation and a vast network of informants to crush dissent. The function of the Stasi in East Germany (the GDR) resembled that of the KGB in the Soviet Union, in that it served to maintain state authority and the position of the ruling party, in this case the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). This was accomplished primarily through the use of a network of civilian informants (called Unofficial collaborator, unofficial collaborators) who contributed to the arrest of approximately 250,000 people in East Germany. It also had a large elite paramilitary force, the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, that served as its armed wing. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Constructive Vote Of No Confidence
The constructive vote of no confidence (, ) is a variation on the motion of no confidence that allows a parliament to withdraw confidence from a head of government only if there is a positive majority for a prospective successor. The principle is intended to ensure governments' stability by making sure that a replacement has enough parliamentary support to govern. The concept was introduced on a national scale in West Germany's 1949 constitution, which remains in force after the German reunification; it has been adopted since the 1970s in other nations like Spain, Hungary, Lesotho, Israel, Poland, Slovenia, Albania, and Belgium. Germany Governments in the post-WW1 Weimar Republic were very unstable. Since the only election threshold for the Reichstag (Weimar Republic), Reichstag was that a party had to have received at least 30,000 votes in a single district, it was possible to get a seat with as little as 0.1 percent of the vote (''e.g.,'' Reich Party for Civil Rights and Deflati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F038325-0027, Köln, CDU-Bundestagswahlkampf, Barzel
The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv (BArch) (, lit. "Federal Archive") are the national archives of Germany. They were established at the current location in Koblenz in 1952. They are subordinated to the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media ( Claudia Roth since 2021) under the German Chancellery, and before 1998, to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. On 6 December 2008, the Archives donated 100,000 photos to the public, by making them accessible via Wikimedia Commons. History The federal archive for institutions and authorities in Germany, the first precursor to the present-day Federal Archives, was established in Potsdam, Brandenburg in 1919, a later date than in other European countries. This national archive documented German government dating from the founding of the North German Confederation in 1867. It also included material from the older German Confederation and the Imperial Chamber Court. The oldest documents in this collection dated back to the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Treaty Of Warsaw (1970)
The Treaty of Warsaw (, ) was a treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the Polish People’s Republic. It was signed by Chancellor Willy Brandt and Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz at the Presidential Palace on 7 December 1970, and it was ratified by the West German Bundestag on 17 May 1972. In the treaty, both sides committed themselves to nonviolence and accepted the existing border—the Oder–Neisse line, imposed on Germany by the Soviet Union in 1945 following the end of World War II. This had been a quite sensitive topic since then, as Poland was concerned that a German government might seek to reclaim some of the former eastern territories. From the Polish perspective, the transfer of these regions was considered to be a compensation for the former Polish territory east of the Curzon Line (" Kresy"), which had been annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939. In West Germany, Brandt was heavily criticised by the conservative CDU/ CSU opposit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ostpolitik
''Neue Ostpolitik'' (German for "new eastern policy"), or ''Ostpolitik'' () for short, was the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) and Eastern Europe, particularly the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) beginning in 1969. Influenced by Egon Bahr, who proposed "change through rapprochement" in a 1963 speech at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, the policies were implemented beginning with Willy Brandt, fourth Chancellor of the FRG from 1969 to 1974, and winner of the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to place this policy at the acme of the FRG. ''Ostpolitik'' was an effort to break with the policies of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which was the elected government of West Germany from 1949 until 1969. The Christian Democrats under Konrad Adenauer and his successors tried to combat the Communist government of East Germany, while Brandt's Social Democrats tried to achieve a certain degree of co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christian Social Union Of Bavaria
The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (German language, German: , CSU) is a Christian democracy, Christian democratic and Conservatism in Germany, conservative List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. Having a regionalism (politics), regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, Christian Democratic Union (CDU), operates in the other fifteen states of Germany. It #Relationship with the CDU, differs from the CDU by being somewhat more conservative in social matters, following Catholic social teaching. The CSU is considered the ''de facto'' successor of the Weimar Republic, Weimar-era Catholic Bavarian People's Party. At the federal level, the CSU forms a common faction in the Bundestag with the CDU which is frequently referred to as the Union Faction (''die Unionsfraktion'') or simply CDU/CSU. The CSU has had 43 seats in the Bundestag since the 2021 German federal election, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |