15 September 1957 (1957-09-15) 1961 → 162 53 181 43 | 249 162 277 181 Start date September 15, 1957 | |
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Turnout 87.8% (voting eligible) Winner Konrad Adenauer | ||
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 15 September 1957. The Christian Democratic Union and its longtime ally, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, won a sweeping victory, taking 277 seats in the Bundestag to win the first--and to date, only--absolute majority for a single German parliamentary group in a free election.
Contents
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. The All-German Bloc lost all of their seats.
Results
^† — includes the non-voting delegates for West Berlin (12 SPD, 7 CDU, 3 FDP).Aftermath
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).