Home
Architecture
Art
Beauty/Health
Beer
Business/Economy
Cars
Celebrities
Christmas
Dictionaries
Education
Fashion/Clothes
Food
Galleries
Gays/Lesbians
Genealogy
German Names
Germans Abroad
History
Holidays
Homework Help
Learn German
Law
Literature
Loveparade
Movies
Music
Nazi
News
Oktoberfest
Philosophy
Today in History
Traditions
Travel to Germany
Wines
More topics...
Facts About Germany
Armed Forces
Education
Economy
History
Geography
Mass Media
Politics
Society
German History
Early History
Medieval History
Thirty Years' War
Weimar Republic
Third Reich
Postwar
Honecker Era
Berlin Wall
Bismarck
German Recipes
Salads
Main Dishes
Desserts
Baking
German Chocolate Cake
Easter Dishes
Halloween Dishes
Christmas Dishes
How To in Germany
Articles
Quizzes
|
Christian Democratic Union/Christian
Social Union
Following World War II, the Christian Democratic Union (Christlich Demokratische
Union--CDU) was founded by a diverse group of Catholics and Protestants,
businesspeople and trade unionists, and conservatives and moderates. The
party espoused a Christian approach to politics and rejected both Nazism
and communism. CDU members advocated conservative values and the benefits
of a social market economy--that is, one combining capitalist practices
and an extensive welfare system. Konrad Adenauer, the CDU's first leader
and West Germany's first chancellor, envisioned the CDU as a conservative
catchall party (Volkspartei) that would attract a majority of
the electorate.
The CDU is a national party except in the Land of Bavaria, where
it is not active, in deference to its sister party, the Christian Social
Union (Christlich-Soziale Union--CSU). Bavaria has the largest concentration
of conservative, rural, Catholic voters, and the CSU has dominated politics
there since 1957. The CSU was personified by its leader, Franz-Josef Strauss,
until his death in 1988. By 1994 no clear heir to Strauss had emerged,
but the CSU nonetheless retained its absolute majority in the Land
election of September 1994. Germany's population increased through
unification, and thus it has become more difficult for the CSU to pass
the 5 percent electoral threshold at the national level. However, the
CSU performed strongly in the 1994 national election, garnering 7.3 percent
of the vote. The CDU and the CSU form a single Fraktion in parliament,
choose a common candidate for chancellor, and have always governed in
coalition. Below the federal level, the two party organizations are entirely
separate.
From 1949 until 1963, Adenauer and his CDU dominated German politics.
At the time of the 1961 election, Adenauer was eighty-five years old,
and the opposition SPD was gaining in popularity. Ludwig Erhard, a CDU
member credited with engineering Germany's postwar economic miracle, succeeded
Adenauer as chancellor in 1963 (see table 3, Appendix). An economic recession
then hastened the end of the CDU/CSU's hold on power. November 1966 brought
the creation of the Grand Coalition between the CDU/CSU and the SPD with
Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) as chancellor and Willy Brandt (SPD) as vice
chancellor. The FDP was relegated to the opposition benches. After the
1969 election, the SPD formed a coalition with the FDP, leaving the CDU/CSU
in opposition for the first time in West German history.
For thirteen years, the CDU/CSU waited to regain power. By the early
1980s, the CDU had adopted a new party program consisting of conservative
economic policies, resembling those of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan,
and moderate social and foreign policies. Helmut Kohl, as leader of the
CDU/CSU Fraktion in the Bundestag, was also rebuilding a political
bridge to the FDP. In 1982, as West Germany's economy weakened, the liberal
SPD and the economically conservative FDP could not settle on a package
of economic remedies. The FDP chose to leave the coalition and form a
new government with the CDU/CSU. The constructive vote of no-confidence
was used successfully for the first time to unseat Helmut Schmidt as chancellor;
Kohl replaced him. West Germans ratified this change through early elections
called for March 1983.
By the late 1980s, the CDU/CSU was growing increasingly unpopular. The
CDU/CSU was also facing a new challenge from the right in the form of
a new extreme right party, the Republikaner. In a series of Land
elections, the Republikaner successfully eroded some of the CDU/CSU's
support. The collapse of the German Democratic Republic, however, provided
Kohl with a historic opportunity to reverse the fortunes of his party.
While most Germans reacted to the change in the geopolitical landscape
with amazement, Kohl seized the moment and actively advocated early unification
(see Unification, ch. 8). The first, free, all-Germany election since
November 1932 took place in December 1990. In essence, this election became
a referendum on the process of unification; the CDU/CSU emerged victorious,
with Kohl promising greater prosperity for all Germans. As the costs of
unification, in economic, social, and psychological terms, became more
apparent to both western and eastern Germans, the CDU began suffering
setbacks in Land and local elections. Nonetheless, Chancellor
Kohl was able to claim a narrow victory in the national election of October
1994. Kohl's governing coalition benefited from an increasingly positive
economic outlook in Germany and from the fact that the opposition Social
Democratic candidate, Rudolf Scharping, was seen by many as lackluster.
The organizational structure of the CDU is a product of the party's evolution.
In its early years, the CDU was a loose collection of local groups. Over
time, a weak national party emerged to complement the strong Land
party organizations. In the early 1970s, the CDU built up its national
organization to compete with the more tightly structured SPD. Membership
and party income increased accordingly. The Federal Executive is the primary
executive organ of the CDU. It consists of about sixty individuals, including
the party chair (elected for two years), several deputy chairs, a general
secretary, a treasurer, the CDU's main legislative representatives, and
the leaders of the Land party organizations. Because the Federal
Executive is too large and does not meet frequently, a smaller subset
called the Presidium, composed of the highest ranking CDU officials, actually
sets party policy and makes administrative decisions. Each Land
except Bavaria, where the CSU is active, holds semiannual party congresses
and has an executive committee. These party structures are primarily responsible
for the selection of party candidates for Bundestag elections. Every two
years, the CDU holds a full party congress of several hundred party activists.
Kohl has served as national chairman of the CDU since 1973, headed the
parliamentary Fraktion from 1976 until 1982, and continues to
lead the party as chancellor. Kohl's single-handed management of the party
has given him a political dominance within the CDU that only Adenauer
surpassed.
The CDU maintains several auxiliary organizations designed to increase
the party's attractiveness to particular societal groups and to represent
their views within the party. CDU statutes list seven organizations representing
youth, women, workers, business and industry, the middle class, municipal
politics, and refugees. Other, unofficial groupings exist as well. The
most powerful of the auxiliary organizations has traditionally been the
one representing business and industry. Although these auxiliary organizations
are legally autonomous from the CDU, a high percentage of their members
are also members of the CDU.
* Christian Democratic Union/Christian
Social Union
* Social Democratic Party of Germany
* Free Democratic Party
* The Greens
* The Republikaner and the
German People's Union
* Party of Democratic Socialism
- The
Chancellor
- The President
- Legislature
- Bundestag
- Bundesrat
- Electoral System
- Political Parties
- Extraparty Political
Forces
- Geography (lands and
capitals, climate)
- Society (population,
religion, marriage, urbanization, social structure, immigration)
- Education (elementary,
junior, senior, vocational, higher)
- Economy (the Economic
Miracle, financial system, Bundesbank, business culture)
- Politics (government,
the Chancellor, the President, parties, Bundestag)
- Mass Media (newspapers,
radio and TV)
- Armed Forces (army,
navy, air forces, police)
|
|