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Political Developments in Germany Since Unification
of 1990
The political institutions of unified Germany are remarkably similar
to those of the former West Germany, reflecting minor adjustments to accommodate
the larger population rather than making fundamental changes. The unfolding
drama of unification is much more evident when one takes into consideration
Germany's political landscape, including elections, political climate
in the unified country, and issues that have dominated that landscape.
The Bundestag election of December 2, 1990, was the first all-Germany
election since 1932. The election returned to power the governing coalition
of the CDU/CSU and the FDP. The central issue of the campaign was unification.
Parties that strongly supported unification scored well; those that were
ambivalent or opposed to unification, such as the SPD and the Greens,
fared poorly.
Helmut Kohl's political fortunes soon declined, however, in the wake
of problems with the unification process. Increasing unemployment in the
east, and anger in the west about a tax increase that Kohl had pledged
to avoid before the 1990 election, caused the CDU to lose a series of
Land elections after unification. As a result, in 1991 the ruling
coalition lost its majority in the Bundesrat when the CDU lost power in
the Laender of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate (Kohl's homeland).
This development made it more difficult for the Kohl government to gain
approval for key legislative initiatives.
The year 1994 was nicknamed the "super election year" because Germany
conducted approximately twenty elections at the local, Land,
federal, and European levels, culminating in the national election in
October. In eight Land elections throughout 1994, the SPD fared
better than did the CDU. The SPD thus increased its majority in the Bundesrat.
The FDP performed miserably at the Land level, failing to gain
the required 5 percent for representation in all eight elections. Given
this poor showing, many observers question the staying power of the FDP
as a political force in Germany. Observers were surprised by the strength
of the former Communists (PDS) in the eastern Laender; all five
new Laender held elections in 1994, with the PDS garnering from
16 to 23 percent of the vote in each. The PDS increased its share of the
vote over the results in 1990 and solidified the party's position as the
third strongest political force in eastern Germany. On November 9, 1994,
Germans celebrated the fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
However, much still divides eastern and western Germans, not least economic
success, and the PDS was able to capitalize on eastern resentments.
Germans voted in national elections on October 16, 1994. Chancellor Kohl
was challenged by Rudolf Scharping, the minister president of the western
Land of Rhineland-Palatinate and the chairman of the SPD. Election
themes included unemployment and economic growth, particularly in light
of unification, as well as law and order. Except for the future of the
EU, foreign policy issues did not figure in the election campaign.
Scharping began 1994 with a strong lead in public opinion polls, but,
beginning in late April, the SPD's support began a sustained decline for
several reasons. First, the CDU benefited from an increasingly positive
economic outlook in Germany. Second, Scharping was seen by many to be
a lackluster candidate; further, he was not wholly successful in portraying
himself as the conciliator who had brought harmony to a traditionally
fractious SPD. Chancellor Kohl, however, was seen to embody stability,
continuity and predictability; one of his election slogans was "no experiments."
Third, the CDU/CSU launched a fierce campaign against the PDS, whose members
had belonged to the Communist SED, calling them "red-painted fascists,"
and Kohl succeeded in incriminating the SPD, at least marginally, in this
seeming Communist revival. The SPD provided Kohl with this opportunity
by forming a minority government with the Greens in the eastern Land
of Saxony-Anhalt that depended on the votes (or abstention) of the PDS
to remain in office. This CDU/CSU tactic was aimed, effectively it would
seem, at those western German voters who, despite Scharping, questioned
the SPD's commitment to centrist policies.
Kohl's governing coalition claimed a narrow victory; its majority in
the Bundestag was reduced from 134 to ten seats. The Greens and the former
Communists also won representation in the Bundestag. The far-right Republikaner,
seen as a spent political force, failed to clear the 5 percent hurdle
necessary to enter the Bundestag. Voter turnout, up slightly from the
1990 election, was 79.1 percent. Following the election, Scharping became
the leader of the SPD's parliamentary group in the Bundestag, which will
allow him to keep a high national profile in preparation for the next
national election. The coalition government of Kohl's CDU, the CSU, and
the FDP will focus on creating jobs, trimming bureaucracy, fighting crime,
and expanding the EU eastward.
The FDP's seemingly chronic inability to win representation in Land
parliaments means that it is increasingly losing its regional bases and
its reservoirs of future political talent. If and how the FDP can regenerate
support remains to be seen. Recent CDU overtures to the Greens--until
recently an unthinkable development--also suggest a CDU awareness of the
possible need for an alternate coalition partner in the future. The 1994
election may thus mark the beginning of some profound changes in political
alignments in Germany.
Unified Germany's second national election suggests that the country's
east-west divide has not narrowed. The strongest evidence is the success
of the PDS in winning parliamentary representation. In eastern Germany,
the PDS received 19.2 percent of the vote, compared with only 0.9 percent
in the west. The national tally of 4.4 percent was insufficient to clear
the 5 percent hurdle for parliamentary representation, but the PDS benefited
from an oft-forgotten electoral law that automatically qualifies a party
for representation according to its overall share of the national vote
when the party wins three electoral districts outright (first votes).
The PDS surprised seemingly everyone in winning four districts outright
(all in eastern Berlin), entitling it to thirty seats in the Bundestag.
The future of the PDS is unclear and may well depend on whether the CDU
and the SPD develop programs that attract current PDS constituents. Kohl's
coalition lost twice as many votes in the east as in the west, winning
49.9 percent of the vote in the west and 42.5 percent in the east. The
SPD faces the challenge in the east of competing against two other parties
of the left, the PDS and the Greens. When considering the success of the
PDS, however, one must recall that 80 percent of eastern Germans did not
vote for the former Communists. At present, PDS leaders are working to
rid the party of its Stalinist heritage; if successful, the PDS would
certainly have a broader appeal.
As of mid-1995, right-wing extremist parties held seats in three of sixteen
Land parliaments (Baden-Wuertemberg, Bremen, and Schleswig-Holstein)
and appeared to be fading from the German political landscape. The most
significant of these parties, the Republikaner, with about 23,000 members,
attracted support principally by criticizing a government policy that
allowed hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers into Germany. However,
the Kohl government engineered a revision of the German constitution in
1992 that severely restricts the right to asylum (which had been the most
liberal in Europe), thus largely calming public concerns. The far right
has thereby lost its major platform and has been tainted by violent attacks
against foreigners in Germany. In-fighting has also divided the party
and resulted in the ouster of leader Franz Schoenhuber, a former Waffen-SS
member and the party's one nationally known figure. In the October 1994
election, with close to 80 percent voter turnout, the Republikaner received
only 1.9 percent of the national vote, thus once again failing to win
representation in the Bundestag. This outcome cemented a downward trend,
which had been evinced in the European Parliament election and Land
elections throughout the year. That downward trend is particularly notable
in light of the fact that extreme right parties have met with considerable
electoral success in several West European countries, such as France,
Belgium, and Italy.
A plethora of controversial issues has marked political debate in united
Germany, for example, the right to political asylum, the upsurge in right-wing
violence, and the tensions surrounding the unification process itself.
The Basic Law originally contained a liberal regulation on the right to
asylum, and in 1992 a total of 438,191 asylum-seekers streamed into Germany--up
from 256,112 in 1991. Most asylum-seekers were from Romania, the former
Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. Many Germans complained that the German law
permitted many people who were not political refugees, but rather economic
migrants, to take advantage of the country's generous welfare system and
compete with Germans for scarce housing. Extreme right-wing parties capitalized
on this widespread resentment against asylum-seekers in April 1992 elections
in two western Laender.
On December 6, 1992, Kohl's governing coalition and the opposition Social
Democrats agreed on a constitutional amendment to limit the right to asylum.
The asylum compromise between the government and the opposition included
several important changes. First, asylum-seekers from European Community
states or states that accept the Geneva Convention on Refugees and the
European Human Rights Convention have no right to asylum in Germany. Second,
any refugee passing through "safe third countries," which include all
of Germany's neighbors, is ineligible for asylum. An individual may appeal
this decision but may not stay in Germany during the course of that appeal.
In exchange for these concessions, the Social Democrats won agreements
to place an annual limit of 200,000 on the immigration of ethnic Germans
eligible for automatic German citizenship and to ease the terms of citizenship
for longtime foreign residents of Germany. Parliament approved the new
asylum law in late May 1993, and it took effect on July 1. About 10,000
protesters surrounded the Bundestag on the day of the vote, but apparently
about 70 percent of Germans approved the more restrictive asylum law.
The number of foreigners seeking asylum in Germany has fallen substantially
since the new law went into effect.
Another pressing issue has been the escalation of right-wing violence.
In 1992 right-wing extremists committed 2,584 acts of violence in Germany,
an increase of 74 percent from 1991. Seventeen people were killed in the
1992 attacks, six in 1991. About 60 percent of the attacks occurred in
western Germany and 40 percent in eastern Germany--home to only 20 percent
of the population. About 90 percent of the right-wing attacks in 1992
were directed against foreigners--above all, at asylum-seekers and their
lodgings. People under the age of twenty-one committed 70 percent of these
attacks.
In November 1992, three Turkish residents were killed in a firebombing
in Moelln in western Germany. Of the 80 million people living in Germany
in 1993, about 1.8 million were Turks, making that ethnic group the country's
largest minority. Two-thirds of those Turks had lived in Germany at least
a decade. The overwhelming majority of Germans condemn xenophobia and
neo-Nazism, and after the Moelln attack, over 3 million Germans demonstrated
across the country against right-wing violence. Following the violence
in Moelln, the government began a crackdown on far-right violence. The
federal prosecutor took over for the first time the investigation of an
antiforeigner attack. The decision was made to charge the perpetrators
with murder, rather than manslaughter, as had been done following previous
arson attacks leading to fatalities. In December 1993, a judge imposed
maximum sentences on the two men convicted in the Mölln killings.
Other measures taken by the government included banning four small neo-Nazi
organizations and outlawing the sale, manufacture, and distribution of
the music of several neo-Nazi rock bands.
Despite the government's actions, the number of right-wing attacks increased
in the first six months of 1993. The most serious incident occurred on
May 29, 1993, when right-wing youths firebombed a house in Solingen in
western Germany, killing five Turks. In late December 1993, four right-wing
youths were charged with murder in the Solingen attack. In late October
1993, United States citizens for the first time became the target of right-wing
violence. Two skinheads harassed African-American members of the United
States Olympic luge team, which was practicing at an eastern German training
center. When a white luger intervened on his teammates' behalf, he was
severely beaten by the skinheads.
By the end of 1993, the surge in right-wing violence appeared to be abating.
The federal police reported that, in the first eleven months of 1993,
rightist crime dropped by 28 percent compared with the same period in
1992. As of December 2, 1993, eight people had died in rightist violence
compared with seventeen in 1992. A police spokesman stated that the decline
reflected decisive executive action, including faster police responses,
tougher sentences, and bans on neo-Nazi groups.
Much of the public debate on how to address the causes of right-wing
violence has focused on how better to integrate foreigners into German
society. Chancellor Kohl announced some steps to make it easier for foreigners
to become German citizens. He stopped short, however, of advocating dual
citizenship. Concern exists in law enforcement circles that neo-Nazis
are building an underground network of small, organized cells patterned
in part on those of the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion--RAF), the
far-left organization that carried out bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings
in the 1970s and 1980s. The establishment of such a network would make
it much more difficult for the authorities to monitor neo-Nazi activities.
A final issue dominating Germany's political scene has been the ongoing
challenge of implementing unification. Among other things, the two Germanys
have had to enact uniform legislation, decide on what city should serve
as their capital, and bring the former leaders of East Germany to justice.
Unification left Germany with a population possessing widely different
views on matters such as the family, religion, and the work ethic. A particularly
sensitive issue has been abortion. East Germany, which permitted free
abortion on demand up to the twelfth week of pregnancy, had a markedly
more liberal policy on abortion than did West Germany. In June 1992, the
Bundestag, in an attempt to unify abortion policy, approved an abortion
law--opposed by Chancellor Kohl--that granted a woman the right to an
abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy, provided she accepted counseling
first. Thirty-two of the 268 CDU legislators, primarily from eastern Germany,
broke ranks with the party leadership and approved the bill.
On August 4, 1992, the Federal Constitutional Court issued an injunction
against the parliament's decision, and abortion continued to be available
on demand in the east and largely prohibited in the west, pending a final
court judgment. On May 28, 1993, the Federal Constitutional Court struck
down the compromise law on the basis of the Basic Law's explicit protection
of the rights of the unborn child. The ruling held that abortion was no
longer a criminal offense but that abortions would only be allowed in
the first three months of pregnancy for women who first participated in
a formal consultation process. Further, the ruling barred insurance funds
from paying for abortions and Land hospitals from performing
them. The ruling went into effect on June 16, 1993. Women's groups, opposition
politicians from the west, and easterners from across the political spectrum
expressed outrage at the court's decision. At some point in the future,
the Bundestag is still expected to pass a uniform abortion law for the
entire country.
Another question that arose with unification was where to locate the
new German capital. The Bundestag voted in June 1991 to move the capital
from Bonn to Berlin, fulfilling a long-standing promise of West German
politicians across the board. The vote in favor of Berlin was surprisingly
narrow, with 338 legislators supporting Berlin and 320 supporting Bonn.
Many of the parliamentarians who voted for Bonn spoke of the symbolic
importance of the capital's geographical location, with Bonn bearing witness
to the critical importance of the Atlantic Alliance and Germany's commitment
to Western democracy. Many who supported Berlin saw their choice as a
necessary act of conciliation toward eastern Germans and a necessary step
toward Germany's return to the world stage as a "normal" nation.
The quick move to Berlin that many eastern Germans had hoped for was
thwarted by a quiet, yet effective, campaign led by Bonn bureaucrats and
certain key politicians who opposed the Bundestag decision on several
grounds. First, members of this group cited the huge expense of moving
the government, estimated at just under US$19 billion by the Ministry
of Finance. Second, they argued that Berlin's historical associations
as the capital of a united Germany were negative and that Germany should
avoid doing something to suggest to its neighbors a return to expansionist
or aggressive tendencies. Third, many officials balked at the personal
inconvenience of moving to Berlin if they owned homes in the Bonn area
or otherwise faced having to uproot their families from the rather provincial
Rhineland and relocate in a booming metropolis.
After two years of indecision, the Kohl cabinet announced in October
1993 that the government would complete the move to Berlin by December
31, 2000; the move will begin in 1998. The opposition Social Democrats
had threatened to make the government's reluctance to move an issue in
the 1994 national election campaign. Foreign embassies and private companies
had delayed their moves to Berlin while waiting for an official announcement
of a timetable. The cabinet decision sent a decisive message to investors
and property developers who believed the move would attract greater investment
in the five eastern Laender. The Bonn lobby won certain important
concessions as well: eight government ministries will keep their headquarters
in Bonn, and the remainder will retain offices there. Kohl received sharp
criticism about the distant deadline from some commentators, who argued
that the government's hesitation to complete the move was impeding the
social and psychological unification of east and west.
Many Germans see the prosecution of former East German officials as a
necessary part of coming to terms with divided Germany's past. On November
12, 1992, a trial opened in Berlin involving six defendants, including
former East German leader Erich Honecker, former minister of state security
Erich Mielke, and former prime minister Willi Stoph. These men were put
on trial for the killings of East Germans trying to cross the border to
the west. Two days later, however, Mielke and Stoph were declared unfit
to stand trial for health reasons. Charges were then dropped against Honecker
because of his advanced cancer, and he was allowed to join his family
in Chile in early 1993. The remaining three defendants--all former members
of East Germany's National Defense Council--were convicted in September
1993, receiving prison sentences ranging from four-and-one-half years
to seven-and-one-half years.
From the start, the legal basis for the trials was questionable. German
law does not apply to acts committed by East German citizens in a state
that no longer exists. Thus, the defendants had to be prosecuted for transgressions
of East German law, and East Germany's border law allowed guards to shoot
anyone trying to flee. The Berlin prosecutors argued that the law was
evil and ought not to have been obeyed, a form of reasoning with which
the judges agreed. Many legal scholars believe that the convictions could
be reversed on appeal, however. In part, the prosecution of these former
East German leaders grew out of public indignation over the trials of
border guards while senior policy makers were going free. By late 1993,
ten border guards had stood trial. Nine received short, suspended sentences
or acquittals; one received a sentence of six years for having shot and
killed a fugitive who had already been caught and was under arrest. In
the fall of 1993, the Bundestag extended the statute of limitations by
three years for minor crimes by former East German officials and by five
years for more serious crimes.
Most observers of Germany believe the country will solve the economic
and political challenges associated with the unification process. However,
polls indicated that, as time passed, eastern and western Germans seemed
to see the gap between them widening rather than narrowing. In an April
1993 poll, when asked whether eastern and western Germans felt solidarity
or antagonism toward one another, 71 percent in the west and 85 percent
in the east answered "antagonism." In the coming years, perhaps the greatest
challenge to Germans of the east and west will be to master the task of
achieving social harmony. Only then can they become one nation.
- 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)
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