Christian Democratic Union (Germany) - History

History

Immediately following the collapse of the Nazi dictatorship at the end of World War II, the need for a new political order in Germany was imminent. Simultaneous yet unrelated meetings began occurring throughout Germany, each with the intention of planning a “Christian-democratic party.” The “Christlich-Demokratische Union” was established in Berlin on 26 June 1945, and in Rheinland and Westfalen in September of the same year.

The founding members of the CDU consisted primarily of former members of the Centre Party, German Democratic Party, German National People’s Party, and German People’s Party. Many of these individuals, including CDU-Berlin founder Andreas Hermes and future chancellor of Germany Konrad Adenauer, were imprisoned for the involvement in the German Resistance during the Nazi dictatorship. Tough, in the Cold War years after World War II up to the 1960s, the CDU also attracted many conservative, anti-Communist former Nazis and Nazi collaborators into its higher ranks (like Hans Globke and Theodor Oberländer).

One of the lessons learned from the failure of the Weimar Republic was that disunity among the democratic parties ultimately allowed for the rise of the Nazi Party. It was therefore crucial to create a unified party of Christian Democrats – a Christian Democratic ‘’Union’’. The result of these meetings was the establishment of an interconfessional (Catholic and Protestant alike) party influenced heavily by the political tradition of liberal conservatism. The CDU experienced considerable success gaining support from the time of its creation in Berlin on 26 June 1945 until its first convention on 21 October 1950, at which Chancellor Adenauer was named the first Chairman of the party.

In the beginning, it was not clear which party would be favored by the victors of the Second World War, but by the end of the 1940s, the left-wing governments of USA and Britain began to lean toward the CDU and away from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The latter was more nationalist and sought German reunification, even at the expense of concessions to Soviet, depicting Adenauer as an instrument of both the Americans and the Vatican. The Western powers appreciated CDU's moderation, its economic flexibility and its value as an oppositional force to the Communists, which appealed to European voters at the time. Also, Adenauer had early received trust from the British.

The party was split over issues as rearmament within the Western alliance and German unification as a neutral state. Adenauer staunchly defended his pro-Western position and outmanoeuvred some of his opponents. He also refused to consider SPD as a party of the coalition until he felt sure that they shared his anti-Communist position. The principled rejection of a reunification that would alienate Germany from the Western alliance made it harder to anchor the party among Protestant voters.

The CDU was the dominant party for the first two decades following the establishment of West Germany in 1949. Konrad Adenauer remained the party’s leader until 1963, at which point former minister of economics Ludwig Erhard replaced him. As the Free Democratic Party (FDP) withdrew from the governing coalition in 1966 due to disagreements over fiscal and economic policy, Erhard was forced to resign. Consequently, a grand coalition with the SPD took over government under CDU Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger.

The SPD quickly gained popularity and succeeded in forming a social-liberal coalition with the FDP following the 1969 federal election, forcing the CDU out of power for the first time in their history. The CDU continued its role as opposition until 1982, when the FDP’s withdrawal from the coalition with the SPD allowed the CDU to regain power. CDU Chairman Helmut Kohl became the new Chancellor of West Germany and his CDU-FDP coalition was confirmed in the 1983 federal election. Public support for the coalition’s work in the process of German reunification was reiterated in the 1990 federal election, in which the CDU-FDP governing coalition experienced a clear victory.

After the collapse of the East German government in 1989, Kohl – supported by the governments of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States – called for German reunification. On 3 October 1990, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was abolished and its territory re-annexed by West Germany. The East German CDU merged with its West German counterpart, and elections were held for the reunified country. Although Kohl was re-elected, the party began losing much of its popularity because of an economic recession in the former GDR and increased taxes in the west. The CDU was, however, able to win the 1994 federal election by a narrow margin due to an economic recovery.

Helmut Kohl served as chairman until the party's electoral defeat in 1998, when he was succeeded by Wolfgang Schäuble; Schäuble resigned in early 2000 as a result of a party financing scandal and was replaced by Angela Merkel, who remains the leader of the CDU to this day. In the 1998 federal election, the CDU polled 28.4% and the CSU 6.7% of the national vote, which was the lowest result for CDU/CSU since 1949. Thus, a Red-Green coalition under the leadership of Gerhard Schröder took power until 2005. In 2002, the CDU and CSU polled slightly higher – 29.5% and 9.0%, respectively – but still lacked the majority needed for a CDU-FDP coalition government.

In 2005 early elections were called after the CDU dealt the governing SPD a major blow, winning more than ten state elections, most of which were landslide victories. The resulting grand coalition between the CDU/CSU and the SPD faced a serious challenge stemming from both parties’ demand for the chancellorship. After three weeks of negotiations, however, the two parties reached a deal whereby CDU received the chancellorship while the SPD retained 8 of the 16 seats in the cabinet and a majority of the most prestigious cabinet posts. The coalition deal was approved by both parties at party conferences on November 14. Merkel was confirmed as the first female Chancellor of Germany by the majority of delegates (397 to 217) in the newly assembled Bundestag on 22 November.

Although the CDU/CSU lost support in the 2009 federal elections, the FDP experienced the best election cycle in their history, thereby enabling a CDU/CSU-FDP coalition. This marked the first change of coalition partner by a Chancellor in German history.

The loss of anti-Communism as a political theme, secularization, and the cultural revolutions occurring since the 1960s have challenged the viability of the CDU. In her 2005 campaign, Angela Merkel was unwilling to express explicitly Christian views, while maintaining that her party had never lost its "concept of values". Merkel and Bundestag President Norbert Lammert have been keen to clarify that CDU references to the "dominant culture" imply "tolerance and living together". According to party analyst Stefan Eisel, however, her avoiding the values-issue may have had the opposite effect as she failed to mobilize the party's core constituency.

While Adenauer and Erhard co-operated with non-Nazi parties to their right, since the 1990s CDU has worked to marginalize its right-wing opposition through the courts. A broadened definition of right-wing perils has allowed them to ban other than genuine Nazis as "threats to the democratic-liberal order".