Federal elections were held in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

on 28 September 1969 to elect the members of the 6th

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Comm ...

. The CDU/CSU remained the largest faction and the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

remained the largest single party in the

, winning 237 of the 518 seats. After the election, the SPD formed a coalition with the Free Democratic Party and SPD leader Willy Brandt became Chancellor.

Campaign

Upon the resignation of Chancellor

Ludwig Erhard Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard (; 4 February 1897 – 5 May 1977) was a German politician affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. He is known for leading the West German postwar economic ...

on 1 December 1966, a

grand coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are ...

Christian Democrats __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social tea ...

and Social Democrats had governed

under Federal Chancellor

Kurt Georg Kiesinger Kurt Georg Kiesinger (; 6 April 1904 – 9 March 1988) was a German politician who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969. Before he became Chancellor he served as Minister President of Baden-Württemberg ...

(CDU) with SPD chairman

Willy Brandt Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ger ...

as vice-chancellor and foreign minister. Economics Minister

Karl Schiller Karl August Fritz Schiller (24 April 1911 – 26 December 1994) was a German economist and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). From 1966 to 1972, he was Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and from 1971 to 1972 Federal Minister o ...

(SPD) had proposed revaluing (increasing the external value of) the

Deutsche Mark The Deutsche Mark (; English: ''German mark''), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was ...

, West Germany's currency, to reduce the country's inflation rate and the rate of growth of the country's businesses' income. He also wanted to reduce West Germany's economic dependence on the exports. However, his counterpart Finance Minister Franz-Josef Strauss (

CSU CSU may refer to: * Channel service unit, a Wide area network equivalent of a network interface card * Chari Aviation Services, Chad, by ICAO airline code * Christian Social Union (UK), an Anglican social gospel organisation * Christian Social ...

) rejected the Deutsche Mark's revaluation, because his strong constituents, the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

n farmers, also opposed it. After all, the

European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...

's foodstuffs prices were paid in

US dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...

s, and the Deutsche Mark's revaluation would have made them less favourable for the West German farmers (i.e. more expensive for other Western Europeans to buy). The coalition effectively ended already before the regular 1969 Bundestag elections, because of this revaluation conflict. In addition, enough West German voters were at last willing to give the Social Democratic leader, Foreign Minister Willy Brandt, a chance to govern West Germany. Brandt, who ran for the third time after

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 (K ...

and

1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for a full term ...

, had shown sympathy towards those groups, like left-wing intellectuals and activists of the

German student movement The West German student movement or sometimes called the 1968 movement in West Germany was a social movement that consisted of mass student protests in West Germany in 1968; participants in the movement would later come to be known as 68ers. Th ...

, who had felt ignored by the Christian Democrat-led coalition governments. In addition, his clear intellect, remarkable self-control and honest manner appealed to ordinary West Germans.

Results

Results by state

Constituency seats

List seats

Aftermath

Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F030053-0030, Bonn, Bundestagswahl, Presseerklärung Brandt

Willy Brandt, against the will of several party fellows like Herbert Wehner or

Helmut Schmidt Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (; 23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Before becoming Ch ...

, chose to leave the grand coalition with the CDU/CSU, forming a

social-liberal coalition Social–liberal coalition (german: Sozialliberale Koalition) in the politics of Germany refers to a governmental coalition formed by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). The term stems from social ...

with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) instead. On 21 October 1969 he was elected

Chancellor of Germany The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...

, the first SPD chancellor in the postwar period, after the last Social Democrat holding this position had been Hermann Müller from 1928 to 1930. FDP chairman Walter Scheel succeeded Brandt as vice-chancellor and foreign minister. Brandt's government proceeded with the revaluation Schiller had proposed, raising the value of the mark by 9.3% in late October. Disappointed Kiesinger bitterly complained about the faithless liberals. Though he had again achieved the plurality of votes for the CDU, he had to lead his party into opposition. He was succeeded as chairman by Rainer Barzel in 1971. However the

Cabinet Brandt I The First Brandt cabinet was the government of Germany between 22 October 1969 and 15 December 1972, during the 6th legislature of the Bundestag. Led by the Social Democrat Willy Brandt, the cabinet was a coalition between the Social Democrats (S ...

could only rely on an

absolute majority A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority r ...

(''Kanzlermehrheit'') of twelve votes in the Bundestag. Several party switches in protest against Brandt's '' Ostpolitik'' of FDP and SPD members resulted in the snap election of 1972.

Notes

References

{{German federal elections Federal elections in Germany 1969 elections in Germany 1969 in West Germany September 1969 events in Europe Kurt Georg Kiesinger