![Wiesbaden Hessische Landtag](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Wiesbaden_Hessische_Landtag.jpg)
The Landtag of Hesse (german: link=no, Hessischer Landtag) is the unicameral
parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
of the State of
Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...
in the
Federal Republic of Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between ...
. It convenes in the
Stadtschloss in
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...
. As a legislature it is responsible for passing laws at the state level and enacting the budget. Its most important function is to elect and control the state government. The constitution of the State of Hesse describes the role of the Landtag in sections 75 to 99.
The Landtag consists of 137 members of six parties. There is a coalition between the
Christian Democratic Union and the
Greens. The
President of the Landtag is
Astrid Wallmann
Astrid is a feminine given name of Scandinavian origin, a modern form of the name Ástríðr. Derived from the Old Norse Ássfriðr, a compound name composed of the elements (a god) and (beautiful, fair).
Variants
* Assan (diminutive) (Swed ...
and the
Minister-President
A minister-president or minister president is the head of government in a number of European countries or subnational governments with a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government where they preside over the council of ministers. It ...
of Hesse is
Boris Rhein.
The members are elected via a
mixed-member proportional representation
Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...
system, with a minimum of 5% vote share to receive any seats. The smallest allowed size of Landtag is 110 members (without overhang and levelling seats), of which 55 are elected first-past-the-post in single-member constituencies and others are elected by party list vote.
In Hesse, voting in Landtag elections is available for every German citizen aged 18 or over, who has resided in the state for at least three months. To stand for election, a candidate is also required to have resided in the state for at least a year.
Elections
Beratender Landesausschuss
After World War II, the state of Hesse was restored by the US military administration under the name of
Greater Hesse
Greater Hesse (german: link=no, Groß-Hessen) was the provisional name given for a section of German territory created by the United States military administration in at the end of World War II. It was formed by the Allied Control Council on 19 ...
. In 1945, the US military administration implemented the "Beratender Landesausschuss", literally an advisory council. The members of this pre-parliament were appointed and not elected.
Constitutional convention
On 30 June 1946 a
Constitutional convention of Hesse ("Verfassungsgebenden Landesversammlung") was elected.
This election was won by the SPD, even if the SPD failed to capture a majority of seats. On 22 November 1945 the constitution for Greater Hesse (''Staatsgrundgesetz des Staates Groß-Hessen'') was introduced.
1st Legislative period (1946 through 1950)
The first regular election on 1 December 1946 was also won by the SPD.
A
grand coalition of SPD and CDU decided on electing
Christian Stock
Christian Stock (28 August 1884, Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse – 13 April 1967 in Seeheim-Jugenheim) was a German Social Democrat politician and the first Prime Minister—''Ministerpräsident''—of the provisional state of Greater Hess ...
(SPD) as first free elected Minister-President of Hesse after World War II.
2nd Legislative period (1950 through 1954)
The second election on 19 November 1950 inaugurated the 37-year period of the so-called "red Hesse". The SPD achieved majority and the CDU, the former partner in the grand coalition, lost close to 60% of their seats. Until 1987, all governments of Hesse have been headed by SPD politicians.
On 14 December 1950 the former
Minister of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...
,
Georg August Zinn (SPD) was elected as Minister-President of Hesse. Zinn was re-elected 4 times and was Minister-President until 3 October 1969.
3rd Legislative period (1954 through 1958)
Even if the SPD lost the absolute majority in the third election on 28 November 1953, it managed to agree on a coalition with the "All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights" a party representing the victims of the
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
Expulsion or expelled may refer to:
General
* Deportation
* Ejection (sports)
* Eviction
* Exile
* Expeller pressing
* Expulsion (education)
* Expulsion from the United States Congress
* Extradition
* Forced migration
* Ostracism
* Person ...
.
4th Legislative period (1958 through 1962)
The fourth election of 23 November 1958 perpetuated the previous coalition.
5th Legislative period (1962 through 1966)
Even if the SPD obtained absolute majority on 11 November 1962, Zinn decided to continue the coalition with the GDP ("Gesamtdeutsche Partei", the new name of GB/BHE).
6th Legislative period (1966 through 1970)
On 6 November 1966, the SPD elected a majority of MPs once more. Zinn was appointed one last time as Minister-President. On 3 October 1969, 68-year-old Zinn resigned and
Albert Osswald
Albert Osswald (16 May 1919 – 15 August 1996) was a German politician (SPD). He served as the 3rd Minister President of the state of Hesse from 1969 to 1976 and as the 27th President of the Bundesrat in 1975/76.
Biography
Oswald was bor ...
(SPD) was elected as his successor.
7th Legislative period (1970 through 1974)
Headed by
Alfred Dregger the CDU was able to make an impressive jump in the election of 8 November 1970. The SPD lost its majority but agreed on 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 d ...
with the FDP and Albert Osswald was reelected.
8th Legislative period (1974 through 1978)
Alfred Dregger and his CDU were even more successful in the election on 27 October 1974. For the first time in the history of Hesse, the CDU overtook the SPD. But the coalition was confirmed and Osswald stayed as Minister-President.
Two years later Osswald resigned because of the
Helaba
Helaba, short for Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen, is a commercial bank with core regions in Hesse and Thuringia, Germany offering financial services to companies, banks, institutional investors and the public sector, both within Germany and interna ...
-scandal.
Holger Börner
Holger Börner (7 February 1931, in Kassel – 2 August 2006, in Kassel) was a German politician of the SPD.
He was the 4th Minister President of Hesse from 1976 until 1987. In this position, he served as the 38th President of the Bundesrat ...
(SPD) was elected as Minister-President in his place.
9th Legislative period (1978 through 1982)
Expecting a majority, the results were disappointing for the CDU. In the period of
RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
terrorism, the CDU stagnated and the SPD-FDP coalition was confirmed in the elections on 8 October 1978. On 11 May 1981, deputy Minister-President
Heinz-Herbert Karry was assassinated by terrorists in his flat in Frankfurt am Main. This legislative period is also marked by the demonstrations against the extension of the
Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport (; german: link=no, Flughafen Frankfurt Main , also known as ''Rhein-Main-Flughafen'') is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, the fifth-largest city of Germany and one of the world's leading financial centres ...
. Himself hard-pressed by activists in his car, Börner, previously a learned roofer, at the time said that 40 years ago, he would have answered such attacks directed at his person – meaning the anti-airport-activists (the later Greens) – with "roof battens". Börner thus entered Hesse history as the "Man with a roof batten".
10th Legislative period (1982 through 1983)
After the break of the
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 d ...
in Germany, the FDP was not able to reach more than 5% and got no seats in the Landtag. At the same time, themselves reaching the 5% threshold, the Greens (Die Grünen) made their entrance in a German parliament for the first time, but not long thereafter, they announced their fundamental opposition to form a coalition with one of the other political groups. For its part, the SPD was not willing to accept a grand coalition headed by the CDU. As a result, a
Snap election
A snap election is an election that is called earlier than the one that has been scheduled.
Generally, a snap election in a parliamentary system (the dissolution of parliament) is called to capitalize on an unusual electoral opportunity or to ...
took place a year later.
11th Legislative period (1983 through 1987)
The extraordinary election on 25 August 1983 got no new result. The FDP returned to the Landtag but the CDU and the FDP, as well as the SPD, obtained no majority.
Holger Börner was reelected as Minister-President and in 1985 a first
Red-green alliance in Germany was formed.
Joschka Fischer
Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (born 12 April 1948) is a German retired politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens. He served as the foreign minister and as the vice-chancellor of Germany in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Fis ...
was nominated minister for environment and energy. The Green party at this time was divided in "fundamental" and "democratic" factions. These two groups were not able to agree on a common politic. The "red-green-chaos" was the common description for these years. The coalition ended in February 1987.
12th Legislative period (1987 through 1991)
The 1987 election was a milestone. As a rule, the party ruling Germany lost votes in the state elections. CDU and FDP had lost all elections on state level since
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...
had been elected as chancellor. But the red-green-chaos lead to surprising results: on 5 April 1987, the CDU and the FDP won the elections and
Walter Wallmann
Walter Wallmann (24 September 1932 – 21 September 2013) was a German lawyer politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He served as the Mayor of Frankfurt between 1977 and 1986, and as Minister-president of Hesse from 1987 to 1991. ...
became the first CDU Minister-President of Hesse.
13th Legislative period (1991 through 1995)
The vote on 20 January 1991 was as close as the last one, but this time the SPD and the Greens obtained slightly more seats.
Hand Eichel (SPD) became the new Minister-President, supported by a red/green-alliance.
14th Legislative period (1995 through 1999)
In the elections on 19 February 1995 the red/green-alliance was confirmed.
15th Legislative period (1999 through 2003)
On 7 February 1999, the CDU won the elections with a 4.2% margin. One of the main reasons given for this result is an unpopular red/green legislative project aimed at granting citizenship to
aliens
Alien primarily refers to:
* Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country
** Enemy alien, the above in times of war
* Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth
** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...
. This would have granted
suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
to millions of aliens (mainly Turks). According to
surveys, 80% of these aliens would have voted for left-leaning parties.
[''Abgeleitet aus'' Andreas M. Wüst]
''Das Wahlverhalten eingebürgerter Personen in Deutschland''
Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (B 52/2003), Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 22. Dezember 2003. In order to put a stop to this project, the CDU organized a campaign and collected more than 5 million signatures.
Roland Koch
Roland Koch (born 24 March 1958) is a German jurist and former conservative politician of the CDU. He was the 7th Minister President of Hesse from 7 April 1999, immediately becoming the 53rd President of the Bundesrat, completing the term beg ...
(CDU) was appointed Minister-President of a CDU-FDP coalition.
16th Legislative period (2003 through 2008)
The election of 2 February 2003 was a disaster for the SPD. The CDU managed to get a majority even without the FDP. All but two constituencies were won – even in the north of Hesse, where the SPD had won each single election in the 20th century.
17th Legislative period (2008 through 2009)
Like in 1982, the results of the election allowed no stable coalition to take the
rein
Reins are items of horse tack, used to direct a horse or other animal used for riding. They are long straps that can be made of leather, nylon, metal, or other materials, and attach to a bridle via either its bit or its noseband.
Use for ...
s of government.
Andrea Ypsilanti, leader of the SPD, had promised several times during the electoral campaign not to work together with the new leftist party
Die Linke (The Left). A few weeks after election day, she was tempted to go for a SPD–Green coalition supported by The Left but under opposition from MP
Dagmar Metzger (SPD) decided not to renege on her promise not to pursue such a venue. As of today, Roland Koch is still Minister-President but without majority in the parliament. After a second unsuccessful attempt by Ypsilanti to take power, all parties agreed to dissolve the Landtag and call for early elections on 18 January 2009.
18th Legislative period (2009 through 2013)
![Hessischer Landtag 2009–2013](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Hessischer_Landtag_2009%E2%80%932013.svg)
The early elections on 18 January 2009 led to a stable majority of CDU and FDP.
Andrea Ypsilanti had resigned to candidate for Ministerpresident. New leader of the SPD was
Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel
Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel (' Schäfer; born 1 October 1969) is a former German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as member of the management board of GIZ since 2019.
Schäfer-Gümbel notably was the leader of ...
, a unknown
backbencher
In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of the " ...
and loyal supporter of Ypsilanti. Now SPD declared their will to work with
Die Linke together for a left wing majority. On 18 January 2009 the SPD lost a third of their seats.
19th Legislative period (2013 through 2018)
The elections of 22 September 2013 did not lead to a stable majority for any of the common coalitions. After several weeks of coalition talks
Volker Bouffier
Volker Bouffier (born 18 December 1951) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Minister President of the German state of Hessen from 31 August 2010 to 31 May 2022. From 1 November 2014 until 31 October 2015 ...
's CDU and
Tarek Al-Wazir
Tarek Mohammed Al-Wazir ( ar, طارق محمد الوزير; born 3 January 1971) is a politician in the German Green Party. Since January 2014 he has been deputy to the Hessian Minister-President, and Hessian Minister of Economics, Energy, T ...
's Green Party formed the first ''black-green coalition'' of a territorial state in Germany.
20th Legislative period (2018 through 2023)
The black-green (CDU-Green) coalition government continued with a very slim majority of 69 seats. The far-right AfD was represented in the Landtag for the first time in history. With 19.8% of the vote, 66 votes behind the Greens, the SPD had their worst result ever in the state.
See also
*
List of presidents of the Landtag of Hesse
The following is a list of presidents of the Landtag of Hesse.
Presidents of the Landtag of the People's State of Hesse
President of the Beratende Landesauschuss
President of the Verfassunggebende Landesversammlung
Presidents of the Landt ...
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Landtag of Hesse
Politics of Hesse
Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...