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The West German Electoral Law of 1953

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

James K. Pollock
James K. Pollock
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

In the spring of 1953, with the approach of the regular parliamentary elections, the West German Bundestag began its deliberations on a new electoral law. The original law of 1949 had been enacted for the sole purpose of electing the first Parliament under the new Bonn Constitution. It was therefore necessary for the expiring Parliament to re-enact the old law, to modify it, or to supersede it with an entirely new system.

It soon became apparent that there were wide differences of opinion among the various parties represented in the Bundestag. The Chancellor's party, the Christian Democrats (CDU), presented proposals to establish a single member district system, eliminating proportional representation. The Social Democrats (SPD) presented a draft which largely re-enacted the 1949 law. The official government proposal, which was something of a compromise, leaned very heavily in the direction of the so-called Mehrheitswahl but also had provisions permitting a combination of party lists and additional votes (Hilfsstimmen). It bore some similarity to the law which de Gasperi had pushed through the Italian Parliament shortly before this time, but without the same justification. The various proposals were discussed on first reading on March 5, 1953, and again on March 18. After the report by the Election Law Committee, amended proposals were again discussed on second and third reading on June 17 and 19 and passed on third reading June 25.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1955 , pp. 107 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1955

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References

1 Deutscher Bundestag, I Wahlperiode, 1949, Drucksache Nr. 3636.

2 Ibid., Drucksache Nr. 4062.

3 Ibid., Drucksache Nr. 4090.

4 See LaPalombara, Joseph G., “The Italian Elections and the Problem of Representation,” this Review, Vol. 47, pp. 676–703 (Sept., 1953)Google Scholar.

5 Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, I Wahlperiode, 1949, Band 15, S. 12179 ff. S. 12202 ff.; Band 16, S. 13450 ff.; Band 17, S. 13594 ff. and S. 13741 ff. The report of the Election Law Committee is Drucksache Nr. 4450.

6 Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, I Wahlperiode, 1949, Band 17, S. 13768.

7 It has been referred to as Verhältniswahl auf Mehrheitsbasis by several German commentators. This characterization is not too accurate. The text of the new law can be found in Bundesgesetzblatt (BGBl), Teil I, Nr. 32, S. 470–91 (July 10, 1953). The election regulations are in BGBl, Nr. 35, S. 514–49 (July 16, 1953). A good guide is Zwick, and Schuck, , Wegweiser für die Durchführung der Wahl zum, zweiten Bundestag (Neustadt, 1963)Google Scholar.

8 The 1949 provision secured a proportional result with only 40 per cent. See the author's “The Electoral System of the Federal Republic of Germany—A Study in Representative Government,” this Review, Vol. 46, pp. 1056–68 (Dec., 1952)Google Scholar.

9 The exception made for lists of national minorities applied only to the South Schleswig Voters League (SSW). This group did not win a seat because it failed to reach the quota in Schleswig-Holstein.

10 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, Band 3, S. 19 ff. Also in Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (1953), S. 1341.

11 This requirement did not represent much of a change for the SPD, but in the other parties the delegate process had to be given an official status.

12 West Berlin is represented in the Bundestag by 22 members who are elected by the Berlin assembly in proportion to the strength of the various parties in that body. The Berlin members have the right to speak in all Bundestag debates and to participate in all parliamentary committees, but their votes are not counted on divisions in plenary sessions.

13 The Communists concentrated their attention on the Solingen-Remscheid district, which had been a stronghold of the party in the years before the rise of Hitler to power. Max Reimann headed the Communist forces in the district. The party planned a big sports festival in Solingen on election day which would have enabled the visiting Communists from other areas to vote for Reimann in Solingen. The government, however, banned the sports festival and in any case it is dubious whether the Communists could possibly have assembled enough outside support to have won the election. The 1949 election figures suggest that the Communist party would have required about 6,000 voters additional to take the district. However, the increase in the number of eligible voters by about 15,000 would have increased the margin of required absent voters quite considerably, disregarding the increase in voting participation and the intangibles of shifting electoral alignments. It would seem, therefore, that the Communists would probably have needed about 20,000 rather than 6,000 additional votes. This would have required the bringing to Solingen of about one-third of the total Communist vote in Nordrhein-Westfalen. As it turned out, while the KPD generally fared better on the second than on the first ballot, in Solingen it secured more first votes than second votes.

14 See above, p. 110.

15 See also Table 2 in Die Wahl zum S. Deutschen Bundestag, Statistik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Band 100, S. 14.

16 The two-vote system had been used in the state of Bavaria and thus a considerable number of German voters were already acquainted with it when it was put into the federal law.

17 Many candidates ran in the districts and also were placed on their party's Land list. If they were not successful in the district, their party vote in the Land would elect them if they were high enough on the list. Chancellor Adenauer was the Spitzenkandidat in all the Länder except Bavaria, endeavoring thereby to attract votes to his party and to present a unified front. He also ran as a district candidate in Bonn and accepted election from this district.

18 A change of two per cent was a large one. The CDU had a change of two per cent or more in 100 districts, whereas the FDP vote changed this much in only 37 districts and the SPD in only 22 districts.

19 After the proportional computations have been made for the parties to determine the number of seats to which a party is entitled, the number of deputies elected in the districts for each of the parties in a given land is deducted from this proportional number. The remaining seats allotted to a party then come from the Land lists. If, however, a party elects more candidates in the districts than it is entitled to under the proportional allocation, it retains these extra district seats (Überhangmandate). In this election there were two such cases in Schleswig-Holstein, where the CDU retained two additional seats, and one in Hamburg, where the DP secured one extra seat. Thus, the total number of deputies in the Bundestag was increased from 484 to 487.

20 See my evaluation of the 1949 law in “The Electoral System of the Federal Republic of Germany” (cited in note 8).

21 Wirtschaft und Statistik, Neue Folge 5, Heft 9, S. 462–64 (Oct., 1953).

22 On January 4, 1954, Frau Emmi Walter, belonging to the CDU, entered the Bundestag from the CDU Land list of Nordrhein-Westfalen.

23 See the article by Fraulein Bremme, “Die Frau als Wählerin and Gewählte,” in Der Wähler, S Jahrgang, Heft 7/8, 1953, S. 260.

24 Wirtschaft und Statistik (Neue Folge 5, Heft 9), S. 464.

25 Wirtschaft und Statistik, Neue Folge 6, Heft 1, S. 9–13 (Jan., 1954). More elaborate figures will appear later in a regular volume published by the Federal Statistical Office. Previous efforts along this line had been made in a few areas of Germany before 1933, as well as in Finland in 1919, in Denmark in 1926, and in 1929 in Sweden. In the occupation period certain cities, or parts of cities, separated the votes of men and women, as well as the votes for various proposals. I am especially grateful to Dr. Fürst, the Bundeswahlleiter, and to Dr. Horstmann, his deputy for election matters, for their very kind and efficient help.

26 See Statistische Mitteilungen aus Bremen, 8 Jahrgang, Heft 4 (1953); Mitteilungen des Hessischen Statistischen Amtes, AId/3/53/2; Statistische Rundschau für das Land Nordrhein-Westphakn, 5 Jahrgang, Heft 10/11 (Oct., Nov., 1953); Statistik von Baden-Württemberg, Band 11 (1953); Statistik von Rheinland-Pfah, Band 29 (1953); Hamburg in Zahlen, Heft 24 (1953); Statiatische Monatshefte für Niedersachsen, Heft 11 (1953).

27 Informationsdienst des Bayerischen Staiistischen Landesamtes, Reihe II/E/1/25 (Oct. 30, 1953).

28 The data for individual voting districts were not made public for obvious reasons, but certain district results were somehow obtained and published. See Sopade, Nr. 940, p. 15 (Dec., 1953); also Bulletin, Vol. 2, nos. 21 and 27. Also the results by states appear in their respective state returns.

29 An interesting detail of the voting is that 1,019,462 persons voted with election certificates outside of their regular residences. In Germany's largest state some 239,000 Wahlscheine were used.

30 In Bavaria, the figures were 88.5 per cent for men, 86.2 per cent for women.

31 In Bavaria, 60 per cent of the CSU voters were women. Also, 52.7 per cent of all feminine voters supported the CSU. Differences between men and women in the use of the two votes were not appreciable. Switching of votes among the parties of the government coalition occurred in significant proportions, but not in the SPD.

32 The difference between men and women so far as invalid ballots are concerned is very slight.

33 Statistics showing religious and occupational data by election districts are available in Rheinland-Pfalz and illustrate another aspect of German voting behavior. Four Wahlkreise (nos. 149, 151, 153, and 154) have a Catholic population of 90 per cent or above, and it is in these districts that the CDU scored overwhelming victories, ranging from 67.2 per cent to 79.6 per cent of the total vote. Where both Catholic and agricultural populations are high, the CDU vote reached its peak (District 153—Prüm).

34 A publication of the Statistical Office of Rheinland-Pfalz, entitled Wahlverfahren und Demokratie (Bad Ems, 1949)Google Scholar, prepared by H. Unkelbach under the direction of Prof. Dr. Zwick, the President of the Office, is very useful in studying German electoral problems. Evaluations or reports of the 1953 election worthy of mention are the article by Prof. Grewe in Archiv des öff. Rechts, Band 79, Heft 2, S. 245 ff. (Oct., 1953); an issue of Der Wähler, Heft 7/8 (1953) entitled “Das deutsche Wahlwunder;” and Neumann, Sigmund, “The German Elections—Meaning and Impact,” in Foreign Policy Bulletin, Aug. 15, 1953, pp. 1–3Google Scholar.

35 Since the 1953 law was adopted for this election only, the Bundestag must enact a permanent electoral law during its present term. Due to serious differences of opinion about the matter within the government parties, as well as to the press of other business, little progress has been made to date (Feb., 1955). In the light of Germany's experience with two postwar general elections and with numerous state and local elections in which a combination of P.R. and the plurality system have been used successfully, it seems unlikely that a return to the plurality system of Imperial Germany will occur.