1957 West German federal election


Federal elections were held in West Germany on 15 September 1957 to elect the third Bundestag. The Christian Democratic Union and its longtime ally, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, won a sweeping victory, taking 277 seats in the Bundestag to win the first — and to date, only — absolute majority for a single German parliamentary group in a free election.

Campaign

Federal Chancellor Adenauer had some solid advantages over his Social Democratic opponent, Erich Ollenhauer; West Germany had become fully sovereign in 1955 and had joined the European Economic Community in March 1957. Its economy was growing steadily with very low unemployment, and most West Germans felt more prosperous and more secure than in 1949 or 1953. Although the West German economic growth was more directly enhanced by the social market economy policies of Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard, many West German voters gave Adenauer the credit for it.

Results

The All-German Bloc lost all of their seats, but the ideologically-similar German Party maintained theirs. It was the last time in the 20th century that a party to the right of the CDU/CSU Union gained seats in the Bundestag.

Aftermath

led the CDU-CSU coalition to a landslide victory. The CDU-CSU won an outright majority—to date, the only time a German party has been elected to a majority government in a free election.