the first chancellor and founding father of the west german federal republic was 23 may 1949.
the first chancellor and founding father of the west german federal republic was 23 may 1949.
the first chancellor and founding father of the west german federal republic was?
23 may 1949
the berlin siege of 1948/49 and the accompanying disagreements between western powers and the soviet union over the currency reform of june 1948 forced western governments to recognise the reality of germany's political (and increasingly social and economic) division: in may 1949 the british, united states and french occupation zones were merged and relaunched as the us-sponsored german federal republic (west germany). after a decade and a half without democratic elections, the first west german general election was held in august 1949. fritz heine had been in london for the british general election in july 1945 and was confident that in germany the spd would be able to win free and fair national elections. his confidence was repeatedly confounded during the 1950s. the electoral battles were massively uneven for various reasons. the election plans of the spd, drawn up under the leadership of kurt schumacher, had pre-supposed free elections across germany, but with the launch of a separate west germany a couple of months before the general election, the possibility of any free elections that included the soviet occupation zone (after october 1949 relaunched as the german democratic republic) disappeared. traditionally much of the spd's strongest support had come from berlin and various other major industrial cities in central germany that were now excluded from the west german electoral process. strongly pro-american, the canny former mayor of cologne, konrad adenauer, was able to form a winning coalition of centrist and moderate right wing factions within and around the new christian democratic union (cdu party). the americans unambiguously backed the cdu, and much of the west german press was also uncompromisingly mistrustful of the spd. the west german capital, bonn, was close to adenauer's political home base and natural cdu territory. the spd was hugely outspent by the cdu in the election campaign, according to one source in a ratio of more than 100:1. during the 1950s adenauer and his respected finance minister ludwig erhard steered the country through the years of a so-called "economic miracle" that owed nothing to socialist precepts, and was a stark contrast to germany's economic experiences - still powerfully alive in the minds of older voters - after the first world war. west germany's economic growth in the 1950s was powerfully underpinned by millions of refugees "ethnically cleansed" from the former eastern territories of germany and economic migrants from the soviet occupation zone / east germany. socialism, conflated in plenty of minds with the impact of the soviet union's foreign policy, was out of fashion in west germany, while fritz heine was the hapless party election strategist who presided over electoral defeats for the spd in 1949, 1953 and 1957.
fritz heine
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bullet::::- 16th 2005 german federal election
elections in germany