Christian Democratic Union of Germany The SPD quickly gained popularity and succeeded in forming a social-liberal coalition with the FDP following the 1969 federal election, forcing the CDU out of power for the first time in their history. The CDU continued its role as opposition until 1982, when the FDP's withdrawal from the coalition with the SPD allowed the CDU to regain power. CDU Chairman Helmut Kohl became the new Chancellor of West Germany and his CDU–FDP coalition was confirmed in the 1983 federal election. Public support for the coalition's work in the process of German reunification was reiterated in the 1990 federal election in
Chancellor of Germany as in the Prussian tradition of, for instance, Hardenberg. In both of these aspects, the executive of the federation, and then empire, as it was formed in 1867 and 1871, was deliberately different from the Imperial Ministry of the revolutionary years 1848/49, which had been led by a prime minister elected by the National Assembly. In 1871, the concept of the federal chancellor was transferred to the executive of the newly formed German Empire, which now also contained the South German states. Here too, the terms of “chancellor” and “federal agency” (as opposed to “ministry” or “government”) suggested an (apparent)