The 1953 Bundestag election: evidence from West German public opinion

Abstract

Der Verfasser untersucht die Gültigkeit ausgewählter Interpretationen zur Erklärung der Bundestagswahlergebnisse des Jahres 1953. Er konfrontiert die einzelnen Interpretationen mit Datenmaterial aus Meinungsumfragen des amerikanischen Hohen Kommissars für Deutschland zu Aspekten der bundesdeutschen Nachkriegspolitik. Der Autor kommt zu den Ergebnissen, daß der Wahlausgang und die Akzeptanz der bundesdeutschen Bevölkerung gegenüber demokratischen Institutionen und dem demokratischen System nach Auswertung des Datenmaterials nicht überrascht. Während die Identifikation mit den politischen Parteien eine untergeordnete Rolle gespielt habe, seien die von Adenauer vertretenen Standpunkte sowie dessen Persönlichkeit ausschlaggebend für den Wahlausgang gewesen. Haben sich Religionszugehörigkeit und soziale Herkunft als bedeutende Determinanten des Wahlverhaltens erwiesen, so läßt nach Ansicht des Autors eine fehlende theoretische Fundierung hingegen Rückschlüsse über ihren Stellenwert verglichen mit anderen Determinanten nicht zu. (RS)

'The 1953 Bundestag election is frequently interpreted as a critical milestone in postwar West Germany's political history. Some saw its outcome, which gave Chancellor Adenauer's CDU/CSU 45.2% for the vote (31.0% in 1949) and his coalition 63.8% (and a constitution-changing 68.4% of Bundestag seats), as a major surprise, as proof that west Germans had firmly accepted democacy, or as simply another election, to be explained by the appeal of political issues, party identification, the candidates personalities, special political circumstances (e.g. U.S. intervention), or the sociological characteristics of the voters themselves. The paper looks into the validity of a particular set of public opinion surveys on the 1953 Bundestag election, commissioned by the Evaluation Staff of the Office of Public Affairs, U.S. High Commission for Germany (HICOG). The data from the 1953 election study show that neither the electoral outcome nor the degree of West Germans' acceptance of democratic institutions and practices should have come as a surprise. Specific issues seemed to play little role, but differences in general mood, related to several such issues, were important. Party identification as such was important for only a few. Voters subsequently saw Adenauer's personality and the general mood he represented as the most important element in the outcome; the special circumstances mentioned by several writers were insignificant in the voters' consciousness. The data suggest that social class and religion were important variables determining voters' predispositions, but the lack of theoretic orientation in the study makes impossible any definite conclusion about their weight vis-a-vis other variables such as issues.' (author's abstract)