Page 168 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

1949 – CONTENTMENT AND CONFIDENCE 141

Out of the 19 political parties available for elections, 11 were finally
elected to parliament (the hurdle that a party had to poll at least 5 per cent
of the votes to be seated in parliament applied then only to Länder
parliaments). Although the SPD, gaining 29.12 per cent of the votes,
turned out to be the most successful single party, the CDU/CSU
combined attracted 424,109 more votes, totalling 31 per cent, and 139
mandates compared to 131 for the Social Democrats. Konrad Adenauer
interpreted this victory by a slim majority as clear support for the
CDU/CSU and their concept of the Social Market Economy:

The question of Planned Economy or Social Market Economy played
a decisive role in the election. The German people have spoken with
a great majority against the Planned Economy. A [grand] coalition
between the parties that oppose the Planned Economy and those that
support the Planned Economy has been rejected by the will of the
majority of the voters.
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This study has revealed, however, that in fact both Volksparteien, the
SPD and the CDU/CSU, had suffered large percentage losses over their
previous Land election totals by failing to capture a comparable share of
the enlarged electorate – since the elections in 1946/1947, the electorate
had been expanded from some 39 million to around 48 million by
returning prisoners of war, by the influx of expellees and refugees, and by
the reenfranchisement of large numbers of individuals previously barred
from voting because of former connections with National Socialism.
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The most remarkable advance by winning over a million extra votes – in
comparison, the SPD increased its by 850,000, and the CDU/CSU by
merely 800,000 – and achieving 11.9 per cent of the total votes was that
made by the FDP. Contrary to the expectations of many observers, the
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politically progressive and economically conservative Free Democrats
were in fact the only political party consistently gaining percentage of
votes between 1946 and 1949. Most notably in Hesse, the nationalisation
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plans of the governing SPD and left-leaning tendencies of the CDU
swayed many of the middle classes to vote for the FDP. But also on a
national level, supporters of socialisation were in continuous decline.
According to a nationwide opinion poll at that time, a majority of the
Germans in summer 1949 (68 per cent) actually considered private
initiatives and market competition more likely than socialisation (22 per
cent) to enable economic recovery and to increase social income – quite
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contrary to Kurt Schumacher’s belief that the majority of the German
people wanted socialisation. In doing so, the rejection of socialisation by
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civic groups seemed more broad-based than the denial of private