The contest was swept by the Alliance for Germany, a coalition led by the newly reconstituted East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which captured 192 of the 400 seats in the Volkskammer and had ran on a promise of swift reunification with West Germany. The Social Democratic Party (SPD), re-established only months earlier after its forced 1946 merger with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), was widely tipped to win but instead came second with 88 seats. In third was the former ruling SED, now rebranded as the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which secured 66 seats. The Alliance fell just short of an outright majority having needed 201 seats to govern alone.[1]
Lothar de Maizière, the CDU's leader, invited the SPD to join a broad coalition alongside the German Social Union (DSU) and Democratic Beginning (DA). The SPD hesitated, wary of the DSU's right-wing populist tone, having earlier vowed to collaborate with all but the PDS and DSU.[2] However, a grand coalition was ultimately formed. This government, commanding a two-thirds supermajority in the Volkskammer, set about the task of dismantling the East German state and laying the legal groundwork for reunification, although the coalition would collapse later that August. On 3 October 1990, the GDR ceased to exist and all its territories joined the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). 144 Volkskammer members was integrated into the West German Bundestag, serving until the all-German federal election on 2 December that year.
The Peaceful Revolution of 1989 resulted in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany giving up its monopoly on power, and permitting opposition parties to operate for the first time. They began to form in large numbers throughout November and December 1989. Opposition groups formed the East German Round Table, which was joined by representatives of the SED to negotiate reforms; at its first meeting on 7 December 1989, the Round Table agreed that elections to the Volkskammer would be held on 6 May 1990.[3]
The campaign for was unusually short, lasting only seven weeks after the vote was brought forward from May to 18 March following negotiations between the Round Table and the government of Hans Modrow on 28 January. This tight schedule posed significant organizational challenges. Only the PDS, as the successor to the SED, possessed the necessary infrastructure and financial resources for a full campaign. In contrast, newly formed opposition parties and civil rights groups were still defining their platforms and had minimal experience in electioneering. Their shortcomings were partially mitigated by substantial support from West German parties, which provided logistical and strategic assistance to their Eastern counterparts.
Western support facilitated the creation of several electoral alliances. The CDU partnered with the German Social Union and Democratic Beginning to form the Alliance for Germany. The FDP backed the Association of Free Democrats, which included the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD) and the minor FDP of the GDR. These alliances were established only weeks before the election, relying heavily on Western assistance such as the CDU's "district partnerships" and the participation of West German campaigners. At the outset, the SPD appeared likely to win, benefiting from historical roots in the region and strong backing from the West German SPD. Early polls showed it leading with 54 percent support, ahead of the PDS and CDU.[5]
Despite early advantages, the SPD's momentum declined as reunification became the dominant issue. West German SPD leader Oskar Lafontaine was cautious about unification and criticized possible NATO membership for a united Germany, which may have weakened the party's appeal. Meanwhile, Helmut Kohl and the Western CDU made unification the central theme of their campaign, drawing large crowds to rallies in cities such as Erfurt and Chemnitz.[6] The Alliance for Germany organised over 1,400 campaign events and mobilised high-profile Western politicians. In a final blow to the opposition, Democratic Beginning's lead candidate Wolfgang Schnur was exposed by Der Spiegel as a Stasi informant just days before the vote, damaging the credibility of one of the key parties in the alliance.
Party programs
Alliance for Germany
The Alliance for Germany presented its election manifesto under the slogan "Never again socialism" („Nie wieder Sozialismus“). Its main objectives included achieving German reunification based on the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany as a unified constitution, guaranteeing rights to private property and unrestricted freedom of trade, and removing all barriers to Western investment. The alliance called for the immediate introduction of the Deutsche Mark at a 1:1 exchange rate to the East German mark. Social policy commitments included establishing a social security network, environmental protection measures, securing energy supplies, and harmonising laws with the West, notably abolishing criminal offences linked to political activities. Other priorities were monument preservation, education reform, maintaining day nurseries, restoring the federal states (Länder), and ensuring press freedom.[7]
Social Democratic Party of Germany
At the first party conference of the re-established SPD, held in Leipzig from 22 to 25 February 1990, the party adopted its basic programme and election manifesto centred on the promotion of an ecologically oriented social market economy.[8]
Party of Democratic Socialism
The PDS campaign was titled "Democratic Freedom for All – Social Security for Everyone". It characterised itself as a democratic socialist party advocating a socially and ecologically oriented market economy that ensured social security based on merit. The PDS emphasised preserving the GDR's social achievements under the SED, including the right to work, childcare systems, cooperative and public ownership in the economy, and values of anti-fascism and internationalism. The programme demanded disarmament of both East and West and supported maintaining the status of former SED members and land reforms. Rejecting immediate unification, the PDS proposed a confederal structure between East and West Germany, preserving their separate statehood while gradually moving towards a neutral and demilitarised German confederation.[9]
Interference by West Germany
The posters used by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the 1990 election (left) resembled those of its western counterpart (center) rather than its own distinct pre-1990 posters (right)
The election, while a landmark of democratic transformation, was also shaped significantly by external influences particularly from West Germany. Writer Michael Schneider was among those who criticised what he viewed as overwhelming interference by West German politicians and institutions. In his work, he described the campaign environment as one saturated with West German personalities, party activists and messaging. West German political parties, especially its branches of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD), sent campaigners and resources across the border to bolster their East German affiliates. According to Schneider, taxpayer funds from West Germany were used to support this mobilisation, raising questions about the balance of influence and the fairness of the electoral playing field.[10]
Civil rights activist and co-founder of the New Forum, Jens Reich, echoed these concerns from the perspective of the East German opposition. Speaking two decades after the vote, he reflected that the entire West German political apparatus had been transplanted into the East, overwhelming grassroots democratic movements that had played a key role in the Peaceful Revolution. In his words, "The Bonn hippopotamus came in such a mass that you were simply helpless." Reich observed that the election campaign bore little resemblance to a homegrown democratic process and instead felt like a western-style election exported wholesale into a fragile new democracy. This imbalance, he argued, made it difficult for indigenous East German parties and civic movements to compete on equal terms.[11]
This large-scale West German involvement was not limited to campaign workers and funding. West German media, political advertisements and party materials flooded East German spaces in the run-up to the election, promoting a vision of rapid reunification under Western terms. While many East Germans were eager for economic stability and political freedom, critics argue that this form of campaigning blurred the lines between support and manipulation. The West German framing of the vote as a de facto referendum on reunification placed enormous pressure on the East German electorate and marginalised alternative visions for East Germany's future. Although the election was formally free, the conditions surrounding it raise ongoing debate over whether it represented a fully sovereign exercise in democracy or a lopsided contest shaped by the overwhelming influence of West Germany.[11]
Opinion polls
In 2005, Forschungsgruppe Wahlen researcher Matthias Jung, who was involved in organising opinion polling for the election, spoke of the difficulties of the task. He attributed this to the unpredictable behaviour of the electorate as well as the total lack of infrastructure and methods for gauging public opinion, which forced the institute to build an entirely new polling model. Despite beginning work at the end of 1989, FW only released one poll before the election, which Jung claimed accurately predicted the CDU victory.[12] This may refer to a FW poll showing that 35% of voters believed an Alliance for Germany-led government would be most capable of solving the country's problems, while only 27% believed an SPD-led government would; 29% believed a grand coalition would be most capable.[13] This was in stark contrast to other polls, conducted without reliable methods, which predicted a landslide SPD victory.
Maps showing the distribution of party votes per circle. The map in the bottom right shows the largest party in each district (several circles make a district).Strongest party in the districts
In order to determine the composition of the East German representatives in the Bundestag between German reunification and the first post-reunification elections in December 1990, the results of the 1990 Volkskammer election were recounted, using the new states of Germany as constituencies. This was possible since the original election results were declared on the Kreis level, and the states were re-established by simply amalgamating Kreise together. The results in each Kreis forming a state were summed up to determine the statewide result. The recount fixed the number of Volkskammer members from each party who would be co-opted into the Bundestag.[17]
The newly elected Volkskammer was constituted on 5 April 1990, and elected Sabine Bergmann-Pohl of the CDU as its president. As the State Council of the GDR was dissolved at the same time, she became East Germany's interim head of state. Four days later, after protracted negotiations, Lothar de Maizière announced the formation of a grand coalition between the Alliance for Germany, SPD, and BFD. On 12 April 1990, he was elected Prime Minister of the GDR by the Volkskammer with 265 votes in favour, 108 against, and 9 abstentions. The new cabinet was also confirmed. The partners in the coalition commanded a two-thirds supermajority in the Volkskammer, making it an übergroß coalition with enough seats to pass amendments to the constitution.[18][19]
The new parliament quickly passed several pieces of major legislation, including a new law regarding local government on 17 May, a law ratifying the monetary, economic, and social union with the Federal Republic of Germany on 18 May (which became effective on 1 July), and constitutional amendments on 17 June. On 21 June, the Volkskammer formed a special committee, chaired by Joachim Gauck, to control the dissolution of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi).[20]
On 20 September 1990, the Volkskammer voted 299–80 to accept the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, which had earlier been approved in a 442–47 vote by the West German Bundestag. The treaty stipulated that East Germany would unify its territory with Federal Republic of Germany via Article 23 of the Basic Law, meaning that East Germany and the Volkskammer would cease to exist. The chamber's last legislative period therefore only lasted four and a half months. The treaty took effect on 3 October 1990; on the same day, 144 of the 400 Volkskammer deputies became members of the Bundestag (63 from the CDU, 33 from the SPD, 24 from the PDS, 9 from the BFD, 8 from the DSU, and 7 from Alliance 90 and the Green Party). The 8 DSU members joined the CDU/CSU Bundestag Group, briefly renamed CDU/CSU/DSU. The distribution of seats between these parties was determined by recalculating the results of the 1990 elections on a per-state basis. Their tenure came to an end two months later with the first all-German federal election on 2 December 1990.[21]
↑ For the Leipzig policy program see: Dieter Dowe, Kurt Klotzbach (ed.): Programmatic documents of German social democracy (= Politics in paperback. 2). 3rd, revised and updated edition. J. H. W. Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1990, ISBN3-8012-0100-7, pp. 447-490.
↑ Michael Schneider: The Aborted Revolution. From the State Company to the DM Colony (= Elefanten-Press. 371). Verlag Elefanten-Press, Berlin 1990, ISBN3-88520-371-5, p. 114 ff.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
