Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
- "CDU" redirects here. For other uses, see CDU (disambiguation).
Christlich-Demokratische Union | |
---|---|
Leader | Dr. Angela Merkel |
Founded | 1870 (Centre Party) 1945 (CDU) |
Headquarters | Klingelhöferstraße 8 10785 Berlin |
Political Ideology | Christian Democracy, Conservatism |
International Affiliation | International Democrat Union |
European Affiliation | European People's Party |
European Parliament Group | EPP-ED |
Colours | Orange, Black |
Website | http://www.cdu.de |
See also | Politics of Germany |
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU - Christlich-Demokratische Union) is a political party in Germany. A right-of-center Christian party, the CDU is the biggest conservative political party in Germany. It is also a member of the International Democrat Union. The CDU won the 2005 German federal election.
In Bavaria, the CDU does not exist; its role is played by the Christian Social Union (CSU). The CDU cooperates with the CSU at the federal level; although each party maintains its own structure, the two form a common caucus in the German Parliament and do not run opposing campaigns. Their combination is generally referred to as The Union.
The CDU/CSU has adherents among Roman Catholics, Protestants, rural interests, and members of all economic classes. It is generally conservative on economic and social policy and more identified with the Roman Catholic, and to a lesser extent Protestant, churches than are the other major parties, although the party's emphasis on Christianity is markedly lower today than it was a few decades ago, and its programs are pragmatic rather than ideological. In 1990, it merged with the East German equivalent of the same name, the Christian Democratic Union.
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History
The party's roots go back to the Centre Party, founded in 1870 to promote the interests of German Catholics. The party played an important role and participated in most national governments from the last years of the German Empire and during the Weimar Republic, but was dissolved in 1933. CDU was founded after the war as its de facto successor, but with the goal to include not only Catholics, but also Protestants, in a common confessional and conservative party. Its first leader and West Germany’s first chancellor was Konrad Adenauer. The CDU was the dominant party with Adenauer as its leader from 1949 to 1963. Then in 1963, Ludwig Erhard of the CDU succeeded Adenauer, preceding a recession in 1966. This caused the CDU to wane in power and consequently form a coalition with the SPD. Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) then took power as chancellor of West Germany.
However, the SPD turned and formed a coalition with the FDP in 1969, and the CDU thus lost its leadership position for the next 13 years. It was during this time that the CDU developed new conservative economic and foreign policies. The FDP in turn developed a new coalition with the CDU in 1982 after a fall out with the SPD. By 1983, the CDU was back in power with Helmut Kohl as the new Chancellor for West Germany. Its status was then shaken in the later half of the 1980's by an extreme right-wing party called Die Republikaner. The CDU was then revived in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell and the CDU regained popularity.
It was then that West Germany’s chancellor Kohl, with the strong support of the United States, called for the reunification of Germany. On October 3rd, 1990, the German Democratic Republic was abolished and its territory reannexed to Germany. The same year elections were held for the reunified country. Although Chancellor Kohl was reelected, the party lost much of its popularity because of an economic recession in the former GDR and a tax increase in the west. He was, however, victorious again in the 1994 election.
Helmut Kohl served as chairman until the party's electoral defeat in 1998, when he was succeeded by Wolfgang Schäuble; Schäuble resigned in early 2000 as a result of a party financing scandal and was replaced by Angela Merkel. In the 1998 general election, the CDU polled 28.4% and the CSU 6.7% of the national vote. In 2002, CDU reached 29.5% and the CSU 9.0%. In 2005 early elections were called after the CDU dealt the governing SPD a major blow, winning more than ten state elections, mostly with a landslide victory. Angela Merkel was subsequently chosen to be the candidate chancellor for the CDU and CSU for the general election.
Philosophy
According to the CDU's website, the party is nondenominational Christian-based, applying the principles of Christian Democracy and serving to "unite Catholics and Protestants, Conservatives and Liberals, proponents of Christian social ideals, and men and women from various regions, social classes, and democratic traditions." The CDU believes that mankind has a responsibility to God in upholding the Christian ideals and caring for the environment. Parts of these beliefs include supporting the freedom and dignity of all persons including equal rights among women, men, and the disabled. The CDU supports the idea of a social market economy. The party strives for a free and market-oriented European Union and supports the European integration. It strongly opposes the membership of Turkey in the European Union.
Traditionally, there have been three somewhat differant strands of thought in the CDU, of roughly equal strength: Christian-social thinking as popular among the Catholic working class, emphasizing faith and social justice according to a Roman Catholic view of man, moderately Nationalist-conservative thinking as popular in most rural areas and small towns of Germany, emphasizing a defense of traditional German culture and values, and free-market economic liberalism as popular among business interests, emphasizing economic freedom and self-determination. A very pronounced anti-Marxism was common to all three groupings. Lately, the free-market element seems to have become stronger than the other two.
Opponents of the CDU are the social democratic SPD, the post-communist Left Party/PDS and the left-wing environmentalist Bündnis'90/Die Grünen. The liberal FDP party is considered to be the natural partner of any CDU government (although this was different in the past, when the CDU was more markedly conservative and the FDP more markedly liberal).
Internal Structure
Members
The CDU currently has 574,526 members (As of: February 2, 2005)
25.2 percent of members are female and 74.8 percent male. The female proportion is higher in the new East Germany states with 29.2 percent compared to the former states in West Germany with 24.8 percent.
Before 1966 membership totals in CDU organization were only estimated. The numbers after 1966 are based on the total from December 31 of the previous year.
Data about state party group
State group | Chairman | Members |
Baden-Württemberg | Günther Oettinger | 79,000 |
Berlin | Ingo Schmitt | |
Brandenburg | Jörg Schönbohm | 7,000 |
Bremen | Bernd Neumann | |
Hamburg | Dirk Fischer | |
Hessen | Roland Koch | |
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | Eckhardt Rehberg | 7,000 |
Niedersachsen | Christian Wulff | |
Nordrhein-Westfalen | Jürgen Rüttgers | 185,000 |
Rheinland-Pfalz | Christoph Böhr | |
Saarland | Peter Müller | 22,000 |
Sachsen | Georg Milbradt | 15,000 |
Sachsen-Anhalt | Thomas Webel | 9,000 |
Schleswig-Holstein | Peter Harry Carstensen | 30,000 |
Thüringen | Dieter Althaus | 13,000 |
Party strongholds
The traditional strongholds of the party are concentrated in rural and/or Catholic regions such as Eifel, Münsterland, Sauerland, the Fulda district, Schwaben, Emsland, Nordfriesland, Vorpommern as well as areas in Saxony, the Thüringen Eichsfeld, Taunus, and smaller cities such as Baden-Baden, Konstanz, and Pforzheim. Only very small support exists in Bremen, Brandenburg, and East Berlin. Nevertheless the CDU gained an absolute majority at the last state elections in the liberal and affluent city of Hamburg, which used to be a historic stronghold of the Social Democrats.
Relationship with the CSU
Together with its sister party, the CSU, which is only active in Bavaria, the CDU has formed a joint parliamentary group in the Federal Parliament (Bundestag). This joint group is called CDU/CSU; its basis is a binding agreement known as a Fraktionsvertrag between the two parties.
The youth organisation for CDU and CSU is common: Junge Union.
On issues of national importance and in national election campaigns the CDU and CSU closely coordinate their activities, but they remain legally and organizationally seperate parties. The differences between the CDU and the somewhat more conservative CSU sometimes lead to friction between them. The most notable and serious such incident was in 1976, when the CSU under Franz Josef Strauss ended the alliance with the CDU at a party conference in Wildbad Kreuth. This decision was reversed shortly thereafter when the CDU threatened to run candidates against the CSU in Bavaria.
Think-tank Konrad Adenauer Foundation
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is the think-tank of the CDU. It is named after the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and first president of the CDU. The foundation offers political education, conducts scientific fact-finding research for political projects, grants scholarships to gifted individuals, researches the history of Christian Democracy, and supports and encourages European unification, international understanding, and development-policy cooperation. Its annual budget amounts to around 100 million Euro.
Chairmen of the Christian Democratic Union, 1950-present
- Konrad Adenauer 1950-1966
- Ludwig Erhard 1966-1967
- Kurt Georg Kiesinger 1967-1971
- Rainer Barzel 1971-1973
- Helmut Kohl 1973-1998
- Wolfgang Schäuble 1998-2000
- Angela Merkel 2000-
Parliamentary chairmen/chairmen of the CDU/CSU group in the national parliament
- Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo (1949-1955)
- Heinrich Krone (1955-1961)
- Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo (1961-1964)
- Rainer Barzel (1964-1973)
- Karl Carstens (1973-1976)
- Helmut Kohl (1976-1982)
- Alfred Dregger (1982-1991)
- Wolfgang Schäuble (1991-2000)
- Friedrich Merz (2000-2002)
- Angela Merkel (2002-)
German Chancellors from CDU
- Konrad Adenauer (1949-1963)
- Ludwig Erhard (1963-1966)
- Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1966-1969)
- Helmut Kohl (1982-1998)
- Angela Merkel,designated (2005- )
See also
- Christian democracy
- Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU)
- Politics of Germany
- List of political parties in Germany
- Bundestag (Federal Assembly of Germany)
- Christian Democratic Parties
- Junge Union