CDU Saxony-Anhalt

CDU Saxony-Anhalt
Sven Schulze
Chairman	Sven Schulze
Treasurer	Karl Gerhold
managing Director	Mario Zeising
Establishment date	July 1945 / February 24, 1990
Place of establishment	Halle (Saale)
Headquarters	Fürstenwallstrasse 17 39104 Magdeburg
Landtag mandates	40/97
Number of members	6,335 (as of November 30, 2020)
Website	www.cdulsa.de

The CDU Saxony-Anhalt is the regional association of the CDU in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and is currently the prime minister there with Reiner Haseloff .

history

founding

In July 1945 the state association of the CDU Saxony-Anhalt was founded in Halle (Saale) . The first state chairman was Leo Herwegen , Heinz Dechant and Heinrich Hübenthal were elected as deputy chairmen.

From April 26 to 28, 1946, the first regular state party conference took place in Halle. Leo Herwegen was confirmed as chairman, Erich Fascher became deputy. The state elections in 1946 led to a disappointment: with 21.8% of the votes and 24 seats in the state parliament, the CDU was only the third strongest force after the SED and LDPD .

At the second state party conference from March 28th to 30th, 1947, Leo Herwegen was given confidence as state chairman. Bruno Geissler was now deputy.

Synchronization

The dismissal of Jakob Kaiser also led to a “wave of cleansing” in the CDU of Saxony-Anhalt. On December 23, 1947, the state executive unanimously called for an all-German CDU and the leadership of the emperor. The SMAD took tough action. All board members at state, district and local level were asked to distance themselves from Kaiser and to support participation in the people's congress. For this purpose, the board members in the local command offices of the SMAD were presented with ready-made declarations for signature and forced to sign with the threat of imprisonment. At the same time, the SMAD ordered that general assemblies should be held in all local groups, in which the members had to support the new course. CDU members who spoke out in favor of Kaiser at these meetings (each in the presence of a Soviet officer) had to expect dismissal or imprisonment. The state board member Hans Jaroni had to flee after he publicly spoke out in favor of Kaiser.

In the spring of 1948 there was another wave of arrests. Among others, the former state manager, Ludwig Müller, and the state board member Hans Perschmann were arrested . The Landtag Vice President Werner Hennemann and the editor-in-chief of the CDU newspaper Der neue Weg , Herbert Kunze-Cornelius , saved themselves from the threat of arrest by fleeing to the free West.

Process start in the State Theater Dessau

Despite the repression, the Soviets had to fear that the democratic forces in the CDU would prevail at the party congress in April 1948. To prevent this, the SMAD postponed the party congress to summer and issued a large number of bans on running for board positions. About 50 members were not allowed to run for district boards or as state delegates. The state parliament members Friedrich Hampel , Richard-Wilhelm Haase and Pastor Wittelsbach, who were among the bravest opponents of the enforced policy, were banned from running for the state executive.

At the third state party conference, which was postponed to May 20-22, 1948, Leo Herwegen was deposed as chairman and Erich Fascher was appointed as the new state chairman. Leo Herwegen, however, retained his ministerial office until his arrest in October 1949 and became deputy state chairman.

In October 1949 Leo Herwegen was arrested and a victim of the first major show trial in the GDR, the Conti affair . The trial took place between April 24th and 29th under the chairmanship of Hilde Benjamin in the Landestheater Dessau .

Because of his critical attitude towards the dominance of the SED, Erich Fascher was removed from his party offices in February 1950; he was temporarily followed by the previous parliamentary group leader Leopold Becker . With the appointment of Joseph Wujciak as the new state chairman on June 4, 1950, the synchronization was completed.

In 1952 the states were dissolved and the GDR was divided into districts . This also ended the existence of a state association for Saxony-Anhalt. In the CDU in exile there was a state organization of the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt who had fled.

After the turn

On February 24, 1990, the Saxony-Anhalt regional association of the CDU was founded in the Prisma cinema in Halle-Neustadt. It was the first regional association in what was then the GDR. Gerd Gies became the first state chairman. The state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 1990 led to a landslide victory for the CDU. All but one constituencies were won. Not a single candidate on the state list was elected. At the constituent meeting of the CDU parliamentary group on October 16, 1990, Joachim Auer was elected chairman of the parliamentary group. Gerd Gies was elected first Prime Minister by the state parliament with the votes of a CDU-FDP coalition.

After Gerd Gies resigned as Prime Minister , Werner Münch from North Rhine-Westphalia was elected as his successor on July 4th, but Gies remained state chairman. The following months were marked by personal disputes, which culminated in a vote for the state chairmanship at the Wolmirstedter party congress at the end of November. Werner Münch was elected as the new state chairman and thus prevailed against Christoph Bergner . In response to this decision, Joachim Auer resigned from the parliamentary group and resigned from the CDU. Christoph Bergner was then elected as the new parliamentary group leader.

At the end of 1993 there was the so-called "salary affair", which on November 28, 1993 led to the resignation of Prime Minister Münch from all his offices as well as the entire cabinet. Münch was accused of having continued to draw his salary in Saxony-Anhalt at the western level. After the administrative court of Magdeburg reclaimed part of his salary, the higher administrative court of the state of Saxony-Anhalt acquitted him in 1996 of all allegations of unlawfully received payments. In parallel criminal proceedings before the Magdeburg Regional Court, he was also acquitted of the charge of fraud.

On December 2, 1993, Christoph Bergner was elected Prime Minister and a new CDU-FDP cabinet was formed. A week later, Karl-Heinz Daehre was appointed as the new state chairman. Jürgen Scharf became the new chairman of the parliamentary group.

Opposition time

The state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 1994 did not lead to the collapse of the CDU feared due to the staff squabbles, but did lead to the FDP's departure from the state parliament and the loss of the coalition majority. The SPD Saxony-Anhalt decided against a grand coalition led by the CDU, which had become the strongest parliamentary group. Instead, the SPD relied on the Magdeburg model , a minority government tolerated by the PDS . After leaving the Prime Minister's office, Christoph Bergner became parliamentary group leader of the CDU.

Also to make it clear that it was not about governing with changing majorities, as the government claims, the CDU Saxony-Anhalt pursued a consistent opposition policy. However, this should not prove successful. In the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 1998 , the CDU experienced a debacle. A loss of 12.4% of the vote meant that the CDU was no longer the strongest parliamentary group. The red-red cooperation continued and the CDU remained in the opposition. Wolfgang Böhmer became the new party chairman .

In the local elections at the beginning of June 1999, the CDU had clearly become the strongest political force in many circles. Nationwide, the Christian Democrats were ten percentage points stronger than the SPD with 37.8 percent of the vote.

In 2001, Wolfgang Böhmer took over the chairmanship of the parliamentary group and entered the running as the top candidate in the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 2002 .

Again ruling party

The state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 2002 were clearly won by the CDU. A 15.3 percentage point increase in the vote made the CDU the strongest party again. With 37.3% of the votes, the result of the local elections was almost reached. Together with the liberals, who were again represented in the state parliament with 13.3%, a civil coalition was again formed under Wolfgang Böhmer. In 2004 Thomas Webel was elected state chairman.

In the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 2006 , the CDU remained stable. However, major losses by the FDP made it impossible for the coalition to continue. Instead, there was a black-red coalition under Prime Minister Wolfgang Böhmer.

The previous Minister of Economic Affairs, Reiner Haseloff, was the top candidate for the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 2011 . The CDU achieved a result of 32.5% and thus, despite losses, remained clearly the strongest force ahead of the Left (23.7%) and the SPD (21.5%). Just a few days after the election, the CDU and SPD began negotiations to continue the black-red coalition. In his election, Haseloff was missing ten votes from the coalition camp; he was nevertheless elected Prime Minister to succeed Wolfgang Böhmer.

Since there was no longer a majority for black-red after the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 2016 , the first black-red-green coalition , also known as the Kenya coalition, was formed at state level under Prime Minister Haseloff. There were no other coalition options, as the right-wing populist AfD immediately became the second strongest party behind the CDU (29.8%) with 24.3%, the SPD (10.6%) collapsed dramatically, the Greens (5.2%) only barely and the FDP (4.9%) were again unable to move into the state parliament. The CDU rejected the formation of governments with AfD and leftists (16.3%). In November 2018, State Interior Minister Holger Stahlknecht was elected as the successor to Thomas Webel as the new CDU state chairman.

In 2019, the coalition got into a crisis with nationwide discussions after Stahlknecht and the CDU initially stood behind their district politician Robert Möritz , who had previously been a steward at an NPD demonstration and who wears a tattoo with a right-wing extremist motif. After Möritz left the CDU, the coalition crisis was initially over.

In September 2020, Prime Minister Haseloff announced that he would run for the third time as the CDU top candidate for the state election in Saxony-Anhalt in 2021. 

In November 2020, the Kenya coalition got into another serious crisis because of a planned increase in the radio license by 86 cents a month. While the coalition partners SPD and Greens supported the increase in contributions for more solid financing of the public broadcasters, the CDU parliamentary group rejected this in principle and referred to the coalition agreement, which in this case provided for “contribution stability”. Another explosive factor arose from the possibility that the CDU and the AfD could have voted against the contribution increase in the state parliament. Representatives of the SPD and the Greens announced that they saw no basis for a continuation of the coalition should a black-blue majority reject the bill for the amended so-called State Media Treaty , which includes the higher contribution, in the state parliament. While Prime Minister Haseloff tried to reach a compromise between the coalition partners, Interior Minister and CDU country chief Stahlknecht suggested in a newspaper interview that if efforts failed, the CDU could end the coalition and form a minority government with the support of the AfD. Haseloff then dismissed Stahlknecht from his ministerial office on December 4, 2020, justifying this by saying that the uncoordinated statements by the interior minister had disrupted the relationship of trust so severely that Stahlknecht could no longer belong to the state government. Stahlknecht protested against the allegations, but subsequently announced that he would be stepping down as CDU state chairman on December 8, 2020. Haseloff himself avoided a joint vote between the CDU parliamentary group and the AfD parliamentary group in the state parliament against the increase in contributions by withdrawing the bill on the amended state media treaty. Although its entry into force on January 1, 2021 failed for the time being, the SPD and the Greens agreed to continue the coalition in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany .

After the deputy state chairmen Heike Brehmer , André Schröder and Marco Tullner initially led the CDU state association after the resignation of Holger Stahlknecht, Secretary General Sven Schulze became the CDU's first digital state party congress on March 27, 2021 with 78.8% of the delegate's votes elected new and to date youngest state chairman of the CDU Saxony-Anhalt. The office of Secretary General will remain vacant until another state party conference in October 2021.

On June 6, 2021, the day of the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt , the result of the CDU caused a surprise. Contrary to a bad CDU national trend and the pre-election surveys, which estimated the party at 26-30%, the state CDU improved by 7.3% to 37.1% and distanced the second-placed AfD by 16.3 percentage points. The CDU also improved the number of its direct mandates from 27 to 40 (with 41 constituencies). In addition to a majority for the previously ruling Kenya coalition, the election result also enabled the formation of a government between the CDU, SPD (8.4%) and FDP (6.4%) ( Germany coalition ), CDU, FDP and the Greens (5.9%) ) ( Jamaica coalition ) as well as just between the CDU and SPD as a classic two-party alliance. Reiner Haseloff ruled out a collaboration with AfD (20.8%) and leftists (11.0%) in the run-up to the election. On June 7, 2021, the Greens ruled out a new edition of the Kenya coalition, but not the formation of a Jamaica coalition. For its part, the FDP had previously rejected a German coalition. Both parties referred to the fact that the CDU and SPD alone had a majority in the state parliament and another partner was not needed.

people

Party leader

Years	Chairman
July 1945 – May 1948	Leo Herwegen
May 1948 – February 1950	Erich Fascher
February 1950 – June 1950	Leopold Becker (acting)
June 1950 – July 1952	Joseph Wujciak
From 1952 to 1989 there was no regional association
February 1990 – November 1991	Gerd Gies
November 1991 – December 1993	Christoph Bergner
December 1993 – October 1998	Karl-Heinz Daehre
October 1998 – November 2004	Wolfgang Böhmer
November 2004 – November 2018	Thomas Webel
November 2018 – December 2020	Holger Stahlknecht
December 2020-March 2021	Heike Brehmer , André Schröder , Marco Tullner (acting)
since March 2021	Sven Schulze

Group chairmen

Siegfried Borgwardt, current group leader

Years	Chairman
1990-1991	Joachim Auer
1991-1993	Christoph Bergner
1993-1994	Jürgen Scharf
1994-2001	Christoph Bergner
2001-2002	Wolfgang Böhmer
2002-2011	Jürgen Scharf
March 23, 2011–20. April 2011	Pure Haseloff
2011-2016	André Schröder
since 2016	Siegfried Borgwardt

Results in the state elections

Election results

in percent

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%

'90

'94

'98

'02

'06

'11

'16

'21

Results of the state elections
year	voices	Seats	Top candidate
1990	39.0%	48	Gerd Gies
1994	34.4%	37	Christoph Bergner
1998	22.0%	28	Christoph Bergner
2002	37.3%	48	Wolfgang Böhmer
2006	36.2%	40	Wolfgang Böhmer
2011	32.5%	41	Pure Haseloff
2016	29.8%	30th	Pure Haseloff
2021	37.1%	40	Pure Haseloff

Web links

• 20 years of the CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt (PDF, 2 MB)
• Names and dates from six decades of party work , pp. 357–373 (Ed .: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , 2012)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hagen Eichler: Struggle for members: only three state parties are growing. January 13, 2021, accessed on February 9, 2021 (German). 
2. ^ Oskar Niedermayer : Party members according to federal states. Federal Agency for Civic Education , July 8, 2017, accessed on August 25, 2017 . 
3. ^ Martin Broszat, Gerhard Braas, Hermann Weber: SBZ manual. 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 , p. 538
4. ↑ Michael Richter : Die Ost-CDU 1948–1952: Between Resistance and Synchronization. 1990, ISBN 3-7700-0917-7 , pp. 46-48.
5. ^ Martin Broszat, Gerhard Braas, Hermann Weber: SBZ manual. 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 , p. 538.
6. ↑ [1] Final result, source: State Statistical Office Saxony-Anhalt
7. ↑ [2] SPD and CDU want quick success, source: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of March 29, 2011
8. ↑ [3] Stolpersteine, source: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of March 29, 2011
9. ^ Results of the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt
10. ^ Final result of the election of the 6th State Parliament of Saxony-Anhalt on March 20, 2011
11. ↑ Flash graphics for the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt at SpiegelOnline ( Memento of the original from March 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 21, 2011 
12. ↑ State Returning Officer: Election of the 7th State Parliament of Saxony-Anhalt on March 13, 2016 , accessed on March 15, 2016