Comrade trend

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All federal elections from 1957 to 1972 brought gains for the SPD.

The term “Comrade Trend” describes the upswing in German social democracy from the end of the 1950s. The expression has been detectable since the first half of the 1960s. The phenomenon ended in the 1970s.

Usage, definitions

The turning point goes back to a statement made by the journalist and SPD campaigner Karl Garbe , who said after the adoption of the Godesberg program in 1959: "Even the trend has become comrade." This resulted in "comrade trend". The news magazine Der Spiegel made the expression the headline of an article in 1964 about strong SPD gains in local elections. It reported that the designation came from the "language used by board officials". Commentators and actors took up the personification and wrote after the 1965 federal election: “Comrade Trend is marching”, “is turning around” because the SPD has not yet received a majority, but is “clearly pointing upwards”.

By comrade was meant an SPD member, by trend a new social movement. The phrase was defined as an expression for “the SPD's steady increase in voters since the late 1950s”, as a “catchphrase for a left-wing tendency among the electorate”, as a “helper in political, economic and other goals” and as a “personifying term for public opinion ". The historian Paul Nolte called the “comrades trend” a “reduced version of the Hegelian world spirit” because of its supposed inevitability.

Continuous gains in votes by socialist parties abroad, with other parties in Germany, in the pre-war history of the SPD or general ongoing social developments have been and are paraphrased as a “comrade trend” . The phenomenon of constant power growth ended in the SPD in the first half of the 1970s.

“Comrade Trend” in numbers

The "comrade trend" in its original meaning is often expressed in numbers. After the result of the 1953 Bundestag election for the SPD was still 28.8 percent, it rose in the five Bundestag elections from 1957 to 1972 from 31.8 to 45.8 percent. It increased steadily by 3.0 to 4.4 percent each time. In 1966 the SPD took part in a grand coalition under Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) for the first time in a federal government and, from 1969, formed a social-liberal coalition under Willy Brandt . In 1972 the SPD was the strongest parliamentary group in the Bundestag for the first time.

From 1964 the number of SPD members rose rapidly.

In the period from 1954 to 1976 the number of party members almost doubled. “Comrade Trend” was also evident in the state elections. In North Rhine-Westphalia , the SPD election result rose from 32.3 percent of the vote in 1950 to 49.5 percent in 1966. From 1956 to 1958, under Fritz Steinhoff , a social-liberal coalition was established there for the first time , and from 1966 under Heinz Kühn until 1978. In 1957 Hamburg succeeded in regaining the majority of the citizens, which from 1953 had been with the bourgeois Hamburg block . In Hesse , the SPD ruled alone from 1966 under Georg-August Zinn .

Periodization, explanations, "comrade trend", "citizen trend"

Politologically, the strengthening was explained primarily in the 1960s by the abandonment of inner-party traditionalism and the programmatic opening with the Godesberg program of 1959. Therefore, the period of the "Comrades Trend" is seen from 1957 or from the end of the 1950s to around 1972 . Social scientists in 1965 described him as “that ominous figure behind which the more or less drastic structural shifts in social policy within the individual constituencies were hidden”. It was also asserted that the SPD “as a party of social change was primarily young, reform-oriented and highly educated To win followers ”.

According to the news magazine Der Spiegel , the majority of the SPD in 1972 was based on a relatively higher increase in female voters than voters. "The much vaunted Comrade Trend turned out to be a chimera, but Comrade Trend is currently fully up to speed," it commented. As a term, “comrade trend” also found its way into journalism.

The turn of employees, civil servants and the self-employed to the SPD was given the derived designation Bürger Trend . The term was also used for votes gains the "bourgeois" opposition parties used in the general election in 1976: "Comrade trend is dead, citizens trend alive," commented the German presenter Peter Merseburger the election results.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinz Dietl: Bonn journalist and publicist celebrates his birthday on Sunday. In: general-anzeiger-bonn.de , April 21, 2013, online , accessed on August 2, 2013
  2. ↑ Comrade Trend. In: Der Spiegel , November 4, 1964, online , accessed July 26, 2013
  3. ↑ Bernd Faulenbach: History of the SPD. Munich 2012, no page, excerpt, accessed on July 26, 2013
  4. ^ Robert Haerdter : Signals and stations 1945/1973. Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1974, p. 396
  5. ↑ Manfred Koch (Red.): The focus is on people. Speeches by Karlsruhe SPD MPs. Karlsruhe 2001, p. 39
  6. ↑ Gustav Bebermeyer, Renate Bebermeyer: Modified formulas - linguistic expression of our time. In: mother tongue. Volume 87, 1977, pp. 1-42, here p. 36
  7. ^ Hermann Paul: German Dictionary , 10th edition, Tübingen 2002, p. 1019, sv Trend
  8. ↑ Duden. The large dictionary of the German language in ten volumes. 3rd edition, Mannheim 1999, p. 3960 sv Trend
  9. ^ Lutz Röhrich: Lexicon of the proverbial types of speech. 5th edition Freiburg 2001, p. 1636 fsv Trend
  10. ↑ Paul Nolte: What is Democracy? History and present. Munich 2012, p. 348
  11. ^ Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Max Kaase: Elections and political process. Analyzes on the occasion of the Federal Parliament election 1983. Opladen 1986, p. 378
  12. ^ Andreas Feser: Wealth Power and Media Influence. Party-owned companies and equal opportunities for the parties. Berlin 2003, p. 95 (= Diss. Würzburg 2003)
  13. ^ Alf Mintzel, Heinrich Oberreuter: Parties in the Federal Republic of Germany. Opladen 1992, p. 76
  14. ^ Theo Sommer (editor): 60 Years of the Federal Republic in the Mirror of Time. Sixty formative controversies. Gütersloh 2009, p. 262
  15. ↑ Joel Busch, Friedmar Lüke: We had a choice. Munich 1965, p. 101
  16. ^ Christiane Frantz, Klaus Schubert: Introduction to Political Science . 2nd edition, Berlin, Münster 2010, p. 121
  17. ↑ Comrade Trend. In: Der Spiegel, July 14, 1975, online , accessed August 22, 2013
  18. ↑ z. B. Konrad Adam: Comrade Trend. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 17, 1988
  19. ^ Karl Schmitt: Confession and voting behavior in the Federal Republic of Germany. Berlin 1989, p. 144
  20. ↑ Words of choice. In: Die Zeit , October 8, 1976, online , accessed August 2, 2013