Election of the German Federal President in 1954

Theodor Heuss

Berlin special postage stamp for the election in Berlin

On July 17, 1954, Federal President Theodor Heuss was re-elected to office in the first ballot by the Federal Assembly with the highest result ever achieved by a candidate. Heuss received 871 votes, which corresponds to 85.6% of the 1018 members of the Federal Assembly and 88.2% of the 987 votes cast. In the Federal Assembly, the CDU / CSU with 431 and FDP with 112 seats had a total of 543 seats and thus a clear absolute majority . In view of this, the SPD, with its 347 seats, decided not to propose its own election in order to instead support Heuss, who had gained general respect in the five years of his first term in office.

The only opposing candidate was Alfred Weber , whom the KPD proposed without his consent and who received twelve votes corresponding to her twelve seats. Weber later announced that he had neither asked nor authorized the KPD to propose him in the Federal Assembly and that he was resolutely against this abuse of his name.

Six other people each received one vote. The announcement of their names was received with glee by the Federal Assembly. However, when the name of the war criminal Karl Dönitz , who was still in custody at the time , was mentioned, shouts of sham were heard.

After these processes, the law on the election of the Federal President by the Federal Assembly of April 25, 1959 introduced a restriction of the election to approved nominations for the next federal presidential election, to which the written declaration of consent of the nominee must be attached.

The KPD MP Max Reimann caused a scandal when he took the floor in violation of Article 54 of the Basic Law (“The Federal President is elected by the Federal Assembly without debate”) and described the election of Heuss as “a misfortune for the German people” . Bundestag President Hermann Ehlers issued two calls to order .

While the first election of the German Federal President took place in Bonn in 1949 , the Federal Assembly has met in Berlin since 1954 , in the East Prussian Hall on the exhibition grounds (Berlin) . After the popular uprising of June 17, 1953 in East Berlin and the GDR , it was considered appropriate to emphasize and deepen ties between West Berlin and the federal government with regard to the Berlin question . At that time, neither the Western Powers nor the Soviet Union raised doubts or objections to this. This protested for the first time in 1959: The election of the head of state of the Federal Republic of Germany in the city of Berlin, which does not belong to it, violates its four-power status . After the four-power agreement on Berlin in 1971/72, the Federal Assembly met again in Bonn until the reunification of Germany , namely in the Beethoven Hall .

Since the Federal Assembly of 1954, the members of the Federal Assembly from Berlin who had not yet been entitled to vote in 1949 also voted for the Federal President. In contrast, the Berlin MPs in the German Bundestag , who were not directly elected until reunification, but were sent to the Bundestag by the Berlin House of Representatives, had no voting rights.

Berlin, July 17, 1954 - total votes: 1018 - absolute majority: 510

Ballot	candidate	Number of votes	proportion of	Political party
1st ballot	Theodor Heuss	871	85.6%	FDP
	Alfred Weber	12	1.2%	proposed by the KPD
	Konrad Adenauer	1	0.1%	CDU
	Karl Doenitz	1	0.1%
	Louis Ferdinand Prince of Prussia	1	0.1%
	Marie-Elisabeth Lüders	1	0.1%	FDP
	Ernst-August of Hanover	1	0.1%
	Franz-Josef Wuermeling	1	0.1%	CDU
	Abstentions or invalid	98	9.6%
	No voting	31	3.0%
Theodor Heuss was thus re-elected Federal President.

Web links

• Information about the Federal Assembly on the homepage of the Bundestag