German Federal Elections
AS OF 2026-08-30 · 66 CONTESTS · federal election, 23 February 2025 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
Next election · presidential election by the Federal Convention, 30 January 2027; federal election expected 2029 · Capital · Berlin in the metro rankings →
Where the chamber sits · 5.2 of 10, left to right, spread 2.3 →
Every German national election from the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848 to the Bundestag of 2025: Empire, Weimar, dictatorship, Bonn and Berlin republics, with the results, the chancellors and the story of each, for novices and experts alike.
National elections
50
1848–2025, across five constitutional orders
Latest
2025
CDU/CSU · Friedrich Merz
Bundestag seats today
630
316 for a majority
Universal male suffrage
1871
women vote from 1919, earlier than Britain, France or the US
The chronology
Every national election, newest first, grouped into six eras, including, clearly labelled, the unfree votes of the Nazi years. Click any election for the full result and the story.
The Berlin Republic · 1990–2025
The 1990 reunification election joined two electorates into one. Schröder's red–green project, the Merkel era's four wins, the arrival of the Greens, Left and AfD as fixtures, and the 2025 election after the traffic-light coalition's collapse trace the reunified republic's widening party system.
CDU/CSU 208AfD 152SPD 120
SPD 206CDU/CSU 197Greens 118
CDU/CSU 246SPD 153AfD 94
CDU/CSU 311SPD 193Left 64
CDU/CSU 239SPD 146FDP 93
CDU/CSU 226SPD 222FDP 61
SPD 251CDU/CSU 248Greens 55
SPD 298CDU/CSU 245Greens 47
CDU/CSU 294SPD 252Greens 49
CDU/CSU 319SPD 239FDP 79
The Bonn Republic · 1949–1987
West Germany's founding election in 1949 began the Adenauer era and one of the century's great party systems: CDU/CSU against SPD with the FDP as kingmaker. Brandt's Ostpolitik victories, Schmidt's chancellorship and Kohl's 1983 confirmation all turned on it, with turnout peaking above 91%.
CDU/CSU 223SPD 186FDP 46
CDU/CSU 244SPD 193FDP 34
CDU/CSU 226SPD 218FDP 53
CDU/CSU 243SPD 214FDP 39
SPD 230CDU/CSU 225FDP 41
CDU/CSU 242SPD 224FDP 30
CDU/CSU 245SPD 202FDP 49
CDU/CSU 242SPD 190FDP 67
CDU/CSU 270SPD 169FDP 41
CDU/CSU 243SPD 151FDP 48
CDU/CSU 139SPD 131Social Democratic Party 96
The destruction of democracy · 1933–1938
The March 1933 election was held five days after the Reichstag fire, under mass arrests and terror — the last with more than one party on the ballot. The single-list plebiscites of November 1933, 1936 and 1938 that followed were rituals of the dictatorship, recorded here as such, not as free elections.
Nazi Party and guests 814NSDAP 814
Nazi Party and guests 741NSDAP 741
Nazi Party and guests 661NSDAP 661
NSDAP 288SPD 120KPD 81others 14
The Weimar Republic · 1919–1932
Women voted from the first republican election in 1919, and pure proportional representation mapped every fracture of a society under strain. Nine elections in fourteen years ran from the founding coalition's triumph to the crisis votes of 1930–32 that made the NSDAP the largest party.
NSDAP 196SPD 121KPD 100others 26
NSDAP 230SPD 133KPD 89others 22
SPD 143NSDAP 107KPD 77others 111
SPD 153DNVP 73Centre 61others 80
SPD 131DNVP 103Centre 69others 62
SPD 100DNVP 95Centre 65others 73
SPD 103Social Democratic Party 103USPD 83
SPD 165Social Democratic Party 163CVP 91
The Imperial Reichstag · 1874–1912
Universal male suffrage made the Reichstag one of Europe's most democratically elected chambers, even as chancellors answered to the Kaiser, not to it. Bismarck built and discarded majorities against Catholics and socialists alike; by 1912 the outlawed-then-legalised SPD was the largest party in the chamber.
SPD 110Centre 90NLP 45others 52
Centre 101DKP 59NLP 56others 85
Centre 100SPD 81DKP 52others 72
Centre 102SPD 56DKP 53others 87
Centre 96DKP 69NLP 51others 85
Centre 107DKP 71DFP 67others 60
NLP 98Centre 98DKP 80others 35
Centre 99DKP 78DFP 66others 52
Centre 100DFP 58DKP 50others 69
NlP 97Centre 94DKP 59others 50
NlP 127Centre 93DKP 40others 51
NlP 147Centre 91DFP 48others 29
Revolution and unification · 1848–1871
From the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848 — the first assembly elected across the German lands — through the North German Confederation to the first Reichstag of the unified Empire in 1871, elections tracked the making of a German nation-state under Prussian leadership.
NlP 117Centre 58Conservatives 56others 36
National Liberal Party 8Clericals 5Conservatives 1others 71
NlP 80Conservatives 66DRP 36others 57
National Liberal Party 78Conservative Party 63Free Conservative Party 39
The presidency
Germany does not elect its president by popular vote. A Federal Convention meets once and dissolves: every member of the Bundestag, plus an equal number of delegates chosen by the state parliaments in proportion to their strength there. An absolute majority is needed on the first two ballots and a plurality is enough on the third, which is why the number of ballots below is a result and not a footnote: 5 of these 16 elections went past the first, and the Convention has a long history of not doing as it is told.
The Berlin republic 1994–
Reunification enlarged the Convention, and the office kept its habit of surprising people. Roman Herzog needed three ballots in 1994, Horst Köhler resigned in 2010 over a remark about the Bundeswehr, Christian Wulff resigned in 2012 over a home loan, and Gauck and Steinmeier restored a presidency that had started to look precarious.
Convention: SPD 391 · CDU 351 · Grüne 233
Convention: CDU/CSU 539 · SPD 384 · Grüne 147
Convention: CDU/CSU 486 · SPD 331 · Alliance '90/The Greens 147
Ballot record not on file.
Ballot record not on file.
The Bonn republic 1954–1989
West Germany gave its head of state no executive power and elected him by a Federal Convention that meets once and dissolves: every member of the Bundestag, plus an equal number of delegates chosen by the state parliaments. Theodor Heuss set the tone. Gustav Heinemann's win on the third ballot in 1969 signalled the coming SPD-FDP coalition a year before the voters did. Richard von Weizsäcker's 1985 speech on the fortieth anniversary of the surrender did more to define the office than anything in the Basic Law.
Convention: CDU/CSU 479 · SPD 419 · FDP 71
Convention: CDU/CSU 482 · SPD 449 · FDP 83
Convention: CDU/CSU 431 · SPD 347 · FDP 112
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure. The dictatorship's sham votes are excluded.
Turnout in free elections, 1848–2025
From roughly half the electorate in Bismarck's first Reichstag to the Bonn Republic's 91% peak in 1972, and a modern floor of 70.8% in 2009.
The Volksparteien and the SPD's long century
CDU/CSU and SPD together took nine votes in ten at their 1972–76 peak and barely one in two by 2025. The SPD line runs all the way back to the Kaiserreich, where it was the largest party by 1912.
Records & superlatives
Highest turnout (free elections)
91.1%
1972 federal election
Lowest turnout
51.0%
1871 federal election
Highest vote share
51.4%
National Liberal Party, 1868
Most seats won
319
CDU/CSU, 1990
Volksparteien at their peak
91.2%
CDU/CSU + SPD combined, 1976
Volksparteien at their weakest
44.9%
CDU/CSU + SPD combined, 2025
How German federal elections work
Two votes
Since 1949 each voter casts a first vote for a constituency candidate and a second vote for a party list. The second vote sets the party balance: proportionality is the system's spine, a deliberate answer to Weimar and to first-past-the-post alike.
The 5% hurdle
A party needs 5% of the national second vote (or three constituency wins) to enter the Bundestag. Adopted against Weimar-style fragmentation, it has kept the chamber to a handful of parties, and made every decimal around 5% an election-night drama.
Chancellor, not president
Voters elect a parliament, and the Bundestag elects the chancellor. No German chancellor has ever governed alone: every government since 1949 has been a coalition, negotiated for weeks after the vote.
Constructive no-confidence
The Bundestag can only remove a chancellor by electing a successor in the same motion, used successfully once, when Helmut Kohl replaced Helmut Schmidt in 1982. Another Weimar lesson built into the machinery.