| Election Name: | 1953 West German federal election |
| Country: | West Germany |
| Type: | parliamentary |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 1949 West German federal election |
| Previous Year: | 1949 |
| Next Election: | 1957 West German federal election |
| Next Year: | 1957 |
| Outgoing Members: | List of members of the 1st Bundestag |
| Elected Members: | List of members of the 2nd Bundestag |
| Seats For Election: | All 487 seats in the Bundestag |
| Majority Seats: | 244 |
| Registered: | 33,120,940 6.1% |
| Turnout: | 28,479,550 (86.0%) 7.5pp |
| Candidate1: | Konrad Adenauer |
| Party1: | CDU/CSU |
| Last Election1: | 31.0%, 139 seats |
| Seats1: | 243 |
| Seat Change1: | 104 |
| Popular Vote1: | 12,443,981 |
| Percentage1: | 45.2% |
| Swing1: | 14.2pp |
| Candidate2: | Erich Ollenhauer |
| Party2: | Social Democratic Party of Germany |
| Last Election2: | 29.2%, 131 seats |
| Seats2: | 151 |
| Seat Change2: | 20 |
| Popular Vote2: | 7,944,943 |
| Percentage2: | 28.8% |
| Swing2: | 0.4pp |
| Candidate3: | Franz Blücher |
| Party3: | Free Democratic Party (Germany) |
| Last Election3: | 11.9%, 52 seats |
| Seats3: | 48 |
| Seat Change3: | 4 |
| Popular Vote3: | 2,629,163 |
| Percentage3: | 9.5% |
| Swing3: | 2.4pp |
| Image4: | GB/BHE |
| Candidate4: | Waldemar Kraft |
| Party4: | All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights |
| Last Election4: | Did not exist |
| Seats4: | 27 |
| Seat Change4: | New party |
| Popular Vote4: | 1,616,953 |
| Percentage4: | 5.9% |
| Swing4: | New party |
| Candidate5: | Heinrich Hellwege |
| Party5: | German Party (1947) |
| Last Election5: | 4.0%, 17 seats |
| Seats5: | 15 |
| Seat Change5: | 2 |
| Popular Vote5: | 896,128 |
| Percentage5: | 3.3% |
| Swing5: | 0.7pp |
| Image6: | Zentrum |
| Candidate6: | Johannes Brockmann |
| Party6: | Centre Party (Germany, 1945) |
| Color6: | 0047AB |
| Last Election6: | 3.1%, 10 seats |
| Seats6: | 3 |
| Seat Change6: | 7 |
| Popular Vote6: | 217,078 |
| Percentage6: | 0.8% |
| Swing6: | 2.3pp |
| Map Size: | 333px |
| Government | |
| Before Election: | First Adenauer cabinet |
| Before Party: | CDU/CSU–FDP–DP |
| Posttitle: | Government after election |
| After Election: | Second Adenauer cabinet |
| After Party: | CDU/CSU–FDP–GB/BHE–DP |
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 6 September 1953 to elect the members of the second Bundestag. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) emerged as the largest party.
This elections were the last before Saarland joined West Germany in 1957. It had been a separate entity, Saar protectorate, under French control since 1946.
Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (who was also CDU leader) campaigned on his policies of economic reconstruction and growth, moderate conservatism or Christian democracy, and close relations with the United States. During the campaign he attacked the Social Democratic Party (SPD) ferociously. His staff had a comfortable coach on a train previously used only by Hermann Göring and behind that a dining car with sleeping berths for journalists.[1] The new SPD leader (Kurt Schumacher had died in 1952) was Erich Ollenhauer, who was more moderate in his policies than Schumacher had been. He did not oppose, in principle, the United States' military presence in Western Europe. He later – in 1957 – supported a military alliance of most European countries, including Germany.[2] [3] On 3 September American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said that "A defeat for Adenauer would have catastrophic consequences for the prospects for German reunification and the restoration of sovereignty" and that it would "trigger off such confusion in Germany that further delays in German efforts for reunification and freedom would be unavoidable."[1] Adenauer managed to convince clearly more West German voters of his leadership abilities and economic and political success to easily win a second term, although he had to form a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party and the conservative German Party to gain a majority in the Bundestag.
| State | Total seats | Seats won | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CDU | SPD | CSU | FDP | DP | DZP | |||
| Baden-Württemberg | 33 | 29 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| Bavaria | 47 | 3 | 42 | 2 | ||||
| Bremen | 3 | 3 | ||||||
| Hamburg | 8 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |||
| Hesse | 22 | 7 | 10 | 5 | ||||
| Lower Saxony | 34 | 13 | 11 | 2 | 8 | |||
| North Rhine-Westphalia | 66 | 51 | 13 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Rhineland-Palatinate | 15 | 13 | 2 | |||||
| Schleswig-Holstein | 14 | 14 | ||||||
| Total | 242 | 130 | 59 | 42 | 14 | 10 | 1 | |
| State | Total seats | Seats won | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPD | CDU | FDP | GB/ BHE | CSU | DP | DZP | |||
| Baden-Württemberg | 34 | 14 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 1 | |||
| Bavaria | 44 | 22 | 4 | 8 | 10 | ||||
| Bremen | 3 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
| Hamburg | 10 | 6 | 4 | ||||||
| Hesse | 22 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | |||
| Lower Saxony | 32 | 10 | 12 | 3 | 7 | ||||
| North Rhine-Westphalia | 72 | 34 | 21 | 11 | 3 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Rhineland-Palatinate | 16 | 7 | 5 | 4 | |||||
| Schleswig-Holstein | 12 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 1 | ||||
| Total | 245 | 106 | 61 | 34 | 27 | 10 | 5 | 2 | |
Konrad Adenauer remained Chancellor, governing in a broad coalition (two-thirds majority) with most of the minor parties except for the SPD and Centre Party.