ABSTRACT
The annual convention of the C D u in June 1988 was not a happy one for Helmut Kohl. Since the election of 1987 the party’s fortunes had sagged. Membership, which had risen from 287,000 in 1968 to a high of 735,000 in 1983, had fallen steadily to 693,000 in 1988. Member ship of the rival, but allied C S U, had also peaked in 1983 at 185,000 (74,000 in 1968), falling slightly to 184,000 in 1988. The membership of the coalition partner, FDP, had risen to 87,000 in 1981 (57,000 in 1968) but had fallen to 64,000 in 1986 and then had risen to 65,000 in 1988. By contrast, the opposition SPD had peaked with 1,022,000 in 1976 (732,000 in 1968) falling year by year to 910,000 in 1987 and remaining at that figure in 1988. Green membership was estimated at 44,000 having risen from 18,000 in 1980. In five out of six regional contests between 1987 and 1988 the C D U vote had fallen. In Hamburg, for the first time since the fall of Schmidt in 1982, an s P d/f D P coalition had been formed at Land level in August 1987. The economy was not performing well by post-war German standards. Kohl’s prestige in the opinion polls was low. There was talk in the C D u of finding a successor. One year later there was still no joy for Kohl. In the Land elections
in Schleswig-Holstein and West Berlin the c D u had failed and it had lost support in the election to the European Parliament:
Election to European Parliament in percent 1984 1989
SPD 37.5 37.3 CDU 37.4 29.6 CSU 8.5 8.2 FDP 4.8 5.6 Greens 8.2 8.4 Republicans — 7.1
The CDU had to fear a new challenge on the right which could put them out of office at the elections in 1990 as the N P D had in 1969 (see
Schonhuber’s Republikaner The r e p caused a minor sensation when they broke into the West Berlin parliament gaining 7.5 per cent in the Land election in January 1989. The defeat of the f d p there, combined with the r e p success, led to the removal of the C D U from office and the formation of S P D/Green coalition. A few weeks later the right-wing N P D gained 6.6 per cent of the vote and six seats in the Frankfurt local elections. The rep also did well in the two districts where they put up candidates. In June the REP gained 7.1 per cent of the vote in the election to the European Parliament. If the votes of other candidates are taken into account the far-right gained nearly 9 per cent. The REP gained 6 of West Germany’s 81 seats. The success of the R E P hit the prestige of the Federal Republic abroad and worried the politically responsible at home. The REP had been formed in 1983 by disaffected members of the
C S U and Franz Schonhuber, the former presenter of a popular chat show on Bavarian T V. The former C S U members thought that Franz Josef Strauss was going soft on Communism by his visits to the d d r and the help he gave to Honecker to secure a credit deal. Schonhuber had lost his job after he had published a book recounting his experiences in the wartime Waffen-S S. In the book Schonhuber did not identify with the Nazi regime and subsequently he dissociated himself from it in several interviews, such as the one in Der Spiegel (6 February 1989). The main planks of his party’s programme were law and order, restrictions on foreign immigration, German neutrality between the Soviet Union and the USA, and pan-European integra tion on Gaullist fines. At the 1989 European election the r e p strongly opposed further moves to integrate the Federal Republic into the European Community. They also wanted a ‘decriminalisation of German history’ which, they believed, had been dominated by the views of the Second World War victors. Surveys conducted by the Konrad Adenauer-Stiftung in 1989 re
vealed that r e p supporters tended to be in the 18-29 age group, men rather than women, blue-collar or self-employed rather than white collar employees, lived in small rather than large towns and had weak or no church affiliation. R E P supporters also tended to be over represented among those who had only completed basic education. In some respects, therefore, they were different from earlier far-right
supporters. Some observers have pointed out that the r e p was successful among young people at a time of high youth unemploy ment. In 1987, for instance, 16.5 per cent of those aged 20-24 were unemployed compared to 8.9 per cent for the population as a whole. There has also been speculation that the REP appealed more to those in the insecure sectors of the economy who feared job competition from newcomers. The death of Franz Josef Strauss in October 1988 had left a gap on the right in German politics, especially but not only, in Bavaria. Schonhuber hoped to exploit the opportunity presented by the empty stage. The N P D had been in existence since the 1960s. It had been a
complete failure though it is true that it more than doubled its percentage of the vote in 1987 compared with 1983, 0.6 as against 0.2 per cent. In 1989 it had about 7,000 members. Unlike the R E P its activities were monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (B f V). On the extreme right there were also a number of tiny, openly Nazi organisations, in some cases engaged in political violence. In its 1989 annual report the B f v recorded 103 acts of violence by right-wing extremists, 12 of these involved arson, 52 bodily harm and one death. According to the B f V far-right bodies, including the NPD but not the r e p , had about 35,000 members in 1989. They had increased each year since 1986 when the total was 22,100. Worrying though the REP were, they were simply part of a wider
European phenomenon of parties hostile to the existing political establishment and to foreign immigrants. These included the French National Front; the Italian MSI; the Swiss Vigilants, Action National and the Autopartei; the Vlaams Blok in Belgium; to a degree the Freedom Party in Austria; and the various anti-tax and ‘progressive’ parties in Scandinavia.
