Germany has five major political parties, with their own traditional colours:
- CDU/CSU (Black/Blue): actually a political grouping of two parties, known generally as "The Union", the latter is essentially a Bavarian version of the former and they do not stand against each other, but there are policy differences. The Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union) is a Christian Democratic Party. Not quite the same thing as a conservative party- you will get one or the other in Europe, but not both- it is a non-denominational party, which opposes Turkey entering the EU. Angela Merkel, Chancellor Number 8, is the most recent CDU Chancellor (2005-2021), she was the first female Chancellor and the first "Ossie" (former East German) in that role. Four other chancellors also were in the CDU: Konrad Adenauer (first chancellor; "the old one", being almost 90 years old when he retired), Ludwig Erhard (the fat one with the cigar; very successful in building up the economy after the war, less successful as chancellor), Kurt Georg Kiesinger (the "silver-tongued one" who was once a member of the NSDAP and made a grand coalition with the SPD), Helmut Kohl (the really big one, united Germany, favorite target for jokes, parodies, caricatures, and so on- his surname means "cabbage").
- SPD (Red): Social-Democrat party; the initials stand for Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social-democratic Party of Germany). The oldest major party in Germany, it has existed since 1875, and was originally the main vehicle of Marxism in Imperial Germany. As such, they were originally a real left party, albeit one with a distinctly parliamentary focus from the beginning. (Which is entirely in keeping with Marxism; Karl Marx himself—who personally knew and had occasional fights with many if not most of the SPD's founding members—strongly advocated for socialist participation in bourgeois parliamentary politics as setting up necessary groundwork for the workers' revolution.) Over the years, however, it first dropped its commitment to workers' revolution (becoming a purely parliamentary labour party) and then scrapped a lot of its traditional socialist (and particularly Marxist) ideology to live at the hazy border between social liberalism and social democracy (as did Labour in Britain under Tony Blair). Four chancellors were in the SPD so far: Willy Brandt (made the famous Ostverträge - treaties with the East and also commissioned the Brandt Report on the North-South divide), Helmut Schmidt, and Gerhard Schröder (cigar-smoking "Genosse der Bosse" - "comrade of the bosses")and the Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had been elected in 2021.
- Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens, colour obvious)- A combination of the old West German Green Party and a collection of GDR civil rights activists, it is the most successful such party in the world. Partnered with the SPD in the Schröder era, the German involvement in the 1999 war against Yugoslavia led to some resignations from the party. The most famous Green politician is former Foreign Minister Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer, a former Marxist who was witnessed throwing a brick at a policeman during a riot when he was younger, was sworn in as the Hesse Minister of the Environment wearing sneakers (currently at a museum), and famously told the Vice-President of the Bundestag, "Mit Verlaub, Herr Präsident, Sie sind ein Arschloch" ("With respect, Mr. President, you are an asshole"). (He remains one of the most popular and respected politicians in Germany, across party lines.) In 2011, the Greens "won" an election for the first time in traditionally-CDU Baden-Württemberg
; although they were only the second-largest party in the Landtag after the election (up from third), they were also the only party to gain seats and will be providing the next Minister-President. As of 2016 The Greens are now the largest Party in the Landtag and formed a coalition with the CDU as the SPD lost to many seats for a Green-Red coalition.
- Die Linke (The Left, Red - or pink, since red is already assigned to the SPD). The old Socialist Unity Party (SED) that ran East Germany lost most of its old members and renamed itself to PDS. When it eventually merged with the WASG, a small western party consisting mostly of former SPD-members, it got more popular. They do much better in the former GDR states, although they did very well in the 2009 state elections in the traditionally-CDU Saarland, becoming the third-largest party in the Landtag. As of 2016 they are the leading Partner in a Left-SPD-Green coalition wich rules Thuringia.
- The smallest party in the Bundestag.
- FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei-Free Democratic Party- yellow), a liberal party (folks from the USA and Canada should read that as "libertarian") and coalition partners to the CDU/CSU. Occasionally, also to the SPD. In some lands even including the Greens. The coalitions involving the FDP and the Greens have funny names: With the SPD, it's the "traffic light coalition" (Ampelkoalition in German) because, well, red, yellow, and green, get it? With the CDU/CSU it's usually called a "Jamaica coalition" because of the similarity to the flag of Jamaica (black, yellow, green). The SPD-led ministry of Olaf Scholz since late 2021 is an Ampelkoalition with the FDP and Greens taking several important Cabinet posts.
- Did not make it into the Bundestag in the 2013 elections for the first time in its history.
- AfD (Alternative für Deutschland - Alternative for Germany - blue), an eurosceptical/anti-Islam party created in early 2013, run by Frauke Petry. Infamous for harboring some lunatics and is often considered by the German media as right of the Union. It is often pointed as the reason the FDP is no longer in parliament. They managed to enter four Landtage in 2016 and became the second-largest party in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg Vorpommern.
- Made it into the Bundestag for the first time in the 2017 election, second smallest Party in the Bundestag.
- Piraten (Piratenpartei - Pirate Party - orange), a pirate party. They have been stuck at 2% in elections after much hype between the 2009 and 2013 elections. Unfortunately, the very transparent nature of the party led to very publicized internal fights which shook their image in Germany.
- NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands - German National Democratic Party - black, red and yellow, though they are commonly associated with brown) is a far-right party, and is considered to be the most significant post-war neo-Nazi organization. They are particularly strong in the East, often entering state parliaments. After what looked like a small resurgence in the 2009 elections, they were deserted in the 2013. It is postulated in the media that they lost a large amount of votes to the Alternative. There have been two attempts to ban then so far which both failed. The first one failed due to the party being full of ''Verfassungsschutz'' operatives while the second failed with the official reasoning that while the NPD undoubtedly tries to overthrow the constitutional order and replace it with fascism, there is no chance of them actually succeeding, so banning them would be a waste of time.
- Did not make it into the Bundestag ever.
These are not the sole parties, of course. Of particular note are the Neo-Nazi parties. Nazi parties (as other anti-democratic / anti-human rights parties) are prohibited by Article 21 of the Basic Law, but these groups are still around and have grown in recent years, especially in the former GDR - until a series of shady party financing incidents lead to them verging on bankruptcy and taking a nose-dive in the last few elections. The No Swastikas law means that they instead use the flag of Imperial Germany.
The 2005 election, called after Schröder arranged to deliberately lose a vote of confidence, a controversial act the German Constitutional Court looked at and accepted, resulted in neither the "Black-Yellow" (Union/FDP) or "Red-Green" (SPD/Green) having a majority. With PDS/The Left refusing to play with anyone (or the other way round), the FDP not interested in a "Traffic-Light Coalition" (SPD/FDP/Green, or Red-Yellow-Green) and the Greens not happy about a "Jamaica Coalition" (Union-FDP-Green, their colours are those of the Jamaican flag), the only option was a Grand Coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD. Merkel became Bundeskanzlerin. Schröder left the scene.
The 2009 election resulted in the CDU/CSU and FDP gaining enough seats to form a governing coalition. However both CDU and SPD suffered their worst result in a democratic election ever, while the FDP got far more votes than ever before. However internal conflicts in the government started to arise just a few weeks later, and three months after the election polls showed that support for the FDP had dropped by 75%. Since then, prospects have gotten much, much worse for the government, with the CDU/CSU's poll numbers going into steady decline, although Merkel herself remains fairly popular. If current trends hold—and there is some talk (not much, but some) of having elections well before the October 2013 deadline—the results of the Baden-Württemberg election in 2011 may well prove to be prophetic: the Greens have come within striking distance of the SPD (whose support has been hovering in the 22%-26% range since early 2011) in most recent polls. Since the Baden-Württemberg election, the Greens have, with one exception, either been statistically tied with the SPD or slightly ahead of them, indicating that Germans increasingly see them as a party of government.
The 2013 election in some ways was a reversal of 2009. Both the SPD and CDU/CSU gained seats at the expense of the Greens, the Left, and the FPD. Indeed, the CDU were only 5 seats short of an absolute majority. Their traditional coalition partners, the FDP, did not even clear the 5% threshold needed to get seats and thus received no seats in the Federal Parliament. Although the SPD gained 47 seats, their likely coalition partner, the Greens, lost seats so a Red/Green coalition wouldn't have enough seats. Lengthy coalition negotiations (complicated by a brief flirtation with a CDU/CSU - Green coalition on both sides) ultimately resulted in a grand coalition with Merkel as chancellor.
In the 2017 election, the CDU/CSU got 32.9% of votes, the lowest result since 1949. The SPD suffered even more, achieving its worst result since World War II with only 20.5% of votes. The FDP managed to re-enter the Bundestag and the AfD entered the Bundestag for the first time. The exploratory talks between CDU/CSU, the Greens and FDP were broken off by the FDP and even though the SPD insisted at first not to enter a great coalition, they eventually did after a postal vote among their members.
