1972 West German federal election
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 19 November 1972 to elect the members of the 7th Bundestag. In the first snap elections since the resumption of democratic elections in 1949, the Social Democratic Party became the largest party in parliament for the first time since 1930, winning 230 of the 496 seats. The coalition with the Free Democratic Party was resumed.
Image: Bundesarchiv Bild 183 M0130 303, Willy Brandt
Image: Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild F038035 0007, Wiesbaden, CDU Parteitag, Barzel (cropped)
Image: Bundesarchiv Bild 146 1989 047 20, Walter Scheel
Barzel in victory pose at a CDU election rally in Cologne
The Bundestag is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people, comparable to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The Bundestag was established by Title III of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 as one of the legislative bodies of Germany and thus it is the historical successor to the earlier Reichstag.
Bundestag
The German Unity Flag is a national memorial to German reunification that was raised on 3 October 1990; it waves in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, seat of the Bundestag.
Bundestag ballot from the 2005 election in the Würzburg district. The column for the constituency vote (with the name, occupation, and address of each candidate) is on the left in black print; the column for the party list vote (showing top five list candidates in the state) is on the right in blue print.
The Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, one of the official buildings of the complex, housing the parliamentary library
