Godesberger Program

Willy Brandt's political career receives its character and direction in the Berlin SPD. It is there that he begins his climb to become one of post-war Germany's leading politicians. In 1952 after the death of Kurt Schumacher, Erich Ollenhauer is elected chairman of the SPD . Without a direct confrontation with the party chairman, Brandt takes very different positions-as he did already under Schumacher- on issues relating to party reform, and on German as well as European and foreign policy problems and in regard to coalitions. His open position toward coalitions with bourgeois parties is obviously based on his experience since 1951 in Berlin with the ruling "grand coalition" of the SPD, the CDU , and the FDP. Brandt takes advantage of his position as editor-in-chief of the social democratic Berliner Stadtblatt to set forth positions that diverge from the official party line and to stimulate a discussion within the SPD.

Willy Brandt adressing the Godesberger Party Convention © Willy-Brandt-Archiv

After the defeat of the SPD in the federal elections of 1957, in which the CDU/CSU under federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer achieves an absolute majority, there are more and more advocates within the party for party reform-Willy Brandt has for years been counted with this group. At the 1958 Stuttgart Party Congress Brandt, who has been the Governing Mayor of Berlin since 1957, is elected to the Party Committee. In Stuttgart the Party adopts the decision to develop a new and more current basic program for the party.

In November 1959 the extraordinary Party Congress of the SPD takes place in Bad Godesberg and there the "Godesberger Program" is adopted. The SPD opens itself to a broad electorate and clears the way to becoming a people's party. The new Party Program omits passages from earlier programs that referred to Marxist teachings. In economic policy, the SPD retreats from its demand that key industries should be nationalized. Emphasis is placed on the protection and defense of the right to private ownership of the means of production (factories, machinery, etc.). With these declarations the SPD accepts the "social market economy" that has been the basis of the economic system of the German Federal Republic since 1948/49 based on the Party's principles of democratic socialism. The economic policy slogan of the SPD now is "as much market economy as possible; as much planning as required".

Manuscript of Willy Brandt's address to the Godesberger Party Convention © Willy-Brandt-Archiv

Brandt is convinced that the Godesberger Program can win a large electorate to the Party and that it can make enable the SPD to take on the responsibility of forming a government. He gives expression to this conviction in his address to the Godesberger Party Congress.

Ergebnisse der Bundestagswahl 1957
(Statistisches Bundesamt)