1957 West German federal election
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All 497 seats in the Bundestag 249 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Registered | 35,400,923 ( 6.9%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 87.8% ( 1.8pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The left side shows constituency winners of the election by their party colours. The right side shows party list winners of the election for the additional members by their party colours. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Politics of Germany |
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Federal elections were held in West Germany on 15 September 1957 to elect the members of the third Bundestag. The Christian Democratic Union and its longtime ally, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, won a sweeping victory, taking 270 seats in the Bundestag to win the first–and, to date, only–absolute majority for a single German parliamentary group in a free election.
This was the first West German federal election to take place in the Saarland, which–as Saar protectorate–had been a separate entity under French control between 1946 and 1956.
Only four parties won seats in the 1957 election, which was a consolidation of the party system relative to the 1953 and 1949 elections where six and ten parties won seats respectively. As the CDU/CSU won a majority of seats, it formed a government without coalition partners.