North Rhine Westphalia

[mountvernon]

I'm a person of strange obsessions, and my latest is German political geography.  I'm an American and an amateur at this topic, so bear with my limited knowledge.

I have a few questions to pitch at those who know more than I do, but here's the first:

In the 1950s, North Rhine Westphalia was the early heartland of the CDU, and voted for the party by more than the national average into the 1960s.  But the NRW gradually trended to the left, and by the 1970s, it had become the SPD's best major Land, which it has usually remained (Brandenburg and Lower Saxony have been its main competition). Just by eyeballing electoral maps, it appears the biggest shift occurred in the Rhine cities of Cologne, Dusseldorf, and Bonn.

So what happened?  Here are a couple of hypotheses for you to evaluate, but I would love to hear other ones.

1. Secularization.  The Rhineland was one of the heartlands of political Catholicism, but it now appears to be one of the more secular regions of western Germany.  Did the "Catholic vote" for the CDU dry up as churches emptied in the 1960s and 1970s?

2.  The "Christian Left."  The NRW seems to have been the center of progressive Christian politics, both Protestant and Catholic, after World War II: Karl Arnold, Helene Wessel, Gustav Heinemann, the ill-fated Gesamtdeutsche Partei, etc.  Most of these figures either supported the CDU in its early years or tried to revive the Center Party, but usually drifted into the SPD, especially after Bad Godesberg.  Were there enough of these people to matter?

[mountvernon]

I'm a person of strange obsessions. 

You have come to the right place.

Home at last.

[mountvernon]

Thank you!  So the "Christian Left" hypothesis has some validity, particular given the Christian trade union heritage in the NRW.  Would you say that the Rhineland has a relatively high number of SPD Catholics?  I noticed that the last two minister-presidents of the Rhineland-Palatinate are SPD Catholics.  (I know that Catholics are heavily CDU, but if you look at polls, at least some do vote SPD).  And according to Wikipedia, Oskar Lafontaine identifies as a nonobservant Catholic.  He even studied for the priesthood as a young man.  (A Saarlander and a Leftist, I know, but he can't be the only one).

Does my secularization hypothesis have any strength?  Cologne's City Council is dominated by parties of the left, with the Greens almost as strong as the CDU and SPD. (It's not as left-wing as Hamburg or Berlin, but where is?)  Aachen and Munster, two university towns with ancient Catholic traditions, are now centers of support for the Greens.  I'm guessing that the Church doesn't have the influence it once did.

[mountvernon]

Note that I said a "relatively high" number of SPD Catholics in the Rhineland.  I meant relative to elsewhere in Germany, especially the South.  I know that practicing Catholics are the base of the CDU, and I'm sure that, even in the NRW, Catholics are much less likely to back the SPD than are either Protestants or the unaffiliated.

[mountvernon]

Is it fair to say that Southern Protestants are less likely to support the SPD than are their northern brethren?  The Protestant areas of Baden-Wuerttemberg  and Bavaria seem to support the center-right parties, if not quite as unanimously as their Catholic neighbors.  (And Ba-Wu is less Catholic than either the NRW or Rhineland-Palatinate).  

Is this because of relatively higher religiosity?  (I know that Wuerttemberg has a reputation for Protestant piety, but I don't know about Baden or Franconia).  Or just because these areas are relatively affluent?

[mountvernon]

Well, what makes Baden-Wuerttemberg so Baden-Wuerttembergish? 

The CDU does better than it "should," given the percentage of Catholics.

B-W Protestants seem to have no problem voting CDU.

The FDP has enduring strength there like nowhere else (although I gather they aren't doing well now).  Is it just an indigenous liberal tradition?

[mountvernon]

Thanks, palandio.  So both B-W and Franconia had many Protestants with strong non-socialist political traditions (liberal and extreme-right, respectively).  Neither area has had much heavy industry, I gather.  And I believe both areas have reputations for religious piety.  So they were well suited to back the CDU/CSU/FDP.

Do any wags call the CSU "the marriage of the black and the brown?"

[mountvernon]

In both Baden and Wuerttemberg, the relative weakness of the Left and the strength of the Zentrum and the liberals are clear.  The same site (thanks, BTW) has Land elections -- the CDU-FDP domination of Baden-Wuerttemberg (until the latest election) is comparable to that of the CSU in Bavaria.

Wuerttemberg seems to be one of the few places that the CSVD showed strength in 1930.  It was formed by former DNVP moderates as a Protestant counterpart to the Zentrum.

What's with the large farmers' party in Wuerttemberg?

Interesting that Protestant-leaning Wuerttemberg was more resistant to the NSDAP than was Catholic-leaning Baden.  Very much contrary to the national pattern.

[mountvernon]

So between the Zentrum, the liberals, the CSVD, and the Peasants, the CDU-FDP coalition in Baden-Wuerttemberg had deep roots.  The DNVP is always hard to classify -- conservative or extreme right -- since it had both elements.  

Did the BBB leave any post-1945 legacy?  Its heartland of Lower Bavaria turned its affections to the Bavaria Party in the 1950s, but the cartoonishly reactionary and ultra-Catholic BP would seem to have little in common with the anti-clerical BBB.

[mountvernon]

It looks like rural Protestants in Middle & Upper Franconia went from  backing the NSDAP and the DNVP under Weimar to the CSU in the postwar era.  There was also a lot of support for the BHE/GB in the 1950s, but that would have mostly been from expellees.  (But Franconia would have many "GB's.")   By the 1960s and 1970s, the CSU was consistently winning pluralities in these regions, and today, it performs close to its statewide average there.  But even in the 1950s, the CSU was performing better in Middle and Upper Franconia than the BVP ever did.

Its growth occurred mostly at the expense of the BP and the BHE/GB.  But the FDP's Franconian base has gradually disappeared as well.  (Today, it looks like the FDP's "base" in Bavaria is in the Munich area).  

From what I understand, the CSU's rise to dominance in Bavaria (far exceeding anything the BVP achieved) owed much to the following factors:
1. As a federalist (not separatist) and interconfessional party, the CSU could appeal to Franconian Protestants in a way that the BVP or BP could never do. But being an independent Land-based party gave it a greater claim on "Bavarian pride."
2. The CSU actively courted the expellees, both with material and non-material incentives.  The BP was more xenophobic.
3. The CSU presided over a period of rapid economic growth.  Its competitiveness in the Munich area makes me think that the CSU doesn't have difficulty winning support from newcomers to Bavaria.
4.  Being the dominant party confers all sorts of advantages.  Interest groups will accommodate you, ambitious politicians will not want to pursue careers in other parties, etc.

How much did the arrival of the Sudeten Germans change politics in Bavaria?  They were mostly Catholic and intensely anti-Communist, but Bavaria was not then used to outsiders.  There was also a socialist tradition among the Sudeten Germans that was mostly absent among Bavarian Catholics.

[mountvernon]

Why did BP moderates switch to the CSU?  Because independence was increasingly unrealistic?