Wahlkampf radikal – Kurzführungen

Welcome to the Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg and to our special focus exhibition Wahlkampf radikal.

My name is Sebastian Dörfler. I am the curator of the exhibition, and I would now like to briefly introduce you to its central themes.

Our exhibition examines the election campaigns of radical, or from today’s perspective extremist, parties in Baden-Württemberg in the past. We demonstrate that the political climate in Baden-Württemberg was by no means always moderate. As early as 1952, election campaigns were already highly confrontational, and in later decades they could also become distinctly radical.

On the one hand, we present the campaign content of radical—or, from today’s point of view, extremist—parties from the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1990s. On the other hand, we also explore the counter-strategies developed by politics and society.

What responses were formulated to confront these radical campaigns?
How forcefully did others react?
How could the election propaganda of radical parties be countered?
Which strategies proved successful—and which perhaps did not?
And what factors did that depend on?

These are the questions we will explore in the exhibition.

At the center of our campaign arena stand the radical or extremist parties. Grouped around them are the various counter-strategies.

As early as the first state election in 1952—the election to the constitutional state assembly of Baden-Württemberg—radical parties entered the race. These were parties that we would likely describe today as extremist, meaning hostile to the constitution.

On the one hand, there was the Socialist Reich Party, a neo-Nazi party that clearly aligned itself with the Nazi Party (NSDAP). On the other hand, there was the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Both parties campaigned with more or less radical slogans.

The Socialist Reich Party called for an independent Germany free from occupying powers. The KPD campaigned against the government of Konrad Adenauer. Strangely, even in the context of a state election, the main focus was Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. “Adenauer must fall so that Germany may live.” The party openly called for the overthrow of the democratically elected government.

Its central campaign issue in 1952 was the question: Should Germany be rearmed? Should Germany have an army again? The KPD engaged in propaganda in the service of the East German (GDR) leadership. The aim was to undermine the Federal Republic’s alignment with the West and to prevent its integration into NATO.

The KPD was successful in this election campaign and entered the state parliament in 1952. The Socialist Reich Party did not.

In 1956, the KPD ran again, attempting to defend its seats in the state parliament—once more with the central theme of war or peace. “The Adenauer government wants to send Germans to the slaughterhouse in the service of the Americans.” That was the core claim of the campaign.

This time, however, without success: the KPD lost its seats and was voted out of the state parliament.

In the 1960s, the far-right extremist NPD caused a stir in the Federal Republic. It entered numerous state parliaments—among them, in 1968, the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg. In the 1968 state election, it received 9.8 percent of the vote.

The NPD conducted an election campaign centered on the theme of fear: fear of crime, fear of national debt, and fear of another war. Perhaps also fear that agriculture would be ruined by the European Economic Community. Fear was the absolutely dominant theme—the narrative of a country in decline.

The NPD brought together various far-right extremist parties and functioned as a kind of umbrella or rallying party. Its executive board included numerous former Nazis. The party’s symbolism also drew more or less openly on National Socialist imagery, as can clearly be seen on its campaign poster.

In the 1990s, the far-right extremist party Die Republikaner conducted successful election campaigns in Baden-Württemberg. In 1992, they entered the state parliament with 10.9 percent of the vote. In 1996, they did so again with 9.1 percent. It was not until 2001 that they lost their seats and left the state parliament.

During this period, the Republikaner essentially focused on a single issue: asylum. They called for the abolition of the constitutional right to asylum and demanded the systematic deportation of refugees from Germany. All of the era’s problems—housing shortages, crime, unemployment—were blamed on “foreigners,” as the Republikaner put it, and the deportation of unwanted individuals was presented as the solution. Crime, in particular, was attributed exclusively to immigrants.

One of the party’s most notorious campaign posters bore the slogan “The boat is full.” Germany was depicted as an overcrowded ark, crammed with people who were portrayed in a brutally racist caricature.

The European Community was also constructed as an enemy image by the Republikaner. They opposed the introduction of the euro, and clear parallels can be drawn to the NPD’s election campaign in the 1960s. Even then, the campaign targeted the European Economic Community, and it was already claimed that Germany was deeply insecure and that crime was spiraling out of control.

In this respect, the Republikaner clearly drew on key themes from the NPD’s earlier campaign.

One strategy against extremist parties is to ban them. If the Federal Constitutional Court determines that a party is unconstitutional, it can be prohibited by the Court. In the history of the Federal Republic, only two parties have been banned: the Socialist Reich Party in 1952 and the Communist Party of Germany in 1956.

This strategy is absolute in its effect. The parties lose their mandates and parliamentary seats without replacement. Party assets are confiscated. These parties cease to exist.

The question, however, is how sustainable such bans are. Instead of the Communist Party, the German Communist Party (DKP) emerged in 1968. Instead of the SRP, the NPD made headlines in the 1960s. New, similar extremist parties come into being.

And of course, there is also the question of how democratic such a party ban is. The ban of the Communist Party is viewed very critically today by historians, because the Adenauer government exerted pressure on the Federal Constitutional Court in the 1950s. The Court did not truly decide independently, and from today’s perspective the ban was also unnecessary, since the KPD had no real capacity to seriously endanger democracy.

Thus, this is a counter-strategy that also has its drawbacks and must be discussed in a differentiated manner.

In election campaigns, this strategy plays a role insofar as parties such as the KPD or the SRP sometimes moderated their positions in order to avoid being banned.

One counter-strategy against extremist parties during election campaigns is clear demarcation. In the 1960s, the CDU distanced itself from the NPD. Here we have a 1968 campaign newspaper from the CDU Baden-Württemberg warning voters against supporting the NPD.

In the 1990s, it was above all the Green Party that clearly distanced itself from the Republikaner and rejected both the abolition and even the tightening of the constitutional right to asylum.

In 2001, as can be heard at our listening station here, all parties represented in the Stuttgart state parliament clearly distanced themselves from the Republikaner.

One counter-strategy against extremist parties is protest. During the election campaigns of the 1960s, there were massive protests against the NPD. In the 1990s, there were also protests and demonstrations against the Republikaner in Baden-Württemberg.

This counter-strategy was successful in the 1960s insofar as it is argued that the NPD may have failed to enter the Bundestag in 1969 partly because its stewards responded to demonstrators with massive and brutal violence. These protests effectively brought the NPD’s potential for violence to the surface, revealing the kind of individuals who were active among its so-called security personnel.

However, there were also side effects. In Ulm, a photographer died following an NPD campaign event after demonstrators had thrown smoke bombs. He was hospitalized due to smoke inhalation and died the next day of a heart attack. However, there is no evidence that his death was caused by the smoke inhalation. The NPD nevertheless claimed this afterward.

In the 1990s, there were clashes between police officers and left-wing extremists on the fringes of anti-Republikaner demonstrations.

Thus, protest is a counter-strategy that can be effective, but one that also has problematic aspects.

In the 1960s, the Freiburg Citizens’ Initiative for the Protection of Democracy formed a cross-party group that pursued the counter-strategy of arguing against the NPD. This group sought to counter the party with facts and to expose the NPD’s false claims. For example, it aimed to demonstrate that the situation of agriculture was far less dire than portrayed by the NPD, that the state’s debt burden was by no means as problematic as the party claimed, and that crime rates were in fact declining rather than “skyrocketing,” as the NPD asserted.

The group published its own campaign newspapers, printed in large circulation. It also produced leaflets—sometimes while NPD representatives were still speaking at campaign events—and distributed them to the audience shortly before the event ended, effectively conducting a kind of real-time fact-check. At that time, however, this was done using a printing press and a typewriter.

The success of this counter-strategy cannot be measured precisely. In 1970, the group was awarded the Theodor Heuss Prize in recognition of its civic engagement. It may have contributed to the NPD performing significantly worse in the 1969 federal election than it had in the 1968 state election in Baden-Württemberg.

Some counter-strategies engage very intensively with extremist parties. However, there is also the strategy of not elevating or legitimizing these parties by giving them attention.

As early as the late 1960s, accusations were directed at the CDU in Baden-Württemberg that it was attempting to “silence” the NPD. At the time, Minister-President Hans Filbinger responded that he did not want to artificially enhance the NPD’s significance by constantly engaging with it.

A similar approach was taken in the 1990s. Minister-President Erwin Teufel stated that he did not want to elevate the Republikaner by continuously reacting to them.

This counter-strategy—essentially ignoring extremist parties—was sometimes successful and sometimes not. In 1968, the CDU attempted to promote optimism in a campaign advertisement. It did not explicitly address the NPD’s fear-based campaign, but instead countered it with a message of confidence. Nevertheless, the NPD entered the state parliament in 1968. However, the CDU itself lost hardly any votes.

In 1992, the Republikaner entered the state parliament—likely because the major parties had also taken up the issue of asylum. The attempt to counter this with a head-to-head contest between the leading candidates, Teufel and Spöri, proved ineffective, and other issues could not be successfully established. In 1996, the Republikaner managed to re-enter the state parliament. Once again, the duel between the leading candidates failed to have the intended effect. The strategy of not focusing on the Republikaner did not succeed.

In 2001, however, this strategy proved effective. The contest between the leading candidates—Ute Vogt of the SPD versus Erwin Teufel of the CDU—polarized voters, and the smaller parties lost ground. Other issues dominated the debate. In the televised debate between Teufel and Vogt, the Republikaner were not mentioned at all. The issue of asylum also played no role, and the Republikaner lost their seats, receiving only 4.4 percent of the vote.

Sometimes parties attempt, as a counter-strategy against extremist parties, to take up their issues or to propose solutions to perceived or actual problems.

In 1992, both the SPD and the CDU in Baden-Württemberg promised to address what was described as the asylum problem—whether perceived or real. The CDU prominently displayed this message on campaign posters, and the SPD in Baden-Württemberg did the same.

All analyses of the 1992 state election conclude that this strategy was unsuccessful. The Republikaner entered the state parliament with 10.9 percent of the vote. According to these analyses, bringing the issue of asylum so prominently into the public debate ultimately benefited the Republikaner rather than weakening them.

Our exhibition Wahlkampf radikal not only presents campaign content and counter-strategies, but also explores the media of election campaigning.

We display detailed leaflets and thick campaign newspapers that were delivered to households—materials containing large amounts of text, something that is hardly imaginable today. We also show very long television campaign spots, for example one produced by the CDU in 1968, which can be seen here in the exhibition in a shortened version prepared by us.

Today, for younger generations, election campaigns take place on platforms such as TikTok, using very short, concise video clips. We present this development in our final station. It was conceived by students from the Stuttgart Media University. One student explains how the TikTok algorithm functions. On screens to the right and left, TikTok content recorded at the end of September 2025 is shown—videos that appeared following the search query “Landtag BW.” This demonstrates which political content is displayed when users seek information about parties in Baden-Württemberg on TikTok.

This represents a very different way of conducting election campaigns—much shorter and faster than the rather slow-moving media formats of earlier decades.

The question, of course, is what this does to the political climate. Does it still allow for a thorough fact-check or detailed rebuttals, such as those undertaken by the Freiburg Citizens’ Initiative? Is that still possible under these conditions? Are certain types of content favored by the algorithm?

These are additional challenges—and with them, we arrive in the present day.