The 3rd German Bundestag, the lower house of parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany, was elected on 15 September 1957, and existed from 15 October 1957 to 15 October 1961. It held a total of 168 parliamentary sittings; the last sitting was on 22 August 1961.
On 22 October 1957 the Bundestag elected Konrad Adenauer as federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany on the fourth ballot, with 274 (+8) yes votes, 193 (+13) no votes and nine abstentions.
Presidium of the Bundestag
__TOC__ Marie-Elisabeth Lüders (FDP) served as Alterspräsidentin (Mother of the House), after Konrad Adenauer (CDU) who should have had this role, had rejected it, because he considered it inappropriate for the incumbent federal chancellor to serve as Alterspräsident. She presided over the first session of the 3rd Bundestag until Eugen Gerstenmaier was elected President of the Bundestag.
Carlo Schmid (SPD), Richard Jeager (CSU) and Max Becker (FDP) were elected as vice presidents of the Bundestag. They were elected almost unanimously, with only two abstentions.
Eugen Gerstenmaier was elected President of the Bundestag on the first ballot with 437 votes in favor, 54 abstentions and 3 invalid votes.
Composition of the Bundestag
The CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany/Christian Social Union in Bavaria) party gained the first — and to date, only — absolute majority for a single German parliamentary group in a free election. However the CDU/CDU still formed a coalition with the German Party (DP) until 1960 when nine of their 17 Bundestag members left the DP and joined the CDU. After that, the DP left the governing coalition. (Hans-Joachim von Merkatz, the Federal Minister of the Bundesrat and State Affairs, and Hans-Christoph Seebohm, the Federal Ministry for Transport, the DP members in the governing cabinet, had left in July 1960 and joined the CDU in September 1960.) The SPD won new seats as well. The FDP was the only party in the election that lost seats.
Changes +Changes in the numbers of the four caucuses (CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, German Party)DateReason for changeCDU/CSUSPDFDPDPOthersTotalnumber1961First meeting277181431715199 October 1957Karl Hübner becomes a guest member of the CDU/CSU caucus2783 June 1958Otto Eisenmann leaves the DP caucus and joins the FDP caucus441620 June 1958Alexander Elbrächter leaves the DP caucus and becomes unaffiliated15124 June 1958Alexander Elbrächter joins the CDU/CSU caucus2791 July 1960Georg Ripken, Heinrich Schild, Hans-Christoph Seebohm, Willy Steinmetz, Margot Kalinke, Hans-Joachim von Merkatz, Ludwig Preiß, Victor-Emanuel Preusker, Wilhelm Probst leave the DP caucus and become unaffiliated6920 September 1960The same nine former DP members join the CDU/CSU caucus2888 November 1960Peter Nellen leaves the CDU/CSU caucus and joins the SPD caucus28718224 February 1961Arno Behrisch leaves the SPD caucus and becomes unaffiliated181125 April 1961Fritz Logemann leaves the DP caucus and joins the FDP caucus4553 May 1961Herbert Schneider, Helmuth Schranz, Heinz Matthes leave the DP caucus and become unaffiliated243 May 1961Peter Tobaben, Ludwig Schneider leave the DP caucus and join the CDU/CSU caucus28918 August 1961Georg Richard Kinat leaves the SPD caucus and becomes unaffiliated1805
Members This is a list of members of the 3rd Bundestag, whose members were in office from 1957 until 1961: