1957 West German federal election

Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had some solid advantages over his Social Democratic Party (SPD) opponent, Erich Ollenhauer; West Germany had become fully sovereign in 1955 and The Law on Pension Reform (backdated to 1 January 1957) was enormously popular when passed in the spring of 1957, while the economy had been growing on average 7% per year since 1953 in part due to young, skilled and highly educated workers immigrating from East Germany keeping productivity high and earnings growth low.^[2] West Germany had joined the European Economic Community in March 1957. Its economy was growing steadily with very low unemployment, and most West Germans felt more prosperous and more secure than in 1949 or 1953.^[3][4]

Although Adenauer had said that he would confine the Bundeswehr to conventional weapons, on 5 April he said "Tactical atomic weapons are nothing but the further development of artillery... it goes without saying that... we cannot dispense with having them for our troops... we must follow suit and have these new types – they are, after all, practically normal weapons." On 12 April eighteen physicists from the Max Planck Institute released the Göttingen Manifesto calling on West Germany to not produce, test or use nuclear weapons. Adenauer at first tried to brush the matter aside, but under heavy criticism from the press decided instead to meet with five of the physicists in Bonn. After a seven-hour meeting a joint communique was issued saying "The Federal Republic will not produce its own nuclear weapons, and consequently the Federal Government has no reason to approach German nuclear scientists about their participation in the development of nuclear weapons." The row continued, having been fuelled by an aggressive note from the Soviet Union in April and ended at the NATO Spring conference in May. Ultimately the row was too far away from the election itself to damage a surprisingly healthy looking Adenauer's prospects.^[2]

The All-German Bloc lost all of their seats, but the ideologically similar German Party maintained theirs. The 1957 election was the last time that a right-wing populist party would return members to the Bundestag until Alternative for Germany's entrance in 2017. The election also marked the last time until 1990 that any party other than CDU/CSU or SPD won any constituency seats.

Party		Party-list			Constituency			Seats
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Elected	West Berlin	Total	+/–
	Christian Democratic Union	11,875,339	39.71	68	11,975,400	39.71	147	215	7	222	+25
	Social Democratic Party	9,495,571	31.75	123	9,651,669	32.01	46	169	12	181	+19
	Christian Social Union	3,133,060	10.48	8	3,186,150	10.57	47	55	0	55	+2
	Free Democratic Party	2,307,135	7.71	40	2,276,234	7.55	1	41	2	43	–10
	All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights	1,374,066	4.59	0	1,324,636	4.39	0	0	0	0	–27
	German Party	1,007,282	3.37	11	1,062,293	3.52	6	17	0	17	+2
	Deutsche Reichspartei	308,564	1.03	0	290,622	0.96	0	0	0	0	0
	Federalist Union	254,322	0.85	0	295,533	0.98	0	0	0	0	New
	Bund der Deutschen	58,725	0.20	0	37,329	0.12	0	0	0	0	New
	German Middle Class	36,592	0.12	0	3,024	0.01	0	0	0	0	New
	South Schleswig Voters' Association	32,262	0.11	0	33,463	0.11	0	0	0	0	0
	German Community	17,490	0.06	0	16,410	0.05	0	0	0	0	New
	Patriotic Union	5,020	0.02	0	2,250	0.01	0	0	0	0	0
	Party of the Good Germans				356	0.00	0	0	0	0	0
	Free German People's Party							0	1	1	New
	Independents and voter groups				845	0.00	0	0	0	0	0
Total		29,905,428	100.00	250	30,156,214	100.00	247	497	22	519	+10
Valid votes		29,905,428	96.24		30,156,214	97.05
Invalid/blank votes		1,167,466	3.76		916,680	2.95
Total votes		31,072,894	100.00		31,072,894	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		35,400,923	87.77		35,400,923	87.77
Source: Bundeswahlleiter

Konrad Adenauer led the CDU-CSU coalition to a landslide victory. The CDU-CSU won an outright majority—to date. Since the CDU and the CSU form a single bloc in the Bundestag, this is the only time that a political party in Germany has been elected to a majority government in a free election.