Extent of Support - FRG

• Turnout in federal elections was consistently high, ranging from 78% in 1949, when the continued dislocation meant some people qualified to vote might have not been able to do so, to 91% in 1972.
• The KPD was banned in 1956 but resurfaced as the Communist Party of Germany (DKP) in 1968 supported financially by the GDR. The federal government felt that a legitimate communist party would be less dangerous than a banned one with a secret network. However, the DKP didn't gain significant support and did poorly in elections. The party never had an active membership of more than 50000 and never had representatives in the Bundestag.
• The system was robust enough to encompass new political developments, such as the arrival of the Green Party in the Bundestag in 1983. Moreover, in 1985 the Greens governed the state of Hesse in coalition with the SPD. Here was evidence that a group initially associated with environmentalists, pacifists and squatters in the 1970s could effectively become a mainstream party a decade later.