In the 1970s, the SPD once had more than a million members. Today it is only a third of that. And the FDP also loses significantly.
The FDP has lost a significant number of members for the first time in years. According to a spokeswoman on Tuesday, their number was still 71,820 at the end of 2023/2024. That was 4,280 fewer than a year ago, when the FDP stated the number of members at around 76,100.
In addition, a prominent member from East Germany announced that he was leaving the party: the long-standing Saxon state chairman Holger Zastrow. He justified his decision to leave the FDP after 30 years with the course of the federal party and the parliamentary group, which he no longer wanted to support and justify.
“It doesn’t fit anymore,” Zastrow wrote on the X platform (formerly Twitter). He was FDP state leader in Saxony from 1999 to 2019 and also deputy federal chairman between 2011 and 2013. “The federal chairman’s speech at the farmers’ demonstration yesterday was the last straw.”
The FDP had already suffered a decline in members nationwide in 2022, but this was still relatively small at around 900 people. The Liberals had previously experienced membership growth for several years. A party spokeswoman pointed out on Tuesday that the number of members had increased by more than 7,800 over the past six years, despite the current declining numbers.
The loss of membership in the SPD continues to accelerate
The decline in membership of the SPD also accelerated in the second year of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government. As of December 31, 2023, the largest government party had 365,190 members, 14,671 fewer than a year earlier, as a party spokesman told the German Press Agency on Tuesday after the “Tagesspiegel” had previously reported on it. This corresponds to a decrease of 3.9 percent. In 2022 the SPD lost 13,866 members, in 2021 there were 10,578.
The 2021 election victory was neither able to stop nor slow down the decline in membership of the SPD. The opposite is the case: in the first two years of government of the traffic light coalition, 2022 and 2023, the SPD lost a total of more than 28,000 members. For comparison: In the four years between 2018 and 2021, in which the SPD was a junior partner in a coalition with the CDU and CSU, the SPD shrank by almost 50,000 members.
The membership development in the past two years matches the SPD’s survey results. It is now only between 13 and 17 percent. In the 2021 election, the Social Democrats received 25.7 percent of the vote.
In the mid-1970s, the SPD briefly had over a million members. The party has been steadily shrinking since the early 1990s. Nevertheless, in 2022 the SPD was still the party with the largest number of members in Germany, ahead of the also shrinking CDU with 371,986 members. The Christian Democrats have not yet published a number for 2023.
The SPD spokesman pointed out that the number of people joining the party increased by 5 percent to 9,584 last year. The proportion of women has increased again to 33.56 percent.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
