Seats in the Bundestag Story

This is a history and political essay to talk about a curious part of the German government....representatives in the Bundestag (Parliament).

When the 1949 election wrapped up and the first real government after WW II was put together, the Bundestag consisted (for West Germany now, remember that fact) of 402 seats.

The 1953 election bumped it up to 509 seats.

In the 1957 selection, it bumped up to 519 seats.

By the 1972 election, they were sitting at 518 seats.

In 1983, they were still around 518 seats.

In the 1990 election (East and West Germany combined finally), they went to 662 seats.

Last year, 2017, after the election wrapped up....they settled upon 709 seats.  The work-men of the Bundestag spent a week reshuffling things in the interior to squeeze another forty-odd seats into the structure.

This week, it came up in the news that the main players of the Bundestag think that 709 folks is way too many (yes, rather shocking).  So I shuffled through the ARD (Channel One, public TV news) piece to grasp the chatter going on.

First, they now admit that the cost factor (pay, housing, offices, staff support, telephone bills, travel, and pensions)....adds up almost one billion Euro (1.25 US billion dollars).....to run the Bundestag.

The head of the Federal Taxpayer Association (Reiner Holznagel) suggests that 500 members are probably enough.

If you look at the anticipated results of the two state elections coming up (Bavaria and Hessen)...the law says they can now go up to 898 members.

The slam against this?  Well...a high number of folks have gotten use to the Berlin lifestyle and there's probably not any job that pays like this and requires such limited work.

Is there any big difference between this and Hitler's Bundestag in 1933?  In that time period, there were a total of 647 members.

Like the American deal, it's considered a full-time job and usually only two major breaks in the year (Christmas period, and a full month off in July/August timeframe). 

The odds that they will lessen the number?  I have my doubts that you can find anyone much within the Bundestag that wants the number pushed down. At best, you might find it agreeable to carve off 40 seats.  The only folks grumbling will be the work-men who have to figure a new way of seating the proper number of seats.