The SPD secretly negotiated with the CDU and CSU in 1962

Evidence

For its part, the SPD, represented by Herbert Wehner, entered into secret talks in 1962 with representatives of the CDU and CSU about a Grand Coalition government. The FDP (the Freie Demokratische Partei) had insisted on Franz Josef Strauss’s resignation from the government after the Spiegel affair (see p. 597 below), as a condition for its continued membership of the governing coalition. The SPD would have been prepared to have Strauss as a minister, but refused to accept Adenauer as Chancellor for the full legislative period or to agree to introduce a first-past-the-post electoral system, as in Britain, as a means of excluding the FDP from the Bundestag. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2381

Categorization

• QUESTION: The chapter cut off mid-sentence — worth checking what the SPD’s actual conditions were and whether the Grand Coalition talks progressed.