PARTEIATLAS

An independent field guide to Germany’s political parties

Federal politics2025 election edition

Methodology & sources

Reading the guide

What the labels do — and do not — mean

Method

1. Manifestos first. Policy intentions are taken primarily from each party's 2025 Bundestag manifesto or official programme page. For complex or contested ideological descriptions, the guide uses bpb as an external secondary source.

2. Results over impressions. “Following” uses the final 2025 federal election and a dated ARD DeutschlandTrend poll rather than social-media popularity.

3. Strongholds are patterns. A stronghold may be historical, demographic or geographical. State elections and federal elections can produce different maps.

4. Government status is dated. Federal status is current to 7 Sep 2026. Land politics can change within days; BSW's Thuringia position and the still-forming post-election situation in Saxony-Anhalt are specifically flagged as fluid.

Useful cautions

Manifesto ≠ law: no German party can usually implement its programme alone. Coalition agreements determine the negotiated government agenda.

Poll ≠ election: the Sep 2026 ARD poll has sampling uncertainty and should be read as trend evidence, not a prediction.

Left/right ≠ one dimension: economic, cultural, institutional and foreign-policy axes often cross.

Legal descriptions matter: especially for the AfD, federal and state intelligence-service classifications are different and are subject to court review.

Other parties worth knowing

SSW: Danish/Frisian minority party concentrated in Schleswig-Holstein; 0.2% nationally in 2025 but one Bundestag seat because recognised minority parties are exempt from the 5% threshold. Freie Wähler: decentralist/municipal-oriented party with significant Bavarian state presence; 1.5% nationally in 2025. Volt: pan-European federalist/progressive party with municipal and European presence; 0.7% in 2025. In total, 29 parties ran with at least one state list in the 2025 federal election; this guide concentrates on the eight nationally most consequential parties.[1][45]

Evidence

Sources

Official party documents are used for “what the party says it wants”; government/election institutions for factual status; bpb and ARD for context, voter geography, polling and legal-news explanations.

German Bundestag — current seat distribution630 observed seats: Union 208, AfD 150, SPD 120, Greens 85, Die Linke 64, non-attached 3. Snapshot observed 8 September 2026; source effective date not provided.Official source checked 2026-09-08.
Seat chart JSON: count unique member IDs by party field; exclude metadata key -1. Dataset has no publication/effective timestamp; this is an observation, not a claimed change date. Evidence dataset
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — CDU 2025 profileNeutral programme synopsis.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — SPD 2025 profileInvestment, wages, tax, migration and social policy synopsis.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — Greens 2025 profileClimate, economy, migration, defence and social policy synopsis.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — AfD 2025 profileMigration, EU, climate, Russia, tax and family-policy synopsis.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — AfD programmatics, 2026Updated discussion of nationalism, EU, economics, climate and foreign policy.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — Die Linke 2025 profileDemocratic socialism, rent, tax, welfare, climate and foreign-policy synopsis.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — FDP 2025 profileEconomy, debt, migration, climate and state reform.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — BSW 2025 profileEconomically left, culturally conservative mix; policy synopsis.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
bpb — BSW status, Aug 2026Land representation, federal failure and Thuringia government participation.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
CDU — 2026 party congressFriedrich Merz reconfirmed as chair.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
FDP — Christian DürrFederal chair since May 2025.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
CSU — 2025 Bavaria agendaAdditional CSU-specific federal-election emphasis.Imported reference
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established
Federal Government — minimum wage 2026/27€13.90 in 2026; €14.60 in 2027.Official source checked 2026-09-20.
Lines 105–137: 2026 and 2027 statutory rates and implementation by ordinance.
Publication date: 2026-01-01 · Licence: not established
Federal Government — one-year implementation reviewInvestment programme, depreciation and corporate-tax reduction.Official source checked 2026-09-20.
Lines 95–117: investment programme, effective date, depreciation and corporate-tax reduction.
Publication date: 2026-05-06 · Licence: not established
Federal Government — energy-cost reliefGrid subsidy, gas-storage levy removal and targeted electricity-tax relief.Official source checked 2026-09-20.
Lines 127–146: corporate-tax schedule and energy-cost measures effective from 2026.
Publication date: 2026-05-07 · Licence: not established
Federal Government — 2026 pension adjustment48% pension-level floor extended through 2031.Official source checked 2026-09-20.
Lines 220–255: pension adjustment, legislative path and 48 percent floor through 2031.
Publication date: 2026-07-01 · Licence: not established
Federal Government — GebäudemodernisierungsgesetzReplaced the previous heating-law framework; core rules effective 29 July 2026.Official source checked 2026-09-20.
Lines 111–151: legislative path, effective date, 65 percent rule and funding changes.
Publication date: 2026-07-29 · Licence: not established
Federal Returning Officer — final national result table, 2025Exact second-vote counts for all 29 parties, turnout and election-day seat allocation.Official source checked 2026-09-08.
Final result: national result table (second votes) and seat-allocation table.
Publication date: not supplied · Licence: not established