The Grand Coalition from 1966 to 1969 was a temporary “marriage of convenience” between the major national parties, the CDU/CSU and the SPD. This photograph shows Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) (right) with his foreign minister and eventual successor, Willy Brandt (SPD) (left), at the last cabinet meeting of the Grand Coalition on September 29, 1969. Parliamentary elections in the fall of 1969 led to a social-liberal coalition between the SPD and the FDP for the first time. Willy Brandt was elected chancellor.