Abstract

In the Bundestag elections of March 6, 1983, the Greens secured 5.6% of the vote—enough for them to enter the West German parliament for the first time since the party was founded three years earlier. At a press conference in Bonn the day after the election, the future spokespersons for the Green Party parliamentary group, Otto Schily (left) and Petra Kelly (center), as well as the speaker of the federal executive committee of the Greens, Rainer Trampert (right), discussed their success. In the early 1980s, the Greens were an ideologically heterogeneous movement: Schily belonged to the pragmatic practitioners of Realpolitik (“Realos”) and advocated a coalition with the SPD; Kelly and Trampert, on the other hand, were idealistic fundamentalists (“Fundis”). There were also a number of other individualistic currents within the party, including one that supported conservative values.

Press Conference by Otto Schily, Petra Kelly, and Reiner Trampert (March 7, 1983)

Source

Source: Original caption: Petra Kelly and Otto Schily (left) are spokespersons for the “Greens” parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. At a press conference, the spokesman for the federal executive committee, Reiner Trampert, speaks into the microphone. Social Report 3-83/Photo No. 6. INP-Photo: AP.

Courtesy of the German Information Center