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Willy Brandt after the No-Confidence Vote in the Bundestag
(April 27, 1972)

To protest Willy Brandt's conciliatory Ostpolitik (policies toward the East), several Bundestag delegates from the FDP left the governing social-liberal coalition and joined the opposition CDU/CSU group. After this shift, the leadership of the CDU/CSU believed that it had enough support for a successful vote of no-confidence in the Bundestag. The motion was narrowly defeated, however: instead of the required 249 delegates, only 247 cast votes of no-confidence. After the motion failed, friends and party supporters congratulated the newly validated Chancellor. Photo by Hanns Hubmann.