SPD, CDU, Greens and FDP - Who is gaining, who is losing members?

A different picture emerges in the membership development of parties in Hamburg. The so-called people's parties, SPD and CDU, lost supporters overall in the past year, while smaller parties sometimes register a significant increase, as a WELT survey among the state associations shows.

According to this, Mayor Peter Tschentscher’s SPD had 10,341 members in mid-December, and 10,504 at the end of 2021. Just five years ago (end of 2018), 11,575 people in Hamburg had an SPD party membership, which corresponds to a drop of almost eleven percent compared to 2022. Since the founding of the Federal Republic, the Hanseatic city has been predominantly led by Social Democrats, including Hans-Ulrich Klose, Klaus von Dohnanyi and the current Federal Chancellor, Olaf Scholz.

Only the Christian Democrats Kurt Sieveking, Ole von Beust and Christoph Ahlhaus have succeeded in conquering the SPD stronghold on the Elbe in the past seven decades. The CDU in Hamburg currently has 5724 members, at the end of 2021 there were 5850 and at the end of 2018 there were still 6616, according to the party headquarters on Leinpfad.

The Greens, who still had 2428 members in 2018, have been registering a lively influx for years. At the end of last year there were 4,423 and at the end of this year 4,456. This means that the membership of the Greens has increased by almost 84 percent since 2018. The FDP, which had exactly 1497 members in 2018, also recorded a sustained increase. At the end of this year there were 2125, which corresponds to an increase of 42 percent.

The Left in Hamburg currently has 1723 members, 167 fewer than in the same period in 2021. However, over five years, the Left have inspired more people to join the party, as at the end of 2018 there were still 1639.

The AfD, which currently has “just over 400 members”, has the fewest supporters of the six major parties in the Hanseatic city. The party spokesman does not mention comparative figures, but emphasizes: "In recent years we have lost members, in particular due to the cleaning up of files by non-payers." There have also been people leaving the party for private and personal reasons. "For a few weeks now, the AfD has been registering more and more inquiries."

In the winter of 2025, Hamburg will elect a new citizenship. In 2020, the SPD and the Greens received 39.2 and 24.2 percent of the vote, respectively, and have governed the city with a two-thirds majority ever since. The CDU (11.2), the Left (9.1) and the AfD (5.3) also made it into the state parliament. The FDP failed at the five percent hurdle and has since had two non-attached MPs in the city council.

According to the most recent survey, the Greens are currently in the favor of voters, as revealed by a mood barometer commissioned by the Hamburg edition of the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" in October. Accordingly, the Greens would get 30 percent of all votes. The SPD would reach 29 percent and lose the majority in the Hanseatic city for the first time in eleven years. The Elb-CDU would get 20 percent. Left and AfD would each have to fear five percent for re-entry into the citizenship. With four percent, the FDP would again not be represented in parliamentary group strength in the town hall.