When Germany faced defeat in the West, it was, as we shall see, the Reichstag majority that dared, not once, but three times between November 1918 and September 1923 to wager the future of their country on subordination to the Western Powers. From 1949 down to the present the Reichstag majority’s lineal descendants, the CDU, SPD and FDP, remain the mainstays both of democracy in the Federal Republic and of their country’s commitment to the European project.
