Die Grünen Collected Records

Die Grünen, or the Greens, are a German political party with a platform of environmental protection, nuclear disarmament, racial and sexual equality, and international peace. It was founded on March 16, 1979 when several environmental, peace, and international understanding organizations met at Frankfurt-Sindlingen, Germany and created the Sonstige Politische Verenigung [Alternative Political Alliance]. The party entered candidates in the election for the European Parliament at Strasbourg in 1979 and won 3.2% of the vote, approximately 900,000 votes. After the election, the Alliance expanded its base to include more "alternative" movements from across Germany and on January 12, 1980, the Federal party, newly christened as Die Grünen, was founded. Green candidates were entered in the federal election of 1980, in which they captured 1.5% of the vote; local candidates in Shleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, and Berlin fared somewhat better. In the 1982 federal election, Green candidates won 27 seats in the Bundestag, the German parliament. Among the successful candidates was Petra Kelly, the leader of the movement. The Green movement has spread to many other European nations and they are an increasingly powerful force in local and national politics, as well as in the European Parliament.