[2] After World War II, the German Instrument of Surrender and the country's division into four Allied occupation zones, the elections were held in the Federal Republic of Germany, established under occupation statute in the three Western zones with the proclamation of its Basic Law by the Parlamentarischer Rat assembly of the West German states on 23 May 1949.

He constantly accused Adenauer of betraying national interests,[4] culminating in his heckling at the Bundestag session of 25 September 1949: "The Chancellor of the Allies!".

Schumacher had explicitly refused a grand coalition and led his party into opposition, where it would remain until December 1966, assuming the chair of the SPD parliamentary group as minority leader.

On 12 September 1949, he lost the German presidential election, defeated by FDP chairman Theodor Heuss in the second ballot.

Nominated by the CDU/CSU faction, he was elected the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany on 15 September 1949 by an absolute majority of 202 of 402 votes.