However, the loss of its majority and the All-German Party losing all its seats led to the CDU having to negotiate a coalition with the long-term junior coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, leading to a demand for long-term chancellor Konrad Adenauer to leave office in 1963, halfway through his term.

[1] For the first time, the SPD announced a Chancellor candidate who was not chairman of the party: Willy Brandt, the Governing Mayor of West Berlin.

The absolute majority was lost by the conservative union due to the gains of the liberal FDP under Erich Mende.

In 1962 he had to announce a fifth cabinet: The FDP had temporarily left the coalition after the secretary of defense, Franz Josef Strauß (CSU), had ordered the arrest of five journalists for publishing a memo detailing alleged weaknesses in the German armed forces (known as the Spiegel scandal).

In 1963 Adenauer finally retired; Ludwig Erhard took over his position as head of the coalition government.