The first (and only) time since 1957 that FDP won a constituency seat was by Uwe Lühr in Halle, home of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the "architect of German reunification".

Almost 150 seats had been added to represent the re-established eastern states of Germany, without reducing the number of western members.

The euphoria following the reunification gave the ruling CDU/CSU–FDP coalition a dramatic advantage in both Western and Eastern Germany throughout the campaign.

The German Social Union (DSU) under leader Hansjoachim Walther, a right-wing party modeled after the Bavarian CSU running only in former East Germany, failed to achieve the separate 5% threshold, only receiving around 1% of the vote in the eastern states, mostly in the southeast.

After a law allowing a linkage of the lists of the CSU and DSU was overturned by the Federal Constitutional Court, the CSU tried to convince the CDU to stand down in several single-member constituencies to enable the DSU to enter the Bundestag separate from the 5% threshold, but Kohl adamantly refused.