AFTER THE WILD PROTESTS against the government led by the Greens and the women's movement in the 1970s, the 1980s were dominated by political inertia. In 1982, the Christian Democrats won the parliamentary election (Bundestagswahl), and Helmut Kohl was to become chancellor for the next sixteen years. This landslide victory revealed a neo-conservative current in German society that viewed the future with optimism. (Fortschrittsoptimismus). In contrast to the Greens' apocalyptic visions of a nuclear desert, the conservatives refused to let their lives be spoiled by sorrow, and were eager to paint a positive picture of the German state. The Christian Democrats' antidote to the allegedly unconstructive tendencies and dissecting philosophy (Zersetzungsarbeit) of the political left was to embrace new technologies and to advocate a free market economy. As money matters topped the political agenda, German society allegedly fell prey to the cutthroat competitiveness of capitalism, and Theo Sommer lamented that a self-serving mentality had spun out of control. Simultaneously, the Social Democrats struggled with the new shape taken by society, and found themselves short of answers with which to meet the needs of a highly industrialized, wealthy society.

Four years into Helmut Kohl's chancellorship, however, a general fatigue with politics and political parties was noted. According to opinion polls in 1986, voters showed decreasing loyalty to any particular party, and the percentage of non-voters increased. Kohl gradually expanded his power within the Christian Democrat party, and made sure that any critical opponents within the party, such as Kurt Biedenkopf or Heiner Geissler, were removed from the highest ranks of the party hierarchy.