How did the Social Democratic Party of Germany’s national vote change between 1961 and 1972?

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Between 1961 and 1972, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) experienced a significant increase in its national vote, rising from 36 percent to nearly 46 percent.1

This growth followed the party's 1959 Bad Godesberg Resolution, in which the SPD abandoned its doctrinaire Marxist approach in favor of gradualist reform and a market-oriented economic policy, allowing it to broaden its appeal to the middle class. During this period of rising electoral support, the party entered a grand coalition with the Christian Democratic Union in 1966 and subsequently governed as the dominant coalition partner with the Free Democratic Party starting in 1969.21