Christian Social Union

Christian Social Union (CSU)

Conservative German political party that was founded in Bavaria, West Germany, in 1946 by Roman Catholic and Protestant groups. It was committed to free enterprise, federalism, and a united Europe that would operate under Christian principles. From 1946 it held the government of Bavaria continuously, except in 1954–57. In national elections it usually cooperated with the Christian Democratic Union.

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Christian Social Union 

(CSU; Christlich-Soziale Union), a bourgeois political party in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), in Bavaria. The CSU was founded in 1945. It is allied with the Christian Democratic Union, with which it forms a united bloc in the Bundestag, but the CSU maintains full organizational independence. Members of the CSU head the Landtag of Bavaria.

From 1949 to 1969, the CSU was included in the coalition governments of the FRG. The political orientation of the leaders of the CSU reflects the interests of the most reactionary circles of monopoly capital in the FRG; these circles oppose détente and the FRG’s normalization of relations with the European socialist countries. The CSU, which has been an opposition party since 1969, has adopted strongly negative positions toward the FRG’s treaties with the USSR, the Polish People’s Republic, and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, as well as the treaty that established the basis for relations between the FRG and the German Democratic Republic.

As of 1977, the CSU had 155,000 members. The party chairman is F. J. Strauss.