Hamburg Eimsbüttel (electoral district)

Location of constituency in Hamburg

Hamburg Eimsbüttel is one of the 299 single member constituencies used for the German parliament, the Bundestag. Located in north west Hamburg, the district was created for the 1949 election, the first election in West Germany after World War II. With the exception of the 1953 election, which was won by the German Party, all elections until 2009, were won by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). However at the 2009 election their vote share almost halved and they finished in third place. As a result, despite a decrease in their vote share, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) gained the seat for the first time. The Greens also had their third best electoral district result (after Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East and Stuttgart I.) At the 2013 election the Green's vote share halved, with much of their vote being gained by the SPD. As a result, despite an increase in his vote shate, the incumbent member of the Bundestag, Rüdiger Kruse of the CDU, lost to the SPD candidate Niels Annen, who had previously represented the district from 2005 to 2009.

History and boundaries

Upon creation for the 1949 election, the district was called Hamburg III. At the 1965 election it was renamed Eimsbüttel. The constituency area originally included the borough of Eimsbüttel one of the seven boroughs (Bezirke) of Hamburg, with the exception of the districts of Rotherbaum and Harvington, which were part of the electoral district of Hamburg I. It also excluded the Eimsbüttel district of Hoheluft-West, which was part of the constituency of Hamburg IV. However the Eimsbüttel electoral district also included the districts of Altona-Nord and Altona-Nord Ost from the borough of Hamburg-Altona. Boundary changes which took effect at the 1965 election made the district coterminous with Eimsbüttel borough. This situation lasted until 1 March 2008, when Eimsbüttel borough lost a section of its territory to the Altona borough, where it created the Sternschanze district. The current Eimsbüttel electoral district therefore includes a small section of the Altona borough: the area of the district Sternschanze (district 207) north of the S-Bahn line.^[1]

2009 election

Party		Constituency results				List results
		Candidate	Votes	% share	+/-	Votes	% share	+/-
	Christian Democratic Union	Rüdiger Kruse	43,714	31.2	-2.5	37,695	26.8	-0.6
	Alliance '90/The Greens	Krista Sager	36,518	26.1	+13.5	25,819	18.3	+0.4
	Social Democratic Party of Germany	Danial Ilkhanipour	33,364	23.8	-21.2	37,722	26.8	-10.5
	The Left	Herbert Schulz	12,540	8.9	+4.6	14,732	10.5	+4.3
	Free Democratic Party	Burkhardt Müller-Sönksen	11,732	8.4	+4.7	18,851	13.4	+3.9
	National Democratic Party of Germany	Thorsten Schuster	969	0.7	0.0	799	0.6	-0.1
	Pirate Party	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	3,531	2.5	N/A
	Others					1,576	1.1	N/A

Source:^[2]

References

1. Boundaries of Hamburg Eimsbüttel, bundeswahlleiter.de, accessed 29 June 2012
2. 2009 constituency results, bundeswahlleiter.de, accessed 29 June 2012