German die Grünen
Environmentalist political party founded in West Germany in 1979.
Initially, it arose out of protests against nuclear power in Germany in the 1970s, and later it embraced all forms of environmentalism . In 1979 about 250 ecologist and environmentalist groups merged, and the first "green" representative was elected to the state parliament in Bremen. The following year, the organization officially formed itself as a federal party. It called for the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact and NATO and the demilitarization of Europe. It first won representation in the Bundestag in 1983. It experienced almost constant ideological tensions between its left wing and a more pragmatic faction. In 1990 the eastern German Greens joined with Alliance 90, a coalition of various grassroots organizations, and won representation in the German national legislature, though the western German Greens failed to win representation. In 1993 the two parties agreed to merge as Alliance 90/The Greens, and in 1998 the Greens assumed national political power as a junior coalition partner in the government headed by Social Democratic Party leader Gerhard Schröder .