INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS What Went Wrong? The German Elections 2013 and the Score of the SPD ERNST HILLEBRAND(Ed.) December 2013  The German elections from September 2013 brought a disappointing result for the opposition. The voters did not reinstall the outgoing government, but they gave Angela Merkel’s CDU an excellent score with 41.5 per cent of the vote.  After a disappointing campaign, SPD scored one of its worst results ever, gaining only 25.7 per cent of the vote. With this result, the party lies clearly behind her traditional main rival, the Christian Democrats. The party will now form a coalition government with the CDU under the leadership of Angela Merkel.  The analysis of the election and its result has only begun. This reader presents a selection of articles that have been published in major German centre-left reviews after the election. They analyse the election campaign and the result of the polling and try to draw first lessons for the future of the SPD.