<P> After the annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 the exile party resettled in Paris and, after the defeat of France in 1940, in London . Only a few days after the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 the exiled SPD in Paris declared its support for the Allies and for the military removal from power of the Nazi government . </P> <P> The SPD was recreated after World War II in 1946 and admitted in all four occupation zones . In West Germany, it was initially in opposition from the first election of the newly founded Federal Republic in 1949 until 1966 . The party had a leftist period and opposed the republic's integration into Western structures, believing that this might diminish the chances for German reunification . </P> <P> The SPD was somewhat hampered for much of the early history of the Federal Republic, in part because the bulk of its former heartland was now in the Soviet occupation sector, which later became East Germany . In the latter area, the SPD was forced to merge with the Communist Party of Germany to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946 . The few recalcitrant SPD members were quickly pushed out, leaving the SED as essentially a renamed KPD . Nonetheless, a few former SPD members held high posts in the East German government . Otto Grotewohl served as East Germany's first prime minister from 1949 to 1964 . For much of that time retained the perspective of a left - wing social democrat, and publicly advocated a less repressive approach to governing . Friedrich Ebert, Jr., son of former president Ebert, served as mayor of East Berlin from 1949 to 1967; he'd reportedly been blackmailed into supporting the merger by using his father's role in the schism of 1918 against him . </P> <P> During the fall of Communist rule in 1989, the SPD (first called SDP) was re-established as a separate party in East Germany (Social Democratic Party in the GDR), independent of the rump SED, and then merged with its West German counterpart upon reunification . </P>

What proposal did the german social democrats make why were they unsuccessful