After the war he sought to return to politics, in 1947 standing for election to the state parliament in the newly reconfigured state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was widely believed that it was only on account of political division on the left and centre that in 1933 post-democratic populist street politicians had been able to take power in Germany. In the Soviet occupation zone that conviction led, in April 1946, to the contentious creation of the Socialist Unity Party (SED). However, the SED gained no traction in the western zones, where it was widely seen as a device for the furtherance of Soviet imperialist ambitions. A number of parties formerly of the centre and centre-right had nevertheless come together in the western zones, leading to the formation in 1945 of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU party). On of these was the old Catholic Centre party. It was accordingly as a CDU candidate that Georg Schreiber stood for election in 1947. He failed to gain a seat, and thereafter concentrated on his work at the university, also taking a number of significant positions at the interface between the universities sector and politics.
