Local elections in the Soviet Zone in 1946
The local elections in the SBZ ( Soviet Occupation Zone ) in September 1946 were the only local elections in the territory of the later GDR until 1990 that appeared to be free , general and secret - i.e. democratic.
In the elections, the SED formed in April 1946 through the forced unification of the SPD with the KPD became the strongest party. The candidates were the SED, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU (D)) , which at that time primarily propagated a “Christian socialism” , the bourgeois-liberal Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDP (D)) and the SED-controlled association of mutuals Farmer Aid (VdgB).
Framework conditions and implementation of elections
Even if these elections themselves seemed largely free, the framework conditions and the result were distorted. The communists enjoyed unilateral privileges. The KPD was the first to put its party newspaper on the market. It was lavishly supplied with paper, so that this election publication had a larger circulation and a larger format. The other parties were only given smaller amounts of paper and their papers were severely censored . The newspapers of the SPD, LPD and CDU came into circulation with 250,000 copies each, those of the KPD with 350,000 copies.
The most serious administrative intervention of the SMAD in favor of the SED consisted in the prohibition for the SPD to run independently after the compulsory union with the KPD for the SED .
The CDU and LDP were able to run for office, but their organizational basis was noticeably weakened by the delayed approval of the local and district associations. This had a much stronger effect in the local elections than in the state elections in the Soviet Zone in 1946 in the following month. The head of the censorship and propaganda department of the SMAD, Sergei Ivanovich Tjulpanov , instructed the regional departments of the SMAD in a secret order not to "formally prohibit the establishment of bourgeois party groups". Instead, “various formal pretexts” should be found “in order to keep their number limited”. The CDU and LDP were only able to draw up lists for local elections in 20% of the municipalities, while the SED was approved across the board. As a result, the proportion of invalid votes was unusually high. The bourgeois parties were also clearly disadvantaged with regard to the allocation of paper and printing capacity.
The legal basis for the election was the “Election regulations for the state and district elections in the Soviet occupation zone in Germany” of September 11, 1946. On the basis of these election regulations, individual electoral laws were passed in each country.
The implementation of the state elections in all occupation zones was made more difficult by the consequences of dictatorship and war. Furthermore, a large number of eligible voters were in captivity and could not exercise their right to vote. As a result of flight and displacement (called “resettlement” in the Soviet Zone), many millions of people lived outside of their homeland. The population registration system was also affected by the loss of the archives of the communities in East Germany.
The right to vote of the former members of the NSDAP , SS and other Nazi organizations was a difficult topic . There was consensus among the four occupying powers that active participation in the crimes of National Socialism should result in a loss of the right to vote. Since denazification was not yet complete, it was necessary to find suitable regulations. The election regulations stipulated in Section 3 of the SBZ that this should apply depending on the rank within the organization. Former members of the NSDAP, for example, were not eligible to vote from the local group leader upwards.
However, the electoral regulations in § 3 (3) contained a rubber paragraph , according to which "Other activists of fascism and those interested in war, whose names are made known to the municipal authorities by the anti-fascist-democratic parties of the district at the suggestion of the anti-fascist-democratic parties of the municipalities" , could be excluded from the right to vote. This passage was partially used to exclude candidates from bourgeois parties from the election.
Results in the individual countries
The elections took place on September 1 in Saxony, on September 8 in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt and on September 15 in the provinces of Mark Brandenburg and Mecklenburg.
| Mecklenburg | Brandenburg | Saxony- Anhalt |
Saxony | Thuringia | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Invalid votes | 9.3% | n / A | 15.6% | 9.81% | 8th % |
| SED | 63.2% | 54.3% | 49.5% | 48.42% | 46.32% |
| LDP | 9.5% | 17.2% | 19.8% | 20.21% | 23.7% |
| CDU | 15.2% | 15.6% | 13.3% | 19.72% | 16.7% |
| VdgB | 1.7% | 2.5% | 1.1% | 0.89% | 3.2% |
| Women's committees | 1.1% | 0.9% | 0.7% | 0.74% | 1.9% |
| Others | - | 0.06% | - | 0.21% | 0.1% |
See also
Sources and literature
- Peter J. Lapp: Elections in the GDR, 1982, ISBN 3-921226-16-3 , pp. 17-18.
- Martin Broszat , Gerhard Braas, Hermann Weber: SBZ manual . 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 .
- Mathias Tullner : Between Democracy and Dictatorship. The local elections and the elections for the provincial parliament in Saxony-Anhalt in 1946 . Magdeburg 1997, pp. 95-98.
- Richard Schachtner: The German post-war elections: election results in the Federal Republic of Germany, in the German federal states, in West Berlin, in Saarland and in the Soviet zone (GDR) 1946-49 . Isar-Verlag, Munich 1956, pp. 77, 78.
- Günter Braun: Elections and votes. In: Martin Broszat, Hermann Weber (ed.): SBZ manual . Oldenbourg, Munich 1990, pp. 397, 396, 418.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from Aljana Buckow: Between Propaganda and Realpolitik. the USA and the Soviet-occupied part of Germany 1945 - 1955. Franz Steiner, 2003, ISBN 3-515-08261-1 .
- ^ Stefan Creuzberger : The Soviet occupying power and the political system of the Soviet occupation zone. Böhlau, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-412-04596-9 , p. 65.
- ↑ SBZ manual, p. 384 ff.
- ^ Ordinance sheet of the provincial government of Mark Brandenburg 1946. P. 323.
