Mannheim voters' association
The Mannheim voters ' association was a group of voters that won 3.4 percent of the vote and a seat on the local council in the 1956 local elections . For the local elections in 1959 , the list of the electoral association was not allowed because it was classified as a camouflage list of the banned Communist Party of Germany (KPD).
At the time of the KPD ban by the Federal Constitutional Court in August 1956, the KPD was represented by 4 of 48 councilors in the Mannheim municipal parliament: Peter Eimuth, Anette Langendorf , August Locherer and Kurt Weber. In accordance with Baden-Württemberg's local electoral law at the time, half of the municipal council was re-elected every three years. Eimuth and Locherer were elected until November 1956, Langendorf and Weber until November 1959. The prohibition judgment made no statement about the communal mandates of the KPD; Baden-Württemberg's municipal electoral law did not provide for a loss of mandate if a party was banned, so that the KPD elected officials continued to belong to the municipal council as non-party members.
For the local election on November 15, 1956, Locherer and Eimuth ran for third and sixth place in the newly founded Mannheim voters' association. List leader was Eugen Straub, at that time chairman of the tourist association “Die Naturfreunde” in Mannheim. Straub was not a member of the KPD; In 1987 he stated that he had financially supported the party when it was illegally active. By cumulating and vote-splitting moved Locherer and Eimuth prior to the first two places; With 3.4 percent, the group of voters achieved a mandate that Locherer accepted. The local election committee had approved the group of voters because it did not see sufficient evidence that it was a substitute organization of the KPD. A request to the criminal police had shown that around 60 percent of the candidates were KPD members. However, police knowledge was based on outdated membership lists.
The local political program of the electoral association was not only aimed at KPD voters, but also at non-voters and voters from other parties: “real self-administration” was demanded; The effects of rearmament at the municipal level were discussed . The suppression of the Hungarian uprising had a negative impact on the election campaign .
In the local elections in November 1959, the electoral association submitted an election proposal in which Straub was again the top candidate and Eimuth, Langendorf and Weber followed in the other places. According to the Mannheim police headquarters, 11 of the 24 candidates were former KPD members. The local election committee did not allow the nomination because it was a communist camouflage list. The municipal council confirmed the decision and the SPD abstained . The Social Democrats argued that communism must be overcome politically and not through police action. The Mannheim city administration had referred to the non-admission of the Stuttgart voters' association, classified as a communist camouflage list, in the local elections in 1956 - a decision that was upheld by the Federal Administrative Court in May 1958 .
August Locherer was re-elected to the German Peace Union in 1962 and remained a councilor until 1977; most recently he represented the German Communist Party (DKP). The DKP lost its mandate in the local elections in 1994 .