Elections to the Erfurt Union Parliament

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The elections for the Erfurt Union Parliament took place from August 1849 to March 1850. A distinction must be made between the elections for the Volkshaus and the state house of the Parliament of the German Union , as it was officially called. In the case of the Volkshaus elections, a distinction is made between the elections of the citizens entitled to vote who have elected electors from the later elections of the electors who have determined the actual members of the Volkshaus.

Half of the members of the House of States were elected by the state parliaments, the other half appointed by the respective governments. A number of states failed to vote, so that instead of 120, only 91 seats were filled.

Legal basis

The elections took place on the basis of the law on elections to the People's House . This law, like the Erfurt draft constitution, dates from May 26, 1849; Both the electoral law and the draft constitution imitate their respective Frankfurt models, but modified it conservatively. The actual organization of the elections was left to the individual states. To this end, they issued laws and regulations.

The electoral law provided for a three-tier suffrage in which the rich were given preference. Only men who paid a direct state tax and were allowed to vote in the municipal elections of their place of residence were allowed to vote. Then one chose in three classes, depending on the tax performance. Few rich elected as many MPs as the much poorer in their classes.

Volkshaus

Volkshaus
Erfurt Union Parliament: Volkshaus

The restrictive suffrage had disappointed many Germans, so that most democrats and left-wing liberals boycotted the elections. This also applies to Greater German Catholics who protested that Union policy was pushing Austria out of Germany. A low turnout, so the idea behind the boycott, would reduce the legitimacy of the Union.

That being said, because of the right to vote, left-wing candidates had fewer chances of being elected at all. However, the small state of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen elected the Liberal Democrat Carl Rebling to the state house. Prussian conservatives, on the other hand, stood for election in order to prevent Prussia from being absorbed into a German federal state. Many former Frankfurt MPs from the liberal center endorsed Union policy, albeit reluctantly. They also agreed on this at their meeting at the end of June, which was called the Gotha Post-Parliament . Because of the election boycott by the Democrats, there was no real election campaign in many places, especially where the liberals were strong and defeated the conservatives with little voter mobilization.

For example, in the province of Prussia (later divided into East and West Prussia) lived 2.4 million inhabitants. Of these, around 300,000 men were eligible to vote, i.e. 12.1 percent of all residents. There were 19,581 eligible voters in 1st class, 50,396 in 2nd class and 230,590 in 3rd class. Of these, 38.6 percent actually voted in 1st class, 31.8 percent in 2nd class and only 22.3 percent in 3rd class. If you add all three classes together, the turnout in the province of Prussia was 24.9 percent. That was an even lower rate than in the Prussian lower house election in 1849 (31.9 percent) and the lowest in an all-German election.

There was a relatively high turnout in Kurhessen / Schaumburg-Lippe , for example . A total of 35.8 percent of those entitled to vote voted, with rather minor differences according to class. In some electoral districts in Hesse, 40 to 50 percent of those eligible to vote, but only 18 percent in the Fulda constituency (5.8 percent in 3rd grade). It can therefore be assumed, according to Jochen Lengemann, that voter turnout depended on local tendencies towards a political direction. In any case, it cannot be said in general that the voter turnout was generally too low everywhere to legitimize the Union parliament.

The elections took place from November 1849 to January 1850. They were delayed in some constituencies because a candidate refused to vote or because a candidate was elected in more than one constituency. During the session of parliament in March and April 1850, members of all constituencies were elected, unless this had been done beforehand. However, there was one exception: the member of a Baden constituency was sent by the Baden government to the state house without there being a by-election. The constituency was thus permanently not represented in the Volkshaus.

State House

State House

On August 22, 1849, the two Mecklenburg-Schwerin MPs were the first to be elected to the state house by a state parliament. On March 18, 1850, the last ones were chosen in Nassau , Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt . There should have been a total of 120 members of the state house, but Hanover , Saxony , the second chamber of the assembly of estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Hessen-Darmstadt), the people's representatives of Oldenburg, Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Schaumburg-Lippes did not vote. So there were only 91 members.

The Board of Directors ended the session on April 29, 1850, but not the term of office. If someone resigned his seat, it could be filled again by election. For example, Prussia had elections in the 12th Prussian constituency on July 16, 1850, and Botho Heinrich zu Eulenburg became a member of the Volkshaus .

Elected MPs

See also

literature

  • Jochen Lengemann : The German Parliament (Erfurt Union Parliament) from 1850. A manual: Members, officials, life data, parliamentary groups (= publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia. Large series, Vol. 6). Urban & Fischer, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-437-31128-X

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, pp. 719/720.
  2. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307–340, here p. 310.
  3. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307–340, here pp. 309–311.
  4. ↑ Hans-Werner Hahn: "To vote or not to vote?" - Election movement and election results of the elections for the Erfurt Union Parliament in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach . In: Thuringian Landtag Erfurt (Hrsg.): 150 years of the Erfurt Union Parliament (1850–2000). (= Writings on the history of parliamentarism in Thuringia 15) Wartburg Verlag, Weimar 2000, pp. 27–44, here p. 29.
  5. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307–340, here p. 312.
  6. ^ Jörg-Detlef Kühne : The imperial constitution of the Paulskirche. Model and realization in later German legal life. Habil. Bonn 1983, 2nd edition, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1998 (1985), p. 85.
  7. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307-340, here pp. 313/314.
  8. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307-340, here pp. 311/312.
  9. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307–340, here p. 314.
  10. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307–340, here p. 314.
  11. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307-340, here pp. 314/315.