Right to vote in the time of National Socialism
After the vote in the era of National Socialism between 1933 and 1945, the population was in the German Reich to several elections to the Reichstag called also found referendums held that except in 1934 simultaneously with the parliamentary elections were held. The votes did not have the character of free elections , but of sham elections : The National Socialist leadership tried to legitimize their regime through an alleged approval by the people. Since the Enabling Act of 1933 , the Reichstag had been deprived of power, since the Reich government was also allowed to enact laws.
Elections and eligible voters
The National Socialist government took over the existing voting rights of the Weimar Republic . Both the Reich voting order and the Reich election law thus remained in force. With this, free and secret elections with ballot boxes , ballot papers and voting booths were officially prescribed according to Paragraph 1 of the Reich Election Act and Paragraph 2, Paragraph 1 of the Reichsstimmordnung . From a legal point of view, the votes had to be monitored by an electoral committee during the polls. Since women had the right to vote since November 30, 1918, all citizens of the Reich who were at least 20 years old had the right to vote . The stand for election had all nationals that were at least 25 years old. Also, concentration camp inmates were eligible to vote, they satisfy those conditions.
The Reichstag election on March 5, 1933 was the first election under National Socialist rule and at the same time the last election in which several parties were allowed. After this poll, three more Reichstag elections took place during the National Socialist era. On November 12, 1933 , the NSDAP recorded 92.2 percent of the votes; on March 29, 1936 , it received 99 percent. On April 10, 1938 , the so-called Greater German Reichstag was elected with 99 percent of the votes for the NSDAP. On December 4, 1938, the supplementary election for the Sudetenland took place after the area had been annexed to the Reich as a result of the Munich Agreement of September 29.
In 1936, after the re-organization of the Saar area on March 1, 1935, the Saarlanders were called for an all-German election for the first time since 1919 . By contrast, the Reich Citizenship Act of September 15, 1935 meant that Jews lost their right to vote. Like so-called Jewish half-breeds , they were no longer allowed to vote in a Reichstag election.
On January 25, 1943, Adolf Hitler extended the electoral term of the Reichstag through the law extending the electoral term of the Greater German Reichstag until January 30, 1947. This avoided having to hold elections during the war. Due to the outcome of the war , there was no further polling.
Candidates and mandates
Since 1920 in the German Reich, one party for every 60,000 votes received one seat in the Reichstag, which, in view of the relatively high voter turnout and the increasing population due to the addition of additional areas , led to an increase in mandates from 1933 onwards .
Shortly after the operation prohibition for the SPD as "constitutional and anti-people party" on June 22, 1933, all parties disbanded itself. On July 14, 1933, the law against the formation of new parties followed . In the three other elections held during the National Socialist era, only members of the NSDAP and a few non-party members who were referred to as “guests” participated as candidates on a unified list.
Importance of the Reichstag
After May 17, 1933, the Reichstag, which from December 1933 consisted only of members of the NSDAP and non-party “guests”, only met 18 times. Formally, he still had the right to legislate, but after the " Enabling Act " was passed on March 24, 1933, seven of the nearly thousand Reich laws were passed by the Reichstag alone. The last session of the National Socialist Reichstag took place on April 26, 1942 .
Referendums
Referendums were possible in the Weimar Republic . On July 14, 1933, the National Socialists passed their own “Law on Popular Votes ”. This law made it possible for voters to vote not only on laws but also on government measures. A simple majority of valid votes was required for acceptance or rejection. The original intention was to be able to pass resolutions amending the constitution that were not covered by the Enabling Act. The National Socialist constitutional experts contradicted this possibility. In practice, the law was not given the importance it originally planned. It was used as a means to demonstrate the unity between the Nazi leadership and the national community.
The National Socialists carried out four referendums, which were supposed to confirm decisions that had already been made. The decision to withdraw Germany from the League of Nations was voted on November 12, 1933. On August 19, 1934, there was a referendum on the unification of the offices of Reich President and Reich Chancellor . The turnout was over 95 percent, of which 89 percent were yes votes. On March 29, 1936, there was a referendum authorizing the occupation of the Rhineland, and finally, on April 10, 1938, the referendum on the reunification of Austria with the German Reich .
Review
During the Weimar Republic attempts were made to reform the Reichstag elections, and after the Second World War there was a discussion about whether the electoral system was partly to blame for the fall of the republic . The prevailing opinion in history and political science emphasizes that the proportional representation at the time without a threshold clause contributed to the fragmentation of the party . Up to 15 parties were represented in parliament . It is more controversial whether the fragmentation also contributed to the radicalization and rise of the NSDAP.
literature
- Ralph Jessen, Hedwig Richter : Voting for Hitler and Stalin. Elections under 20th Century Dictatorship. Chicago University Press, Chicago 2011.
- Peter Hubert: Uniformed Reichstag. The history of the pseudo-popular representation 1933–1945. Droste, Düsseldorf 1992, ISBN 3-7700-5167-X .
- Martin Döring : "Parliamentary arm of the movement". The National Socialists in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. Droste, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-7700-5237-4 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Ordinance on elections to the German constituent assembly (Reich election law). documentarchiv.de, November 30, 1918, accessed on May 24, 2015 .
- ↑ RGBl. Part 1, year 1924, Berlin 1924, p. 159ff .; Announcement of the new version of the Reich Election Act and the Act on the Election of the Reich President. P. 173ff. and Third Act amending the Reich Election Act. In it: Reich vote.
- ↑ Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The Place of Terror : History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps , Verlag CH Beck , Munich 2005, Vol. 2, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 , p. 69.
- ^ Daniel-Erasmus Khan: The German state borders. Mohr Siebeck Verlag, Tübingen 2004, p. 90 .
- ^ Hans-Joachim Heinz: The electorate under the swastika. In: Series of publications on the history of the city of Germersheim, Volume II. Germersheim 2001, ISSN 1618-9663 , pp. 192-204.
- ^ Law on the extension of the electoral term of the Greater German Reichstag. Reichsgesetzblatt , Part 1, January 25, 1943, accessed November 26, 2016 .
