Suffrage of the Weimar Republic

Reich presidential election 1925 : Supporters of the right-wing liberal Karl Jarres drive through Berlin.

Reichstag election July 1932 : Party supporters in front of a polling station.

Under the suffrage of the Weimar Republic (1919 to 1933), the Germans could elect both the Reichstag and the state parliaments as well as the Reich President . There were also two referendums at the Reich level, but both of them failed.

The election to the Weimar National Assembly in 1919 was the first nationwide election based on the proportional representation system . For the first time women were also allowed to vote. Together with the lowering of the voting age from 25 to 20 years and the right to vote for soldiers, this was the largest expansion of the right to vote in German history. In the Reichstag elections from 1920 onwards , one party received one seat in the Reichstag for every 60,000 votes. However, additional rules still led to differences between the shares of votes and mandates.

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 downfall of the republic. The prevailing opinion in historical and political science emphasizes that the proportional representation at the time contributed to the fragmentation of the parties : The Reichstag represented representatives of up to 15 parties. The socio-moral milieus , as they had already existed before 1918, were particularly important here . It is more controversial whether the fragmentation also contributed to the radicalization and rise of the NSDAP .

prehistory

Elections in the Empire

→ Main article : Suffrage in the North German Confederation and in the German Empire

Constituencies in the empire

The general and equal right to vote for men had already existed since 1867 for elections to the Reichstag of the North German Confederation . However, the Reichstag was only involved in the legislative process in the North German Confederation and, from 1871, in the German Empire , and the government was solely responsible to the Kaiser. Nevertheless, the democratic right to vote in the Reichstag already resulted in a fundamental politicization of the masses, as Hans-Peter Ullmann writes.

A member of the Reichstag in the Kaiserreich represented an electoral district. If none of the constituency candidates received an absolute majority in the first ballot, there was a runoff between the two most successful ones in a second ballot. In the runoff election, there were often agreements between the parties, as a result of which, for example, the bourgeoisie tried to prevent a Social Democratic MP.

Great inequality meant that the constituencies were not adapted to the population trend. In the years 1871 to 1912, for example, the number of eligible voters in the East Prussian constituency of Heiligenbeil-Preußisch Eylau rose from 18,252 to 18,988. The industrialized constituency of Bochum recorded an increase from 24,514 to 162,995.

In the member states of the empire, such as Prussia, Bavaria or Saxony, the electoral systems were allowed to be designed differently than at the national level. Particularly controversial was the three- tier suffrage in Prussia, in which the weight of a voter's vote depended on his tax revenue. This gave the conservative parties (sitting on the right in parliament) a strong advantage. In the debates on parliamentarization, the Prussian electoral system was at the center, since Prussia, as the largest sub-state, indirectly determined politics in the German Reich through the Bundesrat .

Reform discussion and reform 1918

Reichstag building around 1900

As early as the 1880s there were calls to change the electoral system. Up until the first few years of the 20th century, it was mainly about the constituency of constituencies. The constitutionally possible and easily implementable reform was called for by all parties, with the exception of the Conservatives and the Poles.

The proportional representation was first introduced in Württemberg in 1906, and also in some federal states in local elections. Even the Social Democrats were not clearly in favor; the social-liberal Progressive People's Party only became uniform since the war in 1914. Old conservatives and free conservatives , the Catholic center and the Reich government were not against it in principle, although the existing electoral system favored them. They saw in some local elections how they won votes in the cities. However, they were only prepared to make concessions in the summer of 1917.

When the budget was being discussed in the Reichstag in March 1917, social democracy, but also progress, the national liberals and, to some extent, the center , spoke out in favor of further democratization. There was fear that the SPD would no longer approve the war loans if their demands were not met.

The constitutional committee set up on March 30, 1917 adopted a draft of the progress in May. In constituencies with high population growth, several mandates should be awarded by proportional representation. 361 old constituencies should continue to send one MP each after the majority vote. In large cities, on the other hand, 26 new constituencies with a total of eighty MPs should be created. Ten MPs were to be elected in the new Berlin electoral district, usually two each, with rigid lists. The last two elections of the empire took place according to the old system, namely by-elections in Berlin I (October 15, 1918, runoff election October 29) and Neustettin (November 8, 1918).

On August 24, 1918, the draft was approved by the Reichstag. Against this were the Conservatives, the Poles and the Independent Social Democrats (USPD). The (majority) Social Democrats , on the other hand, agreed, although the new electoral system deprived them of their advantages where they had them despite a majority vote (in the metropolitan constituencies, other parties would have had more chances of getting a seat). But they wanted to stick to the coalition with center and progress. On November 7th, Chancellor Max von Baden promised the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert a proportional representation.

Election to the National Assembly in 1919

→ Main article : Election to the German National Assembly

SPD election campaign for the National Assembly elections, Berlin in January 1919

After the forced abdication of the emperor on November 9, 1918, a transitional government of the SPD and USPD came into being, called the Council of People's Representatives . On November 12th, a council statement introduced proportional representation for all elections in Germany, followed by electoral regulations on November 30th. For the first time in Germany, not only men but also women should vote.

The draft of the electoral regulations came from Alfred Schulze, the constitutional and electoral officer of the Reich Office of the Interior. The State Secretary of the Interior Hugo Preuss took over the draft instead of his earlier idea of ​​1917, to have Reich lists elected without constituencies. The election to the National Assembly took place on January 19, 1919.

Electoral system of transition

Highest share of votes in the major electoral districts of 1919

The old one-person constituencies were merged into large constituencies by section 6 of the electoral code . Several members of parliament were elected by proportional representation within the constituencies, with an average of one member for every 150,000 inhabitants. There were 37 constituencies with between six and 17 seats. In the 38th constituency, Alsace-Lorraine , it was no longer possible to vote because of the French occupation. One of the constituencies, Poznan , was a special case as the Poles there boycotted the election.

The parties made lists ("election proposals"). Lists could enter into a list connection . As a result, the lists in the distribution procedure may have received one more representative together than if they had run separately. The total number of MPs that fell on the linked lists was then distributed among the individual lists according to the strength of the votes. Conservative DNVP , national- liberal DVP and CVP (the center had also started under a new name for this election) linked their lists in almost all constituencies, while the social-liberal DDP , SPD and USPD almost nowhere. A party could still only get mandates if it had actually put up candidates in the respective constituency.

Despite proportional representation, there were still certain differences between the proportion of votes and the proportion of mandates. This was due, among other things, to the constituency division (without utilization of the remaining votes) and the list connections. If the Reich had been a single electoral body, the DDP would have received four and the USPD ten more seats.

On average, a seat in the National Assembly required 72,209 votes, while the USPD needed 105,331 votes. The regionally centered parties needed significantly less, for example the Braunschweig State Electoral Association only 56,858. There was criticism of the electoral system because of the disproportionalities. Compared to other problems of the time, this discussion was of secondary importance.

Constitution 1919 and Reichstag election law 1920

The introduction of proportional representation was generally not viewed as revolutionary, but as a natural development, as it had begun in the German Empire. The only prominent opponent in the National Assembly was the DDP MP Friedrich Naumann , who considered a parliamentary system of government with proportional representation to be impossible.

The SPD and USPD wanted to see proportional representation protected as an achievement of the revolution, even if a different majority should later rule the Reichstag. The anchoring in the constitution made a (hardly realistic) two-thirds majority necessary to reintroduce majority voting, for example. The new constitution of August 11, 1919 stipulated:

“The representatives are elected in a general, equal, direct and secret ballot by men and women over the age of twenty according to the principles of proportional representation. Election day must be a Sunday or a public day of rest. The electoral law determines the details. "

- Weimar Constitution, Art. 22, Paragraph 1

The National Assembly took its time to draft the Reich Election Law . The Ministry of the Interior went public on January 19, 1920 with three preliminary drafts, which differed among other things in the size of the constituencies and the utilization of remaining votes. It was criticized that this procedure delayed the election law and new elections. After all, the National Assembly was only intended for the drafting of a constitution and was soon to be replaced by a regularly elected Reichstag. The kidnapping was cited as a motive for the right-wing Kapp Putsch of March 1920.

The cabinet did not decide on final questions, such as the allocation of constituencies, until March 12, 1920, when the (quickly failed) attempted coup was already underway. On April 23, the Reichstag passed the law with no dissenting votes. Since the election date had been set for June 6th in a great hurry , there was no time to set up the planned constituencies with four MPs each. The division of 1919 was used, which all parties only wanted to see as a short-term emergency solution.

Reichstag elections

Eligible voters

“Equal Rights - Equal Duties”: SPD poster 1919 with reference to the new right to vote for women

At the election to the National Assembly, the number of eligible voters had already been expanded considerably, from (1912) 14,441,400 to 37,362,100 Germans. Active soldiers, women and young people who had made their contribution to the war in different ways received recognition for this by being granted the right to vote, an argument that was undisputed at the time. Basically only citizens who had not yet reached the age of twenty (previously: twenty-fifth) remained without the right to vote. Citizenship had to be obtained at least a year before election day.

In the elections to the Reichstag since 1920, active soldiers were deprived of their voting rights; because of the reduction in the German army to 100,000 men, however, this affected considerably fewer people than in the German Empire. The following were also excluded from the ballot:

• Disenfranchised according to § 6 BGB old version (for example because of mental weakness, drunkenness or wastefulness)
• persons under guardianship or provisional guardianship,
• People who have lost their civil rights after a criminal court judgment.

It was practically impossible to exercise his right to vote who was a soldier in the Reichswehr , who lived in a closed sanatorium or nursing home, and who was in custody or on remand. However, those who were in protective custody for political reasons should be able to vote after a decision by the National Assembly. In the case of welfare children, judgments should be made on a case-by-case basis, such as whether someone was placed in an institution or in family care.

In the early draft laws there was still a right to vote for Germans abroad , but this was deleted in the deliberations of the National Assembly. It no longer played a central role in the later discussion on electoral reform, nor did the demand for voting rights for Austrians living in Germany. In 1924, the Deutschvölkische Freedom Party applied for German language islands abroad to send a representative to the Reichstag, but that was hardly serious propaganda, says Eberhard Schanbacher. German citizens living abroad were only allowed to vote in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Women's suffrage

Three members of the National Assembly on a stamp from 1969, from left: Marie Juchacz (SPD), Marie-Elisabeth Lüders (DDP), Helene Weber (center)

There was still little opposition to women's suffrage in the National Assembly . Conservative criticism was that women should not be drawn into the filth of politics and alienated from marriage and the household. Women's associations, on the other hand, unsuccessfully demanded quotas that reserved a certain percentage and certain places on the candidate lists for women.

As early as the Weimar Republic it was found that the turnout of women was lower than that of men (there were some official counts based on gender). Extremist parties like the NSDAP and the KPD tended to be men's parties, women preferred Christian, national and conservative parties above average.

It was not until the 1970s in the Federal Republic of Germany that men and women converged in terms of voter participation and party preference. The proportion of women in the Weimar National Assembly was 9.6 percent at the time, higher than in any other country; it was not until 1987 that the proportion in the Bundestag clearly exceeded that in the Weimar National Assembly.

Voting age

In the German Empire, the SPD advocated lowering the voting age from 25 to 20 years and argued in March 1917 with military service. Opponents of the idea, such as the Liberals and Catholics, replied that the age would then have to be lowered even further so as not to disadvantage the younger soldiers. In addition, military service does not automatically lead to political maturity. A Social Democratic move in the intergroup committee on November 8, 1918 was no longer discussed.

On November 12, 1918, the Council of People's Representatives announced the lowering of the active and passive voting age to 20 years. Interior Minister Hugo Preuss corresponded to this on November 26, 1918, whereby he himself advocated the age limit of 21 years. He connected this with the question of age (since 1876, uniformly in the empire at 21 years).

In the National Assembly, the SPD and DDP were in favor of setting the voting age in the constitution , while DNVP and DVP were against. Only the active voting age was then set down in the imperial constitution, it was 20 years. The Reichstag election law of 1920 stipulated eligibility, it was fixed for 25 years.

Execution and election act

Polling station in a Reichstag election in Braunschweig, around 1930

The Reich Ministry of the Interior was entrusted with the electoral affairs and appointed the Reich election officer. The state authorities were responsible for implementing the electoral law, depending on the provisions in the individual state.

Only those who were entered in a voter list or a voting card could vote. The lists or files were kept by the municipal authorities. Who could vote on election day or only with difficulty at his residence, had the opportunity to get a ballot to be feared. An informal application was submitted, verbally or in writing, with which one had to make it credible that, for compelling professional reasons, for example, one could not vote at the place of residence. With a ballot paper, voters could vote in any constituency on election day.

An elective was envisaged in the National Assembly and called for in 1922 by the DNVP, but the idea could not prevail. One argued with the exact representation of popular opinion; Party tactical considerations were that the bourgeois or right-wing voters must be mobilized against the better organized left. Experience in Detmold and Belgium had shown, however, that compulsory voting could hardly be enforced.

Ballot papers in the Berlin constituency, November 1932

The Reich President set the election day. Since November 1918 it had to be a Sunday or a public holiday, according to an old demand of the Social Democrats. If election day fell from April 1 to September 30, the polling stations were open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. In the winter half-year this was postponed by one hour. In constituencies with fewer than a thousand inhabitants, the electoral period could be shorter.

For a long time, the state had refused to print ballot papers for reasons of cost . That was the task of the parties, who sent ballot papers (only with their own candidates) by post or handed them to voters in front of the voting room. In 1907 it cost one party about 100 marks to print the ballot papers per constituency, but the much bigger problem was the distribution, which could necessitate the cooperation of 50 to 100 helpers. Also with regard to the waste of paper associated with the old system, the state has been printing the ballot papers since 1923 and made them available in the voting room. All the candidate lists were listed on such a ballot. The voter had to mark the list of his choice with a pen.

Constituencies and applicants

See: List of constituencies and constituency associations of the Weimar Republic

Constituencies and constituencies since 1924

The empire was divided into 35 constituencies. As a rule, a party submitted a list (“district election proposal”) in each constituency. A shop steward and his deputy had to be named in each constituency nomination. The shop steward or his deputy could declare that the remaining votes in the district election proposal were to be attributed to a Reich election proposal ("declaration of affiliation"). Usually each party put forward a national election proposal and all district election proposals of the party were attached to this. But it was also possible to join district election proposals from different parties to the same Reich election proposal. So were z. For example, in the Reichstag election in March 1933, the district election proposals of the DStP joined the Reich election proposal of the SPD, which in return placed DStP applicants on its Reich election proposal .

The 35 constituencies were combined into 16 constituency associations, each of which with one exception comprised two or three constituencies. District election proposals for constituencies of the same constituency association could be linked to one another through mutual declarations by the confidants (“declaration of association”). A connection was only possible between district election proposals that were either none or all of the same Reich election proposal.

Every citizen of the Reich aged 25 and over was eligible, including soldiers, although they were not allowed to vote themselves. A candidate did not have to live in the constituency in which he was running on a list. He was only allowed to appear on one list per constituency, but otherwise also on other lists linked to his list. That means that he was allowed to run for his party in several constituencies and on the Reichsliste at the same time.

evaluation

In many proportional representation systems, the number of mandates to be awarded is fixed in advance. However, the Weimar system followed the so-called automatic method . In principle, a party received a mandate for every 60,000 votes. Consequently, the total number of seats depended on the total number of votes cast. When the electoral population grew or the voter turnout increased, there was a larger Reichstag.

Levels in evaluating the votes

number	level	Lists
1	rich	Reich election proposals, drawn up by the party headquarters
16	Constituency associations, each comprising two or three constituencies (constituency association I, with East Prussia, consisted of only one constituency)	(none, the nomination from the constituency with the most remaining votes was taken into account)
35	Constituencies	District election proposals, prepared by the parties on site

First of all, each district election proposal received one seat for a full 60,000 votes. If a district election proposal received fewer than 60,000 votes, or if there were remaining votes, these votes were transferred to the next evaluation level. That was the constituency association or, if the nomination was not linked to any other constituency nomination, the Reich election nomination. In the constituency association, a mandate was given for each full 60,000 votes, but only if at least one of the associated constituency nominations had received at least 30,000 votes. Since there were no lists specifically for this level, the seats obtained here went to the district election proposal that had the most remaining votes; in the event of a tie, the lot decided. The remaining votes that were not used in the constituency association were transferred to the Reich election proposal.

Each imperial election proposal received one seat for each full 60,000 remaining votes. If more than 30,000 remaining votes remained, the imperial election proposal received another seat. An imperial election proposal could not receive more seats than all the affiliated district election proposals had already received. This means that a party (if only election proposals from this party were affiliated with the Reich election proposal) could only receive seats if it either achieved at least 60,000 votes in a constituency or if it won 60,000 votes in a constituency association and at the same time received at least one of its district election nominations in this constituency association Got 30,000 votes. A small party therefore had an advantage if its supporters lived in a regionally concentrated manner. Parties with widely dispersed supporters were at a disadvantage. In theory, a party with 29,999 votes in each of the 35 constituencies would have received more than a million votes, but no mandate.

In the Reichstag election of May 1924 , the Bavarian Farmers' Union won three seats with 192,786 votes, the USPD not a single one with 235,145 votes. According to Schanbacher, between 1.4 and 5.0 percent of the votes were not taken into account in the Reichstag elections. Only about half of the participating parties won seats.

Each district and Reich election proposal had to be signed by at least twenty voters before the election. The effort related to the support lists was therefore not an obstacle to the participation of non-established parties. It was not until February 2, 1933, that the hurdle was raised to 60,000 signatures (in one constituency, fifty each in the others).

If a district election proposal had more mandates than it listed candidates, the overdue mandates were filled using the lists in the affiliated constituencies or the Reichsliste. A candidate who ran on multiple linked lists and had been elected multiple times had to decide within a week of the election which mandate to accept. In the event of a member's resignation or death, his mandate passed to the candidate who was on the list after him.

Attitude of the parties to reforms

The Social Democrats were skeptical of electoral reform, fearing that the achievements of the revolution could be abolished and disadvantages reintroduced for social democracy. At most, a group of younger SPD politicians were open to reform in the direction of majority voting. The center advocated reform and emphasized the functional importance of elections, but could not agree on a draft.

The DDP strove for smaller constituencies or single constituencies, even when they themselves received fewer and fewer votes. Although the views of DVP leader Gustav Stresemann were similar to those of the DDP, the party itself was disinterested in reform. This was initially due to her negative attitude towards the constitution itself, later she saw that, for example, if the evaluation of the remaining votes had not been carried out, she would have hit her herself. Like Center Chancellor Heinrich Brüning , the DVP found the question of the electoral system to be of little importance; it wanted more far-reaching constitutional changes towards a stronger Reich President. The latter also applies to the DNVP, while Communists and National Socialists fundamentally rejected parliamentarism and any electoral reform.

Attempts at reform

All Reich governments since 1924 - and most of them before - set themselves the goal of electoral reform. Because of the difficulty of changing the constitution, they tried to make improvements in the direction of a more personal election while maintaining proportional representation. A higher actual percentage should be necessary in order to obtain mandates, achieved for example through smaller constituencies and a limited utilization of residual votes. However, only minor technical changes were made (laws amending the Reich Election Act of October 24, 1922, December 31, 1923 and March 13, 1924).

Theoretically, the Reichstag election law could have been changed by dictatorship emergency ordinances by the Reich President or on the basis of an enabling law of the Reichstag. At the beginning of 1924, for example, there were scruples about implementing the reform through the Enabling Act of December 1923: The people's representatives concerned should give themselves their own electoral system.

Joseph Wirth from the center was Chancellor of the Reich in 1921/1922 and Minister of the Interior in 1930/1931. In 1930 he made the last serious push towards electoral reform.

The later government draft by Karl Jarres of August 21, 1924 was the only one that was ever submitted to the Reichstag. The electoral area was to be divided into 156 constituencies with 16 constituency associations, the number of MPs was fixed at 399, 75,000 votes should be required for one seat. A complicated distribution system would have meant that a party would normally have a maximum of one seat per constituency and would have to rely on the utilization of the remaining votes at a higher level for a second. Furthermore, an imperial list was only allowed to distribute as many mandates as the party had already received in the constituencies. Since it would have been difficult for a small party to gain a seat in the constituency, it would hardly have received seats on the imperial list.

On August 19, 1930, before the September election, Heinrich Brüning's cabinet discussed a draft by Interior Minister Joseph Wirth , according to which elements of the majority vote should be introduced. In addition, splinter groups should be kept out of parliament by effective threshold clauses. As expected, the small parties affected, to which the DDP now also belonged, offered resistance. After the devastating election results of the September 1930 election, the draft would have meant that the middle class would have dropped from 21.2 percent to 11.5 percent. While the State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery, Hermann Pünder, was still thinking in November of the dissolution of the Reichstag and electoral reform by means of an emergency ordinance, Brüning had given up hope of restoring parliament's ability to act through a reform.

In August 1932, the new Chancellor Franz von Papen suggested raising the voting age by around five years, introducing high barriers against splinter parties and abolishing voting on lists. Participants in the war and family fathers should receive additional votes. Almost all parties rejected the proposals. His successor Kurt von Schleicher showed no interest in constitutional changes (and thus in far-reaching electoral reforms).

Election of the Reich President

→ Main article : Reich President

The head of state of the German Republic was the Reich President. He appointed the government and had extraordinary emergency security powers. The constitution provided that he was directly elected by the people every seven years. Re-election was possible without limitation (Art. 41, 43).

The National Assembly elected Friedrich Ebert as President of the Reich on February 11, 1919. The democratic majority took its time not only with the first election of the Reichstag, but also with that of the Reich President. A law on the election of the Reich President had been in place since May 4, 1920. But in 1922 there were still fears that a far right-wing candidate might be elected. In October 1922, the Reichstag specified Ebert's term of office through the law amending Article 180 of the Reich Constitution : he was to remain in office until June 30, 1925.

In fact, Ebert died a few months earlier, on February 28, 1925. This was the first time that the Reich President was elected by the people. Any German over 35 years of age was eligible to vote, and anyone who was allowed to vote in the Reichstag was entitled to vote. A candidate needed an absolute majority (of the electorate) to be elected. If no one reached them in the first ballot, there was a second ballot in which the relative majority was sufficient. It was not a runoff election, as new candidates were even allowed to run in the second ballot.

Election propaganda for the candidate Paul von Hindenburg in the 1925 presidential election

The first ballot took place on March 29, 1925. The DVP politician Karl Jarres received the most votes as the right-wing party candidate with 38.2 percent. Otto Braun , the SPD Prime Minister of Prussia, was in second place, but the parties loyal to the republic feared that he, as their common candidate, would not be able to attract the bourgeois voters. That is why they re-elected the center candidate Wilhelm Marx for the second ballot . The right, however, agreed on former World War II general Paul von Hindenburg , who did not run in the first ballot. Hindenburg won the second ballot on April 26 with 48.3 percent compared to 45.3 percent for Marx.

Seven years later, on March 13 and April 10, 1932, Hindenburg was re-elected . The most important opponent was the NSDAP leader Adolf Hitler . It was only in the second ballot that Hindenburg, who was supported by the parties loyal to the Republic as the lesser evil, got an absolute majority.

Popular legislation and voting

→ Main article : Direct democracy in the Weimar Republic

As early as 1869, the Social Democrats had called for legislation by means of a referendum and referendum . Despite a few reservations, the SPD and USPD remained in the National Assembly. The DDP and DNVP followed suit, while the DVP rejected popular legislation. Just as in the popular election of the Reich President, the people's legislation was seen as a counterweight to the omnipotence of the Reichstag.

Procedure

Flowchart: from referendum to law

The law on provisional power of the Reich of February 10, 1919 already spoke of the possibility for the Reich President to call a referendum on a draft law in the event of a dispute between parliament and the state representatives (Section 4.2). The National Assembly wanted to further balance the system with elements of direct democracy and set up additional “people's legislation”. The referendum law dates from June 27, 1921.

The imperial constitution provided for referendums:

• The Reichstag was able to call a referendum on the removal of the Reich President from office by a two-thirds majority. A confirmation of the Reich President, however, meant a new election and resulted in the dissolution of the Reichstag (Art. 43).
• If the Reichstag had passed a law, the Reich President could submit it to the referendum if he did not want to sign it (Art. 73.1).
• In the event of differences of opinion between the Reichstag and the Reichsrat, the Reich President could order a referendum (Art. 74.3).
• If the Reichsrat did not agree to a constitutional amendment passed by the Reichstag, the Reichstag could demand a referendum (Art. 76.2).
• The Reich President was able to call a referendum on the budget, tax laws and salary regulations (Art. 73.4).

A referendum on a draft law could also be demanded from a referendum, and this was the only procedure that actually led to referendums during the Weimar period. The further basis for this was provided by the law on the referendum of June 27, 1921 and the Reich voting order of March 14, 1924. The applicants first had to submit a draft law and the signatures of five thousand voters to the Reich Minister of the Interior. Alternatively, it was sufficient if an association could prove that one hundred thousand (voting) members supported the application. In practice, referendums were party requests, and attempts without the backing of a large party failed early on.

After a successful application, there was a referendum. To this end, the minister determined the days on which those eligible to vote could enter themselves in support lists. As a rule, the support of a tenth of all eligible voters was necessary. After a successful referendum, the Reich government had to submit an official statement on the draft law to the Reichstag.

If the Reichstag rejected the bill for the referendum, a referendum was made. The Ministry of the Interior and constitutional law made success much more difficult, as an article of the constitution was interpreted in such a way that the affirmative majority had to correspond to the (absolute) majority of all citizens entitled to vote. The constitutional historian Ernst Rudolf Huber condemns this practice as unconstitutional.

Referendum at the national level

Propaganda about the planned expropriation of the princes in 1926

Four approaches failed when the application was submitted to the Reich Minister of the Interior. Three approaches actually led to a referendum, two of which resulted in referendums, which, however, were unsuccessful in both cases with a participation of less than 50 percent of the electorate:

• Referendum on the expropriation of princes without compensation (1926): Communists and later also Social Democrats tried to expropriate the former princes in Germany without compensation. The request took place from March 4 to 17, and 12,523,939 voters registered. That was 31.8 percent of all eligible voters. The decision on June 20 resulted in 14,447,891 yes-votes with a participation of 39.3 percent.
• Referendum against the construction of the armored cruiser (1928): The communists wanted to prevent the construction of a warship. The request already failed, only 1,216,968 voters (only 2.9 percent of the necessary 10 percent of all entitled) took part in the request.
• Referendum against the Young Plan (1929): The political soldiers' association Stahlhelm , supported by the DNVP and NSDAP, demanded, among other things, the rejection of the Young Plan, which continued to regulate reparations after the First World War. The request from October 6th to 19th received 4,135,300 entries (10.0 percent of all voters), the referendum on December 22nd received 5,838,890 yes-votes with a turnout of 14.9 percent.

More votes

See also : Referenda in the wake of the Versailles Treaty

Opole 1921: The population is waiting for the result of the vote on whether Upper Silesia will remain with Germany.

The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 determined the separation of areas of Germany. In some cases there were referendums in Schleswig , Eupen-Malmedy , East and West Prussia and in Upper Silesia . The inhabitants did not decide on the return of the Saar area to Germany until 1935.

March 1931 in the Berlin Lustgarten: The Stahlhelm soldiers' union marches to kick off the popular initiative that was supposed to lead to the dissolution of the Prussian state parliament.

Two referendums ordered by the Reich government dealt with the restructuring of the Reich territory:

• On September 3, 1922, the voters concerned decided against the separation of the province of Upper Silesia from the state of Prussia.
• On May 18, 1924, there was a preliminary vote in the province of Hanover on the possible establishment of a state of Hanover that was detached from Prussia (with the exception of the administrative district of Aurich). The yes votes were less than a third of those entitled to vote, so that there was no longer a main vote (voters: 1,762,132, valid votes cast: 542,388, yes votes: 449,562).

There were six referendums at the level of the member states. They all concerned an early dissolution of the state parliament: Hesse (December 1926), Lippe-Detmold (March 1931), Prussia (April 1931), Anhalt (July 1931), Saxony (March 1932) and Oldenburg (March 1932). With the exception of Anhalt, all of these requests were successful, but only the one in Oldenburg received a majority of the subsequent decisions. The dissolution of the state parliament in Oldenburg was the only successful referendum in the Weimar Republic.

Elections in the countries

See also : Results of the state elections in the Weimar Republic

Members of the state parliament of Saxony-Meiningen , 1920.

The Reich constitution stipulated that in every country the people's representatives were elected “in a general, equal, direct and secret ballot by all Reich German men and women according to the principles of proportional representation” (Art. 17). There was criticism that the imperial constitution prescribed these principles for the countries. In addition to the desire of the MSPD and USPD to lay down these principles for the future, the proponents also wanted to harmonize the constitutional life of the empire and the states.

State politicians strove for electoral reforms and came into conflict with their party at the national level. In their opinion, their special regulations were entirely compatible with Article 17, such as the restriction of the right to vote in Bavaria and Baden to regional children.

In the federal states it was easier to counter the fragmentation of the parties in parliament than in the Reich. That was because the majority there were clearer, the parliamentary groups fewer and the governments more stable. The state parliaments were dissolved and re-elected less often. Measures were:

• Downsizing of parliaments; this was done primarily for cost reasons, but it also constituted a natural blocking effect against small parties
• Demand for more signatures for new parties who want to submit an election proposal, in Baden, for example, two percent of the electorate in the respective constituency
• Deposits that were only returned when a candidate or list received a minimum number of votes
• Higher numbers of votes were necessary for a party to receive seats at all; this was comparable to the Reichstag electoral system. In Württemberg, a party had to get at least one eighth of the votes in four constituencies.

Disadvantaged parties took action against these clauses before the State Court of Justice for the German Reich or courts in the federal states. They tended to get right. A turning point occurred in 1929 when the State Court of Justice had to rule on the restriction of the utilization of the remaining votes in Prussia, which had been taken literally from the Reich Election Act. He decided that the Imperial Constitution gave the legislature a leeway in specifying the electoral principles.

Political Consequences in the Federal Republic

The Parliamentary Council deliberated in Bonn in 1948/1949 on the constitution of the West German state.

Most West German politicians were in favor of maintaining proportional representation after the Second World War. However, it should be supplemented by threshold clauses. Their considerations picked up where they had left off in 1933 and upheld the idea of ​​representation, the formation of the common will in the form of coalition governments. Other politicians, on the other hand, increasingly viewed the election from the perspective of the functional, the formation of stable governments. When the Parliamentary Council met in 1948 , preliminary decisions had already been made: in the federal states, the parliaments had been elected according to proportional representation with threshold clauses. A majority in the Council found majority voting neither necessary nor desirable.

The pure proportional representation was suspicious of the council, because of the Weimar example. The SPD and the smaller parties came to the compromise that some of the MPs were awarded after the proportional representation and some after the majority vote. The direct mandates from the latter, however, were counted towards the total share. After back and forth with the Western Allies, the electoral law was passed on June 15, 1949. At the initiative of the CDU / CSU, only those parties were taken into account in the allocation of seats that received either five percent of all votes in the federal territory (since 1953, previously per country) or a direct mandate.

There are no longer any other than parliamentary elections at the state level. The Federal President is not elected directly by the people, but through a separate body. The Basic Law speaks of “elections and votes”, but provides for referendums only when the federal territory is redistributed. There are referendums at the state level, but at the federal level they were argued against with "bad Weimar experiences".

research

Reichstag election July 1932 : advertising pillar with election posters

Older literature in particular saw the Weimar electoral system as partly responsible for the catastrophe of 1933. Gerhard Schulz sees the electoral system as the reason for the party fragmentation and consequently for unstable and short-lived coalition governments; with a majority electoral system, the NSDAP would only have received a few seats in 1930. "It is obvious what this fact alone would have meant for the history of this party and the Weimar Republic." The political scientist Ferdinand Hermens , an unconditional supporter of the majority electoral system, considered the electoral system to be the main reason for the National Socialists' electoral success in 1941 in American exile .

The election researcher Dieter Nohlen rejects the thesis that proportional representation has led to radicalization, but thinks of social and economic factors. The proportional representation contributed to the fragmentation of the parties, but "party particularism" already existed in the German Empire because of social and ideological dividing lines. The proportional representation took such factors into account, but did not bring about them. According to Karl Dietrich Bracher , neither proportional representation nor women's suffrage can be held responsible for the radicalization.

Eberhard Schanbacher thinks in a similar way that the diversity of parties developed in the constitutionalism of the Bismarckian era. At that time, ideological parties could have emerged that did not form a government and therefore did not have to develop the ability to compromise. However, the Weimar electoral system encouraged new foundations and spin-offs. In a relative majority system there would have been four large, programmatically broad-based parties.

Jürgen W. Falter suspects that a majority electoral system or even just a five percent hurdle would have provided greater political stability in the 1920s. Then perhaps after 1930 the annoyance with the old parties would not have been so great. The proportional representation was therefore not a sufficient, but certainly a favorable factor for the rise of National Socialism. However, Falter emphasizes that it is difficult to assess how the Germans would have voted if elections had been organized according to the principles of the majority system.

List of elections and votes

The following table lists the elections and votes in the years 1919 to 1933. Because of the special importance of the largest country, not only the imperial level but also the Free State of Prussia was taken into account.

Reich-wide and Prussian elections and votes 1919–1933

event	date	Participation in%	Remarks
Election to the National Assembly	January 19, 1919	81.7	Majority government of the SPD, DDP and the center
Election to the constituent Prussian state assembly	January 26, 1919	74.8	Majority government of the SPD, DDP and the center
Election of the Reichstag	June 6, 1920; By-elections in certain areas: February 20, 1921, November 19, 1922	79.2	First regular Reichstag election since 1912; Loss of majority for SPD, DDP and the center
Election of the Prussian Landtag	February 20, 1921	76.8
Election of the Reichstag	May 4, 1924	77.4	Further losses for the parties loyal to the Republic
Election of the Reichstag	December 7, 1924	78.8	Little recovery of party loyal to the Republic
Election of the Prussian Landtag	December 7, 1924	78.6
Election of the Reich President	March 29 and April 26, 1925	68.9 / 77.6	Hindenburg elected
Referendum on the expropriation of the princes without compensation	June 20, 1926	39.3	The attempt by the KPD and SPD to expropriate the former princes without compensation failed, with 36.4 percent yes-votes (counting for all eligible voters)
Election of the Reichstag	May 20, 1928	75.6
Election of the Prussian Landtag	May 20, 1928	76.4
Referendum against the Young Plan	December 22, 1929	14.9	The attempt by Stahlhelm, DNVP and NSDAP to prevent a certain regulation on reparations failed, with 13.8 percent yes votes (counting among all voters)
Election of the Reichstag	September 14, 1930	82.0	The NSDAP shot up from a splinter party to second place
Referendum to dissolve the Prussian Landtag	August 31, 1931		The referendum was supported by the Stahlhelm, the DVP, the legal circles and also by the KPD, but remained unsuccessful with 9,793,884 yes-votes (37.1 percent of all voters)
Election of the Reich President	March 13 and April 10, 1932	86.2 / 83.5	Hindenburg re-elected
Election of the Prussian Landtag	April 24, 1932	82.1	Gains of the NSDAP with losses of the SPD and most of the bourgeois parties; no clear majority, the government remained in office
Election of the Reichstag	July 31, 1932	84.1	The extremist parties NSDAP and KPD together came to more than half of all MPs
Election of the Reichstag	November 6, 1932	80.6	The NSDAP lost a lot of votes, but this did not change the predominance of the extremists
Election of the Reichstag	March 5, 1933	88.8	Despite National Socialist terror, Reich Chancellor Hitler only got a majority with the DNVP; last Reichstag election in which not only the NSDAP participated
Election of the Prussian Landtag	March 5, 1933	88.7

→ For the following elections in the time of National Socialism (1933 to 1945), see Reichstag elections in Germany # Time of National Socialism (1933 to 1945) .

See also

• History of the right to vote in Germany
• Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
• List of constituencies and constituency associations of the Weimar Republic
• Reichstag (time of National Socialism)

literature

• Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history).
• Alfred Milatz: Voters and elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Civic Education 66).
• Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69).
• Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing , Berlin 1924.

Web links

Commons : Elections and referendums in the Weimar Republic  - collection of images

• Reich Election Act of April 27, 1920
• Law on the election of the Reich President of May 4, 1920
• Elections in the Weimar Republic , Gonschior
• Weimar voting , partial aspects, seminar for economic history LMU Munich
• Election posters in the Weimar Republic

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume III: Bismarck and the Reich. Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1963, pp. 646/647.
2. ^ Alfred Milatz: Voters and Elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Civic Education 66), pp. 11-13.
3. ^ Hans-Peter Ullmann: Politics in the German Empire 1871-1918 . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2005 (Encyclopedia of German History 52), p. 83.
4. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: German History 1866-1918 . Volume 2: Power state before democracy. 2nd edition, Beck: Munich 1993, pp. 499, 503.
5. ↑ Margaret Lavinia Anderson: Apprenticeship in Democracy. Elections and Political Culture in the German Empire . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2009 (Contributions to the History of Communication 22), p. 409/410; Alfred Milatz: Voters and Elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Civic Education 66), p. 27.
6. ^ Manfred Rauh: The parliamentarization of the German Reich , Droste Verlag: Düsseldorf 1977, p. 424.
7. ^ Alfred Milatz: Voters and Elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Political Education 66), pp. 26/28.
8. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 39/41.
9. ^ Manfred Rauh: The parliamentarization of the German Reich , Droste Verlag: Düsseldorf 1977, p. 368.
10. ↑ Manfred Rauh: The parliamentarization of the German Empire , Droste Verlag: Düsseldorf 1977, p. 409/410.
11. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 43.
12. ↑ Manfred Rauh: The parliamentarization of the German Empire , Droste Verlag: Düsseldorf 1977, p. 410-413.
13. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 45.
14. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 41, 50.
15. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 49–51.
16. ^ Alfred Milatz: Voters and elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Civic Education 66), pp. 30/31.
17. ^ Alfred Milatz: Voters and elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Political Education 66), p. 31/32.
18. ^ Alfred Milatz: Voters and Elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Civic Education 66), p. 39.
19. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 68.
20. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 48, 74–76.
21. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 72.
22. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 83/84.
23. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume VII: Expansion, Protection and Fall of the Weimar Republic. Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1984, pp. 38-40, 46.
24. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 85/86.
25. ↑ Dieter Nohlen, Philip Stöver (Ed.): Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2010, p. 763.
26. ↑ Thomas Mergel : The parliamentary system of Weimar and the consequences of the First World War. In: Andreas Wirsching (Ed.): Challenges of parliamentary democracy. The Weimar Republic in a European comparison . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2007 (series of publications by the Reichspräsident-Friedrich-Ebert-Gedenkstätte Foundation), pp. 37–59, here p. 42.
27. ^ Alfred Milatz: Voters and Elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Political Education 66), pp. 29/30.
28. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 86/87.
29. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, pp. 71–73.
30. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, pp. 73–75.
31. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 120/121.
32. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 70.
33. ↑ Hans Beyer: The woman in political decision-making [1932]. In: Otto Büsch, Monika Wölk, Wolfgang Wölk (eds.): Voter Movement in German History. Analyzes and reports on the Reichstag elections 1871–1933. Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1978 (individual publications by the Historical Commission in Berlin 20), pp. 299–309, here p. 302.
34. ↑ Hans Beyer: The woman in political decision-making [1932]. In: Otto Büsch, Monika Wölk, Wolfgang Wölk (eds.): Voter Movement in German History. Analyzes and reports on the Reichstag elections 1871–1933. Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1978 (individual publications by the Historical Commission in Berlin 20), pp. 299–309, here p. 305.
35. ↑ Waltraud Cornelissen: Political participation of women in the old Federal Republic and in united Germany. In: Gisela Helwig / Hildegard Maria Nickel (eds.): Women in Germany 1945–1992 . Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1993, pp. 321–347, here pp. 331/332.
36. ^ Thomas Mergel: Parliamentary culture in the Weimar Republic. Political communication, symbolic politics and the public in the Reichstag . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2002 (articles on the history of parliamentarism under political parties 135), p. 44.
37. ↑ Data based on Waltraud Cornelissen: Political participation of women in the old Federal Republic and in united Germany. In: Gisela Helwig / Hildegard Maria Nickel (eds.): Women in Germany 1945–1992 . Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1992, pp. 321–347, here p. 342.
38. ↑ Markus Maria wholesale Bölting: Age limits for the right to vote. Development and systematic importance in German constitutional law. Diss. Cologne 1993, Copy Team, Cologne 1993, pp. 371-373.
39. ↑ Markus Maria wholesale Bölting: Age limits for the right to vote. Development and systematic importance in German constitutional law. Diss. Cologne 1993, Copy Team, Cologne 1993, p. 408.
40. ↑ Markus Maria wholesale Bölting: Age limits for the right to vote. Development and systematic importance in German constitutional law. Diss. Cologne 1993, Copy Team, Cologne 1993, pp. 472-474.
41. ↑ Markus Maria wholesale Bölting: Age limits for the right to vote. Development and systematic importance in German constitutional law. Diss. Cologne 1993, Copy Team, Cologne 1993, pp. 476/477.
42. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, pp. 86/87.
43. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, p. 104.
44. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, pp. 116/117, 119/120.
45. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, p. 165.
46. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 119/120.
47. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, pp. 158/159.
48. ↑ Margaret Lavinia Anderson: Apprenticeship in Democracy. Elections and Political Culture in the German Empire . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2009 (Articles on the History of Communication 22) pp. 419/420.
49. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, pp. 141/142.
50. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, pp. 123/124.
51. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 218/219.
52. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 88/89.
53. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 147/148.
54. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, p. 186, p. 198.
55. ^ Alfred Schulze: The right to vote in the Reichstag . 2nd Edition. Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1924, p. 204.
56. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 204/205, 206/207.
57. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 190/191, 195.
58. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 198–201, 203.
59. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 208–211.
60. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 212/213.
61. ^ Friedrich Schäfer: Suffrage and voter behavior in the Weimar Republic [1967]. In: Otto Büsch, Monika Wölk, Wolfgang Wölk (eds.): Voter Movement in German History. Analyzes and reports on the Reichstag elections 1871–1933. Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1978 (individual publications by the Historical Commission in Berlin 20), pp. 610–626, here p. 614.
62. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 134–136.
63. ^ Friedrich Schäfer: Suffrage and voter behavior in the Weimar Republic [1967]. In: Otto Büsch, Monika Wölk, Wolfgang Wölk (eds.): Voter Movement in German History. Analyzes and reports on the Reichstag elections 1871–1933. Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1978 (individual publications by the Historical Commission in Berlin 20), pp. 610–626, here pp. 615/616.
64. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 144–145.
65. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 147/148.
66. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume 6: The Weimar Constitution. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1981, p. 311/312. Regarding the law: RGBl. 849, new version of March 6, 1924, RGBl. I 168.
67. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume 6: The Weimar Constitution. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1981, p. 313.
68. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west. Volume I. German history from the end of the Old Reich to the fall of the Weimar Republic. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2002, p. 404/405.
69. ^ Alfred Milatz: Voters and elections in the Weimar Republic , Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1965 (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Civic Education 66), p. 57.
70. ↑ See Reinhard Schiffers: Bad Weimar Experiences? In: Hermann K. Heussner, Otmar Jung (ed.): Dare to dare more direct democracy. Referendum and referendum: History - Practice - Proposals . Olzog, Munich 1999, pp. 41–60, here p. 44.
71. ↑ Hildegard Pleyer: Political advertising in the Weimar Republic. The propaganda of the main political parties and groups on the referendums and referendums "expropriation of princes" 1926, "freedom law" 1929 and "dissolution of the Prussian state parliament" 1931. Diss. Münster 1960, Münster 1959, p. 2, on the referendum on the Reich President Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume 6: The Weimar Constitution. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1981, p. 313.
72. ↑ Hildegard Pleyer: Political advertising in the Weimar Republic. The propaganda of the main political parties and groups on the referendums and referendums "Expropriation of princes" 1926, "Freedom Law" 1929 and "Dissolution of the Prussian Landtag" 1931. Diss. Münster 1960, Münster 1959, p. 3.
73. ↑ See Reinhard Schiffers: Bad Weimar Experiences? In: Hermann K. Heussner, Otmar Jung (ed.): Dare to dare more direct democracy. Referendum and referendum: History - Practice - Proposals . Olzog, Munich 1999, pp. 41–60, here p. 45.
74. ↑ Hildegard Pleyer: Political advertising in the Weimar Republic. The propaganda of the main political parties and groups on the referendums and referendums "Fürstenenteignung" 1926, "Freedom Law" 1929 and "Dissolution of the Prussian Landtag" 1931. Diss. Münster 1960, Münster 1959, p. 2/3.
75. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume 6: The Weimar Constitution. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1981, pp. 432/433.
76. ↑ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 80.
77. ↑ ^{a b} Dieter Nohlen, Philip Stöver (Ed.): Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2010, p. 769.
78. ^ ^{A b} Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume 6: The Weimar Constitution. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1981, p. 434.
79. ↑ Hildegard Pleyer: Political advertising in the Weimar Republic. The propaganda of the main political parties and groups on the referendums and referendums "Expropriation of princes" 1926, "Freedom Law" 1929 and "Dissolution of the Prussian Landtag" 1931. Diss. Münster 1960, Münster 1959, p. 195, Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 80.
80. ↑ Dieter Nohlen, Philip Stöver (Ed.): Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2010, p. 770.
81. ↑ Files of the Reich Chancellery: Die Kabinette Marx I / II, Volume 1, No. 200 , accessed on August 15, 2010.
82. ↑ Hildegard Pleyer: Political advertising in the Weimar Republic. The propaganda of the main political parties and groups on the referendums and referendums "Expropriation of princes" 1926, "Freedom Law" 1929 and "Dissolution of the Prussian Landtag" 1931. Diss. Münster 1960, Münster 1959, p. 4.
83. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), p. 74.
84. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 151–153.
85. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 155, 161, 163–165.
86. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 168, 176/177.
87. ^ Gudrun Stoltenberg: The electoral system for the first Bundestag. Function and significance of the Parliamentary Council. Diss. Heidelberg 1970, pp. 285-287.
88. ^ Gudrun Stoltenberg: The electoral system for the first Bundestag. Function and significance of the Parliamentary Council. Diss. Heidelberg 1970, pp. 287/288.
89. ↑ Wolfgang Benz : The founding of the Federal Republic. From the bizone to the sovereign state . dtv, Munich 1984 (German History of the Latest Time), p. 125.
90. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: The founding of the Federal Republic. From the bizone to the sovereign state . dtv, Munich 1984 (German History of the Latest Time), pp. 125/126.
91. ↑ See Reinhard Schiffers: Bad Weimar Experiences? In: Hermann K. Heussner, Otmar Jung (Ed.): Dare to dare more direct democracy. Referendum and referendum: History - Practice - Proposals . Olzog, Munich 1999, p. 58/59, here p. 44.
92. ^ Gerhard Schulz: Germany since the First World War 1918–1945 . Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, Göttingen 1976 (German History 10), p. 57, quotation p. 115.
93. ↑ Horst Möller : The Weimar Republic. An unfinished democracy . 8th edition, Dtv, Munich 2006 (1985), p. 84.
94. ^ Dieter Nohlen: Suffrage and party system . 3. Edition. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2000, pp. 303/304.
95. ^ Karl Dietrich Bracher: The German dictatorship. Origin, structure, consequences of National Socialism . 6th edition 1980 (1969) Frankfurt / M., Berlin, Vienna, p. 79.
96. ^ Eberhard Schanbacher: Parliamentary elections and electoral system in the Weimar Republic . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1982 (articles on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 69), pp. 219/220, 222.
97. ^ Jürgen Falter: Hitler's voters . CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1991, pp. 134/135
98. ↑ Dieter Nohlen, Philip Stöver (Ed.): Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2010, p. 763.
99. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 101.
100. ^ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 68.
101. ^ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 70.
102. ^ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 76/77.
103. ^ ^{A b} Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 80.
104. ^ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (Statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 71.
105. ↑ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (Statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 72.
106. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume 6: The Weimar Constitution. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1981, p. 759.
107. ↑ Hildegard Pleyer: Political advertising in the Weimar Republic. The propaganda of the relevant political parties and groups on the referendums and referendums "Expropriation of princes" 1926, "Freedom Law" 1929 and "Dissolution of the Prussian Landtag" 1931. Diss. Münster 1960, Münster 1959, p. 195.
108. ^ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 78/79.
109. ^ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 73.
110. ^ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 74.
111. ↑ Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann: Elections and votes in the Weimar Republic. Materials on voting behavior 1919–1933 . CH Beck, Munich 1986 (Statistical workbooks on modern German history), p. 75.