German electoral politics
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
The following is a summary of Germany's electoral history and a list of key historical events influencing electoral outcomes. It includes a timeline of Reichstag or federal elections, Presidential elections, and changes the the governing coalition in the Reichstag in-between elections.
1920s
↓Fed Election
↓Fed Election
↓Fed Election
↓Pres Election
↓Fed Election
↓Fed Election
│
1920
│
1921
│
1922
│
1923
│
1924
│
1925
│
1926
│
1927
│
1928
│
1929
│
1930
German Electoral History 1920-1930
- 1922 June 24 - Nationalists attempt to murder German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau. Rathenau escapes with moderate injuries. While Chancellor Wirth wished to give an angry speech calling the right enemies of the people before the Reichstag, Rathenau instead gave a speech preaching unity and moderation among the left. This is believed to have delayed the merger of the SPD and USPD by almost a year and preserved Wirth's tenuous coalition.
- 1923 January 11 - French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr region of Weimar Germany due to defaulting on reparation payments. The Wirth government encourages workers in the area to strike as a form of passive resistance, but does not promise to pay their salaries due to the poor budget. The strike does not hold. As a result, the Centre will perform poorly against Hindenburg and Thalman in the west of Frankfurt in the future, but they avert much more severe hyperinflation.
- 1923 May - The USPD and SPD merge. Around the same time, the SPD withdraws from the Wirth coalition due to its unwillingness to pay worker salaries in the Ruhr region forcing a reshuffling of the cabinet. President Ebert selects Wilhelm Marx (Z/Centre) as the next chancellor, who pulls together a minority coalition of the Centre, DDP, and DVP (who the SPD had previously opposed adding to the coalition under Wirth).
- 1923 November 8-9 - The Kampfbund attempt to seize Munich is violently suppressed by Bavarian police. NSDAP leader Adolf Hitler was shot and killed. The Nazi Party was banned, although other rightist militant groups (primarily focused on restoring the monarchy) replaced it.
- 1925 February 28 - President Friedrich Ebert (SPD) dies and the first direct presidential election is called.
- 1925 March-April - To ensure the defeat of Hindenburg in the Presidential elections, the SPD and BVP (Bavarian People’s Party) agree to support Wilhelm Marx (Z/Centre) on the second ballot.
- 1925 October - The DNVP leave the Luther coalition to protest the Locarno Treaties and a federal election is called. The SPD surges ahead, allowing it to lead a grand coalition spanning from the left to centre-right.
- 1929 - The Young Plan was negotiated which, among other things, obligated Germany to make 112 billion Reichsmarks in reparation payments (including interest) through 1988. This caused a large swing to the right, typified by the DNVP now under the leadership of Alfred Hugenberg. Hugenberg, a media mogul, funded a propaganda campaign stoking nationalist sentiments.
- 1929 October - The New York Stock Exchange crashes, marking the start of the Great Depression. This pulls most American financial support from Germany. American loans begin to be called in, tariffs enacted that cuts off Germany's access to American markets, and unemployment rises dramatically. This continues to fuel a nationalist surge among the German public.
- 1929 December 22 - The 1929 Young Plan referendum takes place, which sought to renounce German reparations, German war guilt, and make it illegal for the government to accept new obligations. It fails due to low voter turnout.
1930s
↓Fed Election
↓Pres/Fed Election
↓Fed Election
↓Pres Elect
│
1930
│
1931
│
1932
│
1933
│
1934
│
1935
│
1936
│
1937
│
1938
│
1939
│
1940
German Electoral History 1930-1940
- 1930 September - Hugenberg's DNVP rides the wave of rightist sentiment following the Young Plan (1929) and beginning of the Great Depression to an electoral victory and forms a Nationalist coalition. However, its policies favoring the wealthy exacerbate unemployment and poverty at the expense of the people.
- 1931 January 4 - After its unpopular response to the Great Depression, in a desperate bid to stoke nationalist sentiments the DNVP government orders the reoccupation of the Rhineland just one year after the French had left. Hugenberg pays off rightist paramilitaries secretly with his own funds. This is heavily opposed by Centre and SPD due to causing a massive international incident and showing Germany to be acting in bad faith. It was also opposed by the military due to the generals knowing they weren’t ready for a war with France. After a stand-off and threats from the French to re-occupy the Rhineland, the DNVP government in secret called back their mercenaries and denied involvement. This is seen as a huge the public as an embarrassment for Chancellor Hugenberg.
- 1932 March 13 / April 10 - A presidential election is called. To ensure the defeat of the DNVP candidate, the SPD agreed to support the Centre Party on the second ballot provided it was an agreeable candidate like Wirth.
- 1935 August 1 - The nationalist paramilitary and veterans organization Der Stahlhelm bombs the Reichstag in an attempt to overthrow the grand coalition. The violence ultimately does not achieve its goal. After militants were suppressed by government forces, extreme elements of the monarchist German National People's Party (DNVP) were implicated. It was argued that the some DNVP leaders approved the attack in response to the SPD-Centre Grand Coalition's abnormally stable government (3 years to that point). This caused the Conservative People's Party (KVP) to rapidly grow in membership as the moderate wing of the DNVP jumped ship. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was installed as KVP chairman to instill public confidence, as the monarchist cause was then associated with terrorists. The KVP would form a coalition with the Centre Party as a junior partner to unseat Otto Wels' SPD government in the 1936 federal election.
- 1936 November 12 - The Centre Party withdraws from the grand coalition and a federal election is called, then with a bolstered KVP. From the election Heinrich Brüning (Centre) is able to form a coalition of centre and conservative parties to the exclusion of the SPD, Communists, and far-right parties. After the empowerment of the KVP, marginalization of monarchists, gradual recovery from the Great Depression, and successive majority governments, the Brüning government (or the Wels government) is considered to be the start of a stable era in German politics.