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All 472 seats in theReichstag 237 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Registered | 38,374,983 ( 6.7%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 77.4% ( 1.8pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This article is part of a series on the |
| Politics of Germany |
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Head of state |
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A federal election for the secondReichstag of theWeimar Republic was held in Germany on 4 May 1924.[1] It took place following a series of national crises in 1923, most notably theoccupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops and the resultingperiod of hyperinflation. The election campaign was marked by strong ideological differences over how the government had handled the problems. In the voting, the parties of the far left and far right made significant gains at the expense of the moderate parties that had been in the government or had supported it.
The splintered party groupings in the new Reichstag made it impossible to form a majority coalition. The government led byWilhelm Marx of theCentre Party therefore continued in office, but his cabinet – already the eleventh government of the Weimar Republic – lasted only a little over six months before Marx requested a new election.
The election of 4 May 1924 took place in the wake of a number of national crises during the previous year:hyperinflation, theoccupation of the Ruhr, theBeer Hall Putsch and conflicts between the federal and state governments, especially inSaxony andThuringia (the attempted communist takeover known as theGerman October) and inBavaria. A national state of emergency was declared on 27 September in response toBavaria's refusal to implement certain national laws.[2] The hyperinflation was controlled with the introduction of anew currency in November 1923, and the government was able to bring theAllies of World War I to the table on the issue of the Ruhr andGermany's war reparations. When the state of emergency lapsed in March 1924, ChancellorWilhelm Marx, faced with parliamentary opposition to a number of the decrees issued by hisminority centre-right government, requested the dissolution of theReichstag for a new election.[3][4][5]
The election campaign brought out the strong differences of opinion among the parties over the government's currency stabilization measures during the state of emergency. The conflicts became even more apparent following the release in mid-campaign of theDawes Committee's report, which laid out a plan for Germany to pay the war reparations it owed under theTreaty of Versailles. The government, made up of the CatholicCentre Party, theGerman People's Party (DVP) and theGerman Democratic Party (DDP), took the opportunity to emphasize the positive aspects of the Dawes Plan, such as its promise that foreign troops would be withdrawn from the Ruhr, and to point out that the currency stabilization program had succeeded. TheGerman National People's Party (DNVP) countered by calling the Dawes Plan a "second Versailles",[6] and theCommunist Party of Germany (KPD) denounced it as an "enslavement of the German proletariat".[7] Within theSocial Democratic Party (SPD), a group centered aroundOtto Wels wanted a coalition with the bourgeois parties, but the left wing aroundPaul Levi saw the role of the SPD in a principled opposition.
TheNazi Party had been banned by the Reich government followingAdolf Hitler's failedBeer Hall Putsch in November 1923, and at the time of the election campaign Hitler was in prison.[8] The Nazis ran as theNational Socialist Freedom Movement (NSFP) in a combined electoral list with theGerman Völkisch Freedom Party (DVFP), which had also been banned after the putsch. The wing of the Nazis centering aroundHermann Esser andJulius Streicher opposed both the party union and participation in the election. The majority of the 32 representatives elected by the NSFP in May 1924 were originally members of the DVFP and not the Nazi Party.[9][10]
The Reichstag was elected viaparty listproportional representation. For this purpose, the country was divided into 35 multi-memberelectoral districts. A party was entitled to a seat for every 60,000 votes won. This was calculated via a three-step process on the constituency level, an intermediate level which combined multiple constituencies, and finally nationwide, where all parties' excess votes were combined. In the third nationwide step, parties could not be awarded more seats than they had already won on the two lower constituency levels. Due to the fixed number of votes per seat, the size of the Reichstag fluctuated between elections based on the number of voters.[11]
The voting age was 20 years. People who were incapacitated according to the Civil Code, who were under guardianship or provisional guardianship, or who had lost their civil rights after a criminal court ruling were not eligible to vote.[12]
The election resulted in losses for the parties of the moderate centre that had been part of the government in the previous year, particularly the DVP, which lost 20 seats, and the DDP, which lost 11. The Centre Party managed to hold its own and gained one additional seat. The SPD's loss of just three seats appeared outwardly to have been modest, but behind it lay the fact that in 1922 it had merged with theIndependent Social Democrats (USPD), which had won almost five million votes and 83 seats in 1920. The SPD's losses between 1920 and 1924 show that it was unable to retain the former supporters of the USPD. Most of them turned to the KPD.[13]
Parties of the far right and far left made the greatest advances. The radical nationalistGerman National People's Party (DNVP) with 95 seats very nearly surpassed the SPD's 100. TheAgricultural League, a new party with which the DNVP was closely allied, won 19 seats. The National Socialist Freedom Movement, which the banned Nazi Party had joined, picked up 32 seats with 6.5% of the vote. On the left of the spectrum, the KPD, with the help of former USPD voters, won 58 more seats than in 1920 and almost 13% of the vote.[5]
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Votes | % | +/– | Seats | +/– | |
| Social Democratic Party | 6,008,905 | 20.52 | −1.40 | 100 | −3 | |
| German National People's Party | 5,696,475 | 19.45 | +4.38 | 95 | +24 | |
| Centre Party | 3,914,379 | 13.37 | −0.27 | 65 | +1 | |
| Communist Party of Germany | 3,693,280 | 12.61 | +10.52 | 62 | +58 | |
| German People's Party | 2,694,381 | 9.20 | −4.70 | 45 | −20 | |
| National Socialist Freedom Movement | 1,918,329 | 6.55 | New | 32 | New | |
| German Democratic Party | 1,655,129 | 5.65 | −2.63 | 28 | −11 | |
| Bavarian People's Party | 946,648 | 3.23 | −0.93 | 16 | −4 | |
| Agricultural League | 574,939 | 1.96 | New | 10 | New | |
| Economic Party of the German Middle Class | 500,820 | 1.71 | New | 7 | New | |
| German Social Party | 333,427 | 1.14 | +1.06 | 4 | +4 | |
| German-Hanoverian Party | 319,792 | 1.09 | −0.04 | 5 | 0 | |
| Independent Social Democratic Party | 235,145 | 0.80 | −16.83 | 0 | −83 | |
| Bavarian Peasants' League | 192,786 | 0.66 | −0.12 | 3 | −1 | |
| Christian Social People's Community | 124,451 | 0.43 | New | 0 | New | |
| Polish People's Party | 100,260 | 0.34 | New | 0 | New | |
| National Freedom Party | 62,071 | 0.21 | New | 0 | New | |
| Geusen League | 59,222 | 0.20 | New | 0 | New | |
| Party of Tenants | 45,920 | 0.16 | New | 0 | New | |
| Republican Party of Germany | 45,722 | 0.16 | New | 0 | New | |
| German Workers' Party | 36,291 | 0.12 | New | 0 | New | |
| Free Economy Union F.F.F. | 36,013 | 0.12 | New | 0 | New | |
| Socialist League | 26,418 | 0.09 | New | 0 | New | |
| Haeusser Alliance | 24,451 | 0.08 | New | 0 | New | |
| Wendish People's Party | 10,827 | 0.04 | +0.01 | 0 | 0 | |
| National Block | 9,561 | 0.03 | New | 0 | New | |
| Schleswig Club | 7,620 | 0.03 | +0.01 | 0 | 0 | |
| Bavarian Middle Class League – Southern Region | 5,659 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | |
| Independent Economic Group | 1,848 | 0.01 | New | 0 | New | |
| Masurian Union | 1,029 | 0.00 | New | 0 | New | |
| Total | 29,281,798 | 100.00 | – | 472 | +13 | |
| Valid votes | 29,281,798 | 98.56 | ||||
| Invalid/blank votes | 427,582 | 1.44 | ||||
| Total votes | 29,709,380 | 100.00 | ||||
| Registered voters/turnout | 38,374,983 | 77.42 | ||||
| Source:Gonschior.de | ||||||
No clear majority could be formed in the new Reichstag. The German People's Party forced the cabinet's resignation on 26 May, and Marx was faced with what he saw as unacceptable demands from the newly strengthened German National People's Party. Given the stalemate, all of the existing ministers were reconfirmed in their posts as thesecond Marx cabinet on 3 June.[14]
The following months were dominated by debate over the Dawes Plan, which set out a payment plan for Germany's war reparations. Its passage required a two-thirds majority due to the constitutional amendments necessary, meaning that both SPD and DNVP support was needed. The former favoured the plan, while the latter was deeply divided. After a contentious session, about half of the DNVP delegation voted in support, enough to secure its passage. With that major issue resolved, the cabinet negotiated for the DNVP's entry into the government, but without success. With no prospect of a stable government, the Reichstag was dissolved in October 1924 for anew election in December.[5]
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