1930 German federal election

Federal elections were held in Germany on 14 September 1930.^[1][2] Despite losing ten seats, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) remained the largest party in the Reichstag, winning 143 of the 577 seats, while the Nazi Party (NSDAP) dramatically increased its number of seats from 12 to 107.^[3] The Communists also increased their parliamentary representation, gaining 23 seats and becoming the third-largest party in the Reichstag.

1930 German federal election

← 1928 14 September 1930 (1930-09-14) July 1932 →
All 577 seats in the Reichstag 289 seats needed for a majority
Registered	42,982,912 ( 4.3%)
Turnout	82.0% (6.4pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Otto Wels & Arthur Crispien Adolf Hitler Ernst Thälmann Party SPD NSDAP KPD Last election 29.8%, 153 seats 2.6%, 12 seats 10.6%, 54 seats Seats won 143 107 77 Seat change 10 95 23 Popular vote 8,575,244 6,379,672 4,590,160 Percentage 24.5% 18.3% 13.1% Swing 5.3 pp 15.7 pp 2.5 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Ludwig Kaas Alfred Hugenberg Ernst Scholz Party Centre DNVP DVP Last election 12.1%, 61 seats 14.2%, 73 seats 8.7%, 45 seats Seats won 68 41 30 Seat change 7 32 15 Popular vote 4,127,000 2,457,686 1,577,365 Percentage 11.8% 7.0% 4.5% Swing 0.3 pp 7.2 pp 4.2 pp
Results by electoral constituency Results by district and independent city Results for each party
Government before election First Brüning cabinet Z–DDP–DVP–WP–BVP–KVP Government after election First Brüning cabinet Z–DDP–DVP–WP–BVP–KVP

Background

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) had won the most votes and was the largest party in every election from 1919 to 1930. They led the coalition government between 1919–1920 and 1928–1930.

After the 1928 German federal election, a grand coalition was formed under the Social Democratic chancellor Hermann Müller. The coalition collapsed on 27 March 1930. President Hindenburg appointed Centre Party politician and academic Heinrich Brüning as chancellor, who formed a minority government.

The new government was confronted with the economic crisis caused by the Great Depression. Brüning disclosed to his associates in the German Labour Federation that his chief aim as chancellor would be to liberate the German economy from the burden of continuing to pay war reparations and foreign debt. This would require an unpopular policy of tight credit and a rollback of all wage and salary increases (an internal devaluation). The Reichstag rejected Brüning's measures within a month, who then used emergency powers to pass it anyway. The Reichstag rejected the emergency decree with 256 votes from the Social Democrats, the Communists, the German National People's Party and the Nazis. Brüning asked Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag, who promptly did so on 18 July 1930. New elections were held on 14 September 1930.

Electoral system

In 1930, Germany was formally a multi-party parliamentary democracy, led by President Paul von Hindenburg (1925–1934). However, beginning in March 1930, Hindenburg only appointed governments without a parliamentary majority which systematically governed by emergency decrees, circumventing the democratically elected Reichstag.

The electoral law awarded one seat in the Reichstag per 60,000 votes. All citizens over 21 could vote through a system of proportional representation. A new parliament was elected every four years to deal with issues related to taxes, trade, defense, etc. The President was directly elected every seven years and was primarily in control of the armed forces; however, he also had significant powers to dissolve the Reichstag, nominate a Chancellor, veto laws, and invoke article 48.

Campaign

The Centre Party shifted right-ward after Ludwig Kaas became its leader.^[4]

The Nazis had increased their share of the vote in state elections since their 1928 federal election result.^[5] In spring 1930, Adolf Hitler appointed Joseph Goebbels as the head of the party's Propaganda Division and Goebbels oversaw the party's Reichstag campaign.^[6]

Nazi membership rose from 108,717 in 1928, to 293,000 by September 1930. Another 100,000 people joined the party between the election and end of the year. The party had forty-nine newspapers, six of which were daily.^[7]

The SPD designated the "bourgeois block" and the Nazis as their enemies and, with the KPD, held rallies in Berlin on 1 August 1930 under the motto "Never again war". Some 30,000 participated in the SPD rally in the Lustgarten and 15,000 in the KPD demonstration at the Winterfeldtplatz. On 23 August, KPD members attacked a Nazi event in Bunzlau. Three people were killed and two seriously injured in fighting with the police. The KPD election campaign climaxed with a rally in the Berlin Sportpalast on 12 September.

Election poster of the Zentrum party

Results

The election had a voter turnout of 82%, the highest since the 1919 election.^[8] The Nazis increased their number of seats from 12 to 107.^[9] The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) remained the strongest party and won 143 seats, a loss of 10 seats from the previous election. The only other major party to significantly increase its seats was the Communist Party of Germany, which won 13.13% of the vote, securing 77 seats, 23 more than in the last election. The Centre slightly increased their seat count by 7, equalling 68, but dropped to fourth from third place in their seat count and popular vote in comparison to the 1928 election.

The German National People's Party's (DNVP) support plummeted but managed to secure 41 seats overall. They lost 32 seats from their previously held 73, and dropped to fifth from second, chiefly due to the fragmentation of the party under Alfred Hugenberg's leadership.^[10] Due to Hugenberg's more hardline positions, moderate voters moved to the newly-formed Christian Social People's Service (CSVD), Conservative People's Party (KVP), and Christian-National Peasants' and Farmers' Party (CNBL).^[11] The German People's Party (DVP) continued to haemorrhage seats, losing 15 and only attaining 4.51% of the popular vote, ceasing to be a notable political force after the July 1932 elections. The 28 other political parties shared the remainder of the votes.

The DNVP received 13% in rural areas, twice as much what it received in urban areas.^[12] The German National Association of Commercial Employees reported that half of its members voted for the Nazis.^[13]

184 of the seats in the Reichstag were held by parties that refused to participate in any coalition government.^[14]

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	Social Democratic Party	8,575,244	24.53	−5.23	143	−10
	Nazi Party	6,379,672	18.25	+15.62	107	+95
	Communist Party of Germany	4,590,160	13.13	+2.51	77	+23
	Centre Party	4,127,000	11.81	−0.26	68	+7
	German National People's Party	2,457,686	7.03	−7.22	41	−32
	German People's Party	1,577,365	4.51	−4.20	30	−15
	Reich Party of the German Middle Class	1,361,762	3.90	−0.61	23	0
	German State Party	1,322,034	3.78	−1.03	20	−5
	Christian-National Peasants' and Farmers' Party	1,108,043	3.17	+1.31	19	+10
	Bavarian People's Party	1,058,637	3.03	−0.04	19	+2
	Christian Social People's Service	868,269	2.48	New	14	New
	German Farmers' Party	339,434	0.97	−0.59	6	−2
	Conservative People's Party	290,579	0.83	New	4	New
	Reich Party for Civil Rights and Deflation–Christian Social Reich Party	271,291	0.78	−0.88	0	−2
	Agricultural League	193,926	0.55	−0.10	3	0
	German-Hanoverian Party	144,286	0.41	−0.23	3	−1
	Christian Social Peoples Community	81,550	0.23	New	0	New
	Polish People's Party	72,913	0.21	0.00	0	0
	Schmalix Greater German List	26,707	0.08	New	0	New
	German House and Property Owners' Party	25,530	0.07	−0.05	0	0
	Conservative People's Party–German-Hanoverian Party	22,218	0.06	New	0	New
	Independent Social Democratic Party	11,690	0.03	−0.04	0	0
	Free Association of Craftsmen, Retailers, and Tradesmen	9,531	0.03	New	0	New
	Radical German State Party	8,841	0.03	New	0	New
	German Unity Party for the True National Economy	6,915	0.02	New	0	New
	Disabled Veterans and Survivors of the German Side, Including the Found	6,704	0.02	New	0	New
	German Cultural Party of Intellectual Professions, Employees and Officials	6,181	0.02	New	0	New
	Tradesmen, Craftsmen, Home Owners	3,644	0.01	New	0	New
	Schleswig Club	1,785	0.01	0.00	0	0
	Humanity Party and the New Community	1,626	0.00	New	0	New
	Evangelical voters	1,326	0.00	New	0	New
	Party Against Alcohol	1,171	0.00	New	0	New
	Workers Party for Creative Workers	907	0.00	New	0	New
	Prussian-Lithunanian People's Party	666	0.00	New	0	New
	Renter and People's Reich Party	653	0.00	New	0	New
	People's Party of the Lusatian Sorbs	288	0.00	New	0	New
	Friesland	237	0.00	0.00	0	0
Total		34,956,471	100.00	–	577	+86
Valid votes		34,956,471	99.24
Invalid/blank votes		268,028	0.76
Total votes		35,224,499	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		42,982,912	81.95
Source: Gonschior.de

Aftermath

The 1930 election left the Social Democrats and KPD with almost 40 per cent of the seats in the Reichstag between them. In November 1931, the SPD suggested the two parties work together but Thälmann rejected the offer, with the KPD newspaper Die Rote Fahne calling for an “intensification of the fight against Social Democracy”. Addressing the Nazi electoral breakthrough in the 1930 elections, Thälmann insisted that if Hitler came to power he was sure to fail and drive Nazi voters into the arms of the KPD. As late as February 1932, Thälmann was arguing that “Hitler must come to power first, then the requirements for a revolutionary crisis [will] arrive more quickly”.^[15]

As a result of the election, Brüning lost his majority in the Reichstag and continued to rule by decree, implementing harsh austerity measures that brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular.^[16] Governance by decree became the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government.^[17] Following the 1932 presidential election, the newly re-elected Hindenburg refused to sign any more decrees and Brüning resigned.^[18] A new cabinet was formed under the leadership of Franz von Papen (derisively labelled the "cabinet of barons"^[19]), but was unable to form a new majority in the Reichstag, only receiving the support of the German National People's Party (DNVP) and the German People's Party (DVP); after a few months of ineffectual leadership, a snap election was called by Hinderburg.^[20]

References

1. Nohlen & Stöver 2010, p. 762.
2. Pollock 1930.
3. Nohlen & Stöver 2010, p. 790.
4. Childers 1983, p. 189-190.
5. Childers 1983, p. 131-132.
6. Childers 1983, p. 138.
7. Childers 1983, p. 194.
8. Childers 1983, p. 140.
9. Pollock 1930, p. 993.
10. Beck, Hermann (2009). The Fateful Alliance: German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933. Oxford: Berghahn Books. pp. 50–51. ISBN 978-1845456801.
11. Bessel, Richard; Feuchtwanger, E.J. (1981). Social Change and Political Development in Weimar Germany. Croom Helm. pp. 147, 148, 277. ISBN 085664921X.
12. Childers 1983, p. 158.
13. Childers 1983, p. 173.
14. Pollock 1930, p. 991.
15. Winner, David. "How the left enabled fascism". New Statesman.
16. Halperin, Samuel William (1965). Germany tried democracy; a political history of the Reich from 1918 to 1933. Internet Archive. New York, W.W. Norton. p. 449. ISBN 978-0-393-00280-5.
17. Halperin, Samuel William (1965). Germany tried democracy; a political history of the Reich from 1918 to 1933. Internet Archive. New York, W.W. Norton. p. 403. ISBN 978-0-393-00280-5.
18. Strauss, Franz Josef. Die Erinnerungen (1987 ed.). p. 27.
19. "GERMANY: Hitler Into Chancellor". Time. 6 February 1933. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 29 June 2024.
20. Henry Ashby Turner (1996). Hitler's thirty days to power. Internet Archive. Addison-Wesley. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-201-40714-3.

Works cited

• Childers, Thomas (1983). The Nazi Voter: The Social Foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919-1933. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807815705.
• Nohlen, Dieter; Stöver, Philip (2010). Elections in Europe: a data handbook (1. ed.). Baden-Baden: Nomos Verl.-Ges. ISBN 9783832956097.
• Pollock, James (1930). "The German Reichstag Elections of 1930". American Political Science Review. 24 (4). American Political Science Association: 989–995. doi:10.2307/1946755. JSTOR 1946755.