AQA 7042 · 2O · R07 - Political developments and the workings of democracy: President Hindenburg
Examine Hindenburg, parties, elections and social attitudes to judge how far Weimar democracy stabilised in 1924–28. Distinguish a political system that was functioning from one whose supporters would defend it under severe pressure.
Measuring democratic stability
In the Weimar Republic, the Reichstag was the elected national parliament. Voters chose party lists by proportional representation, so a party's share of seats broadly followed its share of votes. No party won a majority on its own. Coalitions were therefore a normal feature of democracy, not proof by themselves that democracy had failed.
Coalition
An agreement between several parties to support a government. Its stability depends on whether the partners can sustain agreement over policy and responsibility.
The Reichspräsident, or Reich President, was the elected head of state. The president appointed the chancellor, could dissolve the Reichstag and possessed emergency powers under Article 48. Those powers created potential tension between presidential authority and parliamentary government, but the useful question for 1924–28 is how the office was actually used in these years.
Political stability needs more than one test. A stable democracy should hold lawful elections, transfer power without violent overthrow, form governments capable of passing policy, and command enough acceptance from voters and influential institutions to make the rules durable. A change of coalition can show compromise; repeated inability to construct a dependable majority can show weakness.
Three dates organise the enquiry:
- 7 December 1924: a Reichstag election brought losses for the Communist and radical nationalist lists and left the SPD the largest party, although no secure governing majority emerged.
- 26 April 1925: Paul von Hindenburg won the second ballot of the first direct presidential election.
- 20 May 1928: the SPD made further gains, after which Hermann Müller formed a five-party Grand Coalition with a working parliamentary majority.
Hindenburg and the presidency
Hindenburg carried the authority of the old order into the Republic. He was a former field marshal celebrated for the First World War victory at Tannenberg, a monarchist and a product of the Prussian military-landed elite. Junker is the usual term for a member of Prussia's landed aristocratic elite; Hindenburg's family and career connected him to this conservative world. In 1919 he had also helped popularise the false claim that Germany's army had been “stabbed in the back” by civilians at home.
After President Friedrich Ebert died, none of the seven candidates gained an absolute majority in the first presidential ballot of March 1925. For the second ballot, the SPD, DDP and Zentrum united behind the Zentrum politician Wilhelm Marx. The parties of the nationalist Right put forward Hindenburg, while the conservative Catholic BVP backed him rather than the Catholic Marx. The KPD retained its own candidate, Ernst Thälmann.
Source A
Authentic contemporary Source A: official result of the second presidential ballot, 26 April 1925
| Candidate and principal backing | Votes | Share of valid votes |
|---|---|---|
| Paul von Hindenburg, candidate of the nationalist Reichsblock | 14,655,641 | 48.3% |
| Wilhelm Marx, backed by SPD, DDP and Zentrum | 13,751,605 | 45.3% |
| Ernst Thälmann, KPD | 1,931,151 | 6.4% |
Creator and record: Statistisches Reichsamt, Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, 1925, pp. 394ff, official nationwide election returns. Repository and stable catalogue: Deutsches Historisches Museum, “Reichspräsidentenwahl 1925”. Rights and handling: numerical facts from a 1925 official statistical publication, independently transcribed; no modern infographic, protected layout or source prose reproduced.
The result is evidence of both participation and division. A large electorate used the constitutional process, and Marx's 45.3% shows substantial support for the republican coalition. Yet a monarchist symbol of the imperial military elite won, while the anti-parliamentary KPD candidate kept 6.4%. Hindenburg's personal prestige, Catholic party rivalry and tactical voting mean that his 48.3% cannot simply be labelled an exact count of committed enemies of democracy.
Hindenburg then created a second ambiguity. He swore the constitutional oath, appointed chancellors through the constitutional process, signed Reichstag legislation and did not use Article 48 during 1925–28. In 1928 he appointed the Social Democrat Hermann Müller despite his own conservative preferences. However, he did not become a convinced republican, retained close connections to traditional elites and resisted a 1926 attempt to regulate and limit emergency powers. His conduct stabilised the system in the short term, while his political outlook and the powers of his office left a structural risk.
For AO2, Source A is valuable for the precise national distribution of votes because it is an official contemporary return. Its content shows the closeness of the contest; its provenance makes it strong evidence for what voters selected. It cannot reveal why they selected it, whether a Hindenburg voter preferred monarchy, admired a war hero, followed confessional loyalties or merely rejected Marx. It is therefore highly valuable for electoral choice, but only indirectly valuable for attitudes to the Republic.
Parties, coalitions and elections
Weimar's parties were not just interchangeable election teams. They were rooted in political, religious, occupational and regional milieus—communities with their own newspapers, associations, unions and social networks. These patterns help explain coalition choices, but they were tendencies rather than fixed rules for every voter.
| Party family | Position toward the Republic in 1924–28 | Important support and governing role |
|---|---|---|
| SPD | Firmly republican; combined parliamentary democracy with reformist socialism | Strong among organised and skilled workers; largest party after December 1924, but remained outside national government until 1928 |
| Zentrum and BVP | Zentrum usually defended and governed the Republic; the Bavarian BVP was more conservative and regionalist | Catholic voters; Zentrum was central to coalition-building, while BVP sometimes followed a different course |
| DDP and DVP | DDP was firmly constitutional; DVP moved from monarchist preference toward pragmatic acceptance under Stresemann | DDP appealed to liberal professionals; DVP to business, property and the national-liberal middle class; both joined coalitions |
| DNVP | National-conservative, monarchist and hostile or conditional toward parliamentary democracy | Stronger among landowners, conservative Protestants, rural interests and parts of business and the middle class; it entered government in 1925 and again in 1927 |
| KPD | Revolutionary communist; used elections but sought to replace the parliamentary Republic with a council-based socialist order | Strongest among sections of the industrial working class, especially younger, unskilled and unemployed workers |
| NSDAP | Revolutionary nationalist, racist, antisemitic and anti-democratic; after 1925 pursued power through legal participation as well as movement-building | Still a small party, seeking support beyond its original radical base |
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