Presidential elections were held in Germany on 13 March 1932, with a runoff on 10 April. Independent incumbent Paul von Hindenburg won a second seven-year term against Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Communist Party (KPD) leader Ernst Thälmann also ran and received more than ten percent of the vote in the runoff. Theodor Duesterberg, the deputy leader of the World War I veterans' organization , ran in the first round but dropped out of the runoff. This was the second and final direct election to the office of President of the Reich (), Germany's head of state under the Weimar Republic.
Under the Weimar Republic, which had arisen from Germany's defeat in World War I, the presidency was a powerful office. Although the Weimar Constitution had provided for a semi-presidential republic, structural weaknesses and political polarization had resulted in a paralyzed Reichstag. Combined with the Great Depression, this resulted in a government that had governed exclusively via presidential decrees since March 1930, giving the President much power. Hindenburg had been elected to the office in 1925 with the support of a coalition of several parties on the right who hoped that he would overturn the Weimar Republic, which was never particularly popular.
The Nazi Party had risen very rapidly, from being a fringe group for much of the 1920s to becoming the second-largest party in the Reichstag in 1930. Led by Hitler, who exercised sole control over its policy and direction, its ideology combined extreme hostility towards the Weimar Republic with fervent antisemitism, anti-communism and German nationalism. The threat of Hitler caused many on the left to support Hindenburg; at the same time, Hindenburg's failure to overturn the Weimar Republic had disappointed many of those on the right who had supported him in 1925. The combined effect of these two influences resulted in a drastic change of Hindenburg's voter base between the two elections. In 1925 he had been elected as the right-wing candidate, while in 1932 much of his support came from the centre and left. Some on the left were still lukewarm towards Hindenburg; the Communists exploited this by running Thälmann and promoting him as "the only left candidate". Hindenburg failed to receive the requisite majority of votes in the first round, but was able to win reelection in the runoff.
Hindenburg's reelection failed to prevent the NSDAP from assuming power. Two successive federal elections later that year left it as the largest party in the Reichstag, and anti-republic parties in general holding the majority of seats. Under this political climate, Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Upon Hindenburg's death in 1934 Hitler "de facto" assumed the presidency, which he combined with the chancellorship to become the . Therefore, the 1932 election was the last presidential election in Germany until 1949 (by which point the country was divided into West Germany and East Germany). It remains, until today, the last direct election of the German President. All presidential elections after World War II have been indirect. Hindenburg remained the only independent politician elected president of Germany until the election of Joachim Gauck nearly 80 years later.
Background.
World War I had resulted in the collapse of all monarchies in Germany. In place of the German Empire arose the Weimar Republic, named for the city in which its constitution had been drafted. It was never particularly popular among the various groups that constituted its political landscape, receiving lukewarm support even from those who supported democracy and being hated by extremists. According to the Weimar Constitution, the president was to be elected for a seven-year term by the people, though the first President, Friedrich Ebert, was elected by the Weimar National Assembly in 1919, as the situation in Germany was too chaotic to hold popular elections. Ebert died suddenly in 1925, necessitating an election to be held that year, a year earlier than scheduled.
Paul von Hindenburg, the commander of the German military during the war, had won the 1925 election despite not running in its first round. He had defeated Wilhelm Marx, the candidate backed by the parties of the pro-republic "Weimar Coalition". After 1929, the Great Depression devastated the Republic as parties argued over the proper response to it; the "Grand Coalition" government of Hermann Müller, which had been in power since the 1928 elections, dissolved in the face of the crisis and Müller resigned on 27 March 1930. Heinrich Brüning, who was appointed Chancellor in his place, had no majority for his austerity policies in the Reichstag and began to use the Presidential powers to rule by decree. This was received positively by many conservatives who disliked democratic government and supported Hindenburg's reelection to further this conservative renaissance. At the same time, Hindenburg's work within the Republic had been much better than had been expected by pro-republican politicians.
The Nazi Party (NSDAP), originally called German Workers' Party (DAP), was founded in 1919. World War I corporal Adolf Hitler joined it later that year and became first its primary speaker and, in 1921, party leader with dictatorial powers. Hitler's preeminent position and infallibility within the party was confirmed in 1926 at a conference where the party manifesto was ruled immutable. The party's ideology was a mixture of pan-Germanism, antisemitism, disgust with parliamentary parties, and resentment towards big business. A fringe group for most of the 1920s, the NSDAP was brought to public attention on the German right-wing by a referendum against the Young Plan in 1929, when it had been associated with and aided by Alfred Hugenberg's mainstream conservative German National People's Party (DNVP), dramatically increasing its number of seats in the Reichstag in the 1930 federal election. The DNVP and NSDAP made a formal alliance known as the Harzburg Front in 1930.
Nazi membership rose from 293,000 in September 1930, to almost 1.5 million by the end of 1932. The amount of papers controlled by the party rose from 49 in 1930, to 127 by 1932. "Völkischer Beobachter"'s circulation rose from 26,000 in 1929, to over 100,000 in 1931. In prior elections the Nazis relied on membership dues, but started receiving financial support from businesses in 1932.
Electoral system.
During the Weimar Republic the law provided for a modified two-round system, such that if no candidate received an absolute majority of votes (i.e. more than half) in the first round of a presidential election then a second ballot would occur in which the candidate with a plurality of votes would be deemed elected. It was permitted for a group to nominate a different candidate in the second round from the one they had in the first round. This occurred in 1925 but not in 1932.
Candidates.
Hindenburg.
Hindenburg was 84 and had no desire to run for a second term, but he expressed interest in continuing office if his term was extended. Brüning developed plans to evade direct elections by a Reichstag resolution to extend Hindenburg's time in office by amending the constitutional provisions requiring elections once every seven years. Hugenberg refused such proposals during the first week of January and insisted that an election be held per the constitution, a position that Hitler would also assume. Hitler was initially open to extending Hindenburg's term, but on the condition that Hindenburg dismissed Brüning, but he refused to.
After elections were guaranteed, Hindenburg's cadre, led by Major General Kurt von Schleicher, courted the militant right's support of another Hindenburg candidacy. However, Hugenberg persuaded Der Stahlhelm to reject such proposals while the NSDAP supported a possible Hitler candidacy. This lack of support made Hindenburg reluctant to run for reelection, which worried both people who wished to preserve the Republic and those who supported Brüning's style of rule by decree. Heinrich Sahm of Berlin approached Schleicher with the possibility of forming a reelection committee for Hindenburg; Schleicher attempted to postpone Sahm's goal pending talks with the Stahlhelm, but as more Hindenburg committees were set up across the country and the prospect of a Hitler candidacy rose Schleicher and Meissner approved the project on 27 January, and the committee was organized on 1 February. Hindenburg insisted on the support of veterans' organizations; with the begrudging support of the Stahlhelm and the unconditional support of the Kyffhäuser League, and the fact that Sahm's committee had obtained more than 3 million signatures for Hindenburg in two weeks, gave Hindenburg enough motivation to run for reelection, declaring his candidacy on 16 February. Among those who signed the petition were the writer Gerhart Hauptmann, painter Max Liebermann, Artur Mahraun, leader of the Young German Order, the industrialist Carl Duisberg, as well as the former ministers Otto Gessler and Gustav Noske.
Hitler.
Hitler was hesitant to run given Hindenburg's popularity and the fact that the NSDAP was still not the biggest party in the Reichstag. Furthermore, he was not technically allowed to run as he lacked German citizenship, which was rectified upon his appointment to a post in the civil service of Braunschweig on 26 February. However, the Nazis were rapidly growing in popularity throughout late 1931, and Hitler was able to persuade industrialists that Nazism was compatible with capitalism. Hitler considered running Franz Ritter von Epp or Wilhelm Frick for the presidency. The Nazi candidate was meant to be announced on 3 February at a meeting of the Gauleiters, but the party was still undecided. Joseph Goebbels supported a Hitler candidacy while Gregor Strasser felt it would be dangerous as he could not defeat Hindenburg.
The Harzburg Front was starting to show disunity regarding the election, with the DNVP agreeing to support the Stahlhelm's choice of candidate in exchange for support in state elections. Hugenberg attempted to keep Hitler in line with the Harzburg Front at a meeting on 20 February, but to no avail; at a party rally on 22 February NSDAP member Goebbels revealed that Hitler would run in the race. The Stahlhelm's choice – Theodor Duesterberg – was announced later that day, overshadowed by Hitler's candidacy.
First round campaign.
Although Hindenburg preferred to have either been the right-wing or an apolitical candidate, he attracted the support of Republican parties in order to defeat Hitler. The liberal parties – German People's Party and German State Party – declared their support for Hindenburg. The Social Democratic leaders Ernst Heilmann and Otto Braun (himself a candidate in the 1925 election), despite the initial resistance of the party's left wing, were able to launch a broad electoral campaign and received the support of the Iron Front alliance, including the democratic "Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold" association, the Free Trade Unions (ADGB, AfA-Bund) and the "Arbeiter-Turn- und Sportbund" organization. The Social Democrats and Brüning's Centre Party would support Hindenburg – in contrast to the 1925 presidential election, when Hindenburg had been the candidate of the political right and had been strenuously opposed by much of the moderate left and political centre. In 1932 this part of the political spectrum decided to unite with the moderate right in supporting Hindenburg to prevent Hitler's election. The support of the moderate Weimar Coalition was also encouraged by the fact that, contrary to fears expressed at the time of his election in 1925, Hindenburg had not used his office to subvert the constitution, as Hitler now aimed to do. This put Hindenburg's conservative supporters in a difficult position, as their desire for a return to conservatism was at odds with Hindenburg's newfound pro-democracy supporters; indeed, Hindenburg's failure to completely break from the Weimar system would prove a damper on those who had supported him in 1925. Among those who had voted for Hindenburg in 1925 and refused to sign his petition were banker Walter Bernhard, Leipzig mayor Carl Goerdeler, and general August von Mackensen.
Duesterberg's candidacy attracted the votes of industrialists who would have otherwise voted Hindenburg for fear of Hitler. On 1 March the National Rural League (RLB), despite the best efforts of Hindenburg's campaigners, encouraged its followers to vote either Duesterberg or Hitler in order to remove the government of Brüning.
Results.
In the first round on March 13 no candidate obtained an absolute majority of the votes cast, though Hindenburg with 49.6% failed only by a narrow margin. He scored higher election results in traditional Social Democratic and Centre strongholds such as the Prussian Rhine Province or Saxony. Hitler's results were a great disappointment to him, nevertheless the NSDAP recorded further gains compared with the 1930 Reichstag election. Hindenburg's failure to win reelection in the