Cabaret

politics

• The Reichstag was the lower house of the German parliament from 1867 to 1945, From 1867-1871 under the North German Confederation, and from 1871-1919 for the German Empire, the Reichstag was democratically elected, but had virtually no power; it was called the greatest debating society in Europe. Under the Weimar Republic, the Reichstag became a responsible body. But it never really became stable, and there was a large number of political parties, so to govern, the government had to form coalitions, which were often unstable. The largest parties were the Zentrum (the Catholic party), the Socialists, the Communists, and, in the early 1930s, the National Socialists (N.S.D.A.P., or nazis). The Socialists and Communists constitued the left. The nazis had been a small party until the election of 1930, with the beginning of the depression. There were three parties of the right, which didn’t always agree. None of these parties ever held a majority. The government functioned well enough from 1924 to 1930, but with the beginning of the depression and after the election of 1930, the chancellor was ruling by decree, under the authority granted to the president in Article 48 in the Weimar Constitution. There were 2 elections in 1932, neither of which resulted in a stable government. In the election of November, 1933, the nazis gained the largest number of seats, but not a majority. On January 30, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor. Hindenburg and the conservatives expected to be able to control Hitler, but the soon found out otherwise. After the Reichstag fire decree Hitler assumed dictatorial powers. There was a last election in 1933, where the conservatives hoped the number of nazi seats would decline, and the nazis hoped the number of socialist and communist seats would decline. But the nazis won a slim majority, and the socialists and communists remained strong.  And with the death of Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler combined the offices of president and chancellor with the title of Führer.
• In 1894 the Reichstag building was completed in Berlin, and the Reichstag met there until February 27, 1933, when it was set afire. Hitler used this as a pretext to arrest the communists and to suspend most civil rights. The Reichstag then met in the Kroll opera house, but now only as a rubber stamp for Hitler’s decrees. It held its last meeting on April 26, 1942. The building was never reconstructed during the war, although Hitler and Albert Speer had grand plans for it. It was deliberately bombed and defaced by the Russians. After German reunification, the building was restored and became the seat of the German Bundestag in 1999.

Table of elections to the Reichstag in the Weimar republic, 1919-1933

• KPD = Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands = Communist Party of Germany
• SPD = Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands = Social Democratic Party of Germany  — Germany’s oldest political party.
• Zentrum = Deutsche Zentrumspartei = German Center Party — the Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic. The party dissolved itself on 5 July 1933 as a condition of the conclusion of a Concordat between the Holy See and Germany.
• BVP = Bayerische Volkspartei = The Bavarian People’s Party — Essentially the Bavarian branch of the Zentrum, they were more conservative, more Catholic, and more Bavarian than the Zentrum.
• DDP = Deutsche Demokratische Partei = German Democratic Party — part of the center left. The DDP counted many Jews and professors among its most loyal supporters.
• DSP = Deutsche Staatspartei = The German State Party — a short-lived German political party of the Weimar Republic, formed by the merger of the DDP with the People’s National Reich Association (the political wing of the Young German Order) in July 1930. The merger of the left liberal DDP with the nationalist corporatism of the Young German Order did not prove a successful one - the party lost seats drastically in the 1930 parliamentary elections from its showing in 1928, and the People’s National Reich Association reichstag delegates soon seceded from the party, leaving it essentially the DDP under a new name. The party continued to compete in parliamentary elections, with little success, until it dissolved itself following the Nazi takeover in 1933.
• DVP = Deutsche Volkspartei = German People’s Party — essentially the right wing of the National Liberal Party from Imperial Germany, the DVP was formed in the early days of the Weimar Republic, led by Gustav Stresemann. In the Weimar Republic, they were part of the center right.
• DNVP = Deutschnationale Volkspartei = German National People’s Party — a nationalist-conservative party in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. The DNVP was generally hostile towards the republican Weimar constitution, and spent most of the inter-war period in opposition. Largely supported by landowners and wealthy industrialists, it favored a monarchist platform and was strongly opposed to the Treaty of Versailles.
• NSDAP = Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = The National Socialist German Workers’ Party, commonly known in English as the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. It was known as the German Workers’ Party (DAP) before the name was changed in 1920. Some of the appeal for the NSDAP came from a reaction to the decadent culture of the 1920s, especially in Berlin, as portrayed in the show Cabaret.

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