11th March 1932
Presidential Election, March 1932
Postcard issued by the Nazi Party together with propaganda labels for the Presidential elections of 13th March 1932.
The message printed on pink paper reads, 'Thälmann doesn't say a word about the Jews having caused inflation, that's why we elect Hitler'.
The message printed on cream paper reads, 'Under the S.P.D. we became breadless, now we vote for Hitler'. Ref: 11.03.1932 - 15/4
Ernst Thälmann and the Presidential Election, 13th March 1932
From Wikipedia:
Ernst Thälmann (1886-1944), German communist politician, and leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933.
A committed communist, Thälmann played a major role during the political instability of the Weimar Republic, especially in its final years, when the KPD explicitly sought to overthrow the liberal democracy of the republic. Under his leadership the KPD became intimately associated with the government of the Soviet Union and the policies of Joseph Stalin. The KPD under Thälmann's leadership regarded the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as its main adversary and the party adopted the position that the social democrats were 'social fascists'.
(Also see: https://www.briefhistory.co.uk/1946/karl-liebknecht)
Thälmann was also leader of the paramilitary Roter Frontkämpferbund. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years; for political reasons, Stalin did not seek his release after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany, and Thälmann's party rival Walter Ulbricht ignored requests to plead on his behalf. Thälmann was shot on Adolf Hitler's personal orders in Buchenwald in 1944.
Presidential Election, 1932
Presidential elections were held in Germany on 13th March, with a runoff on 10th 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 Der Stahlhelm, 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 (Reichspräsident), Germany's head of state under the Weimar Republic.
(The KPD's slogan was 'A vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler; a vote for Hitler is a vote for war.' Thälmann returned as a candidate in the second round of the election, as it was permitted by the German electoral law, but his vote count lessened from 4,983,000, in the first round, to 3,707,000.)
Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page