1848 German federal election

1848 German federal election

1 May 1848 (1848-05-01)
All 649 seats in the Frankfurt Parliament
Turnout	40–75% depending on the state
Majority party Minority party Third party   130x130px 130x130px Leader Heinrich von Gagern Joseph von Radowitz Robert Blum Party Liberal Conservative Democratic Leader's seat Hesse-Darmstadt Westphalia Gera-Greiz
Minister-President after election The Prince of Leiningen Independent

Federal elections were held in all the 38 states of the German Confederation on 1 May 1848 to elect members of a new National Assembly known as the Frankfurt Parliament. The ballot was not secret, and elected 585 members, mostly from the middle class.

Background

The Pre-Parliament (Vorparlement) had convened in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt on 31 March 1848. Most of the 521 members of it were from South and West Germany, including 2 from Austria. From Prussia there were 141 representatives, of which 100 from the Rhineland with a strong liberal tradition. The Pre-Parliament dispersed on 3 April having appointed a committee of 50. The radicals Friedrich Hecker and Gustav Struve were excluded as they had walked out; they had favoured abolition of both hereditary monarchy and standing armies, and a Federal constitution on North American lines. The rebuffed Hecker proclaimed a German Republic in Baden on 12 April, but the so-called Heckenputsch failed within a week. Hecker escaped to Switzerland and went to the United States, becoming a farmer. Later Struve also went into exile (in Switzerland and the United States) before returning to Germany.

Electoral system

The Pre-Parliament had favoured universal suffrage, although individual states set their own qualifications. While Austria, Prussia and Schleswig-Holstein imposed no restrictions, farm hands were excluded in Baden and Saxony. Bavaria and Wutternberg excluded domestic servants and workers, and Bavaria included only those paying direct taxation.

Results

The Pre-Parliament set the ratio of one deputy to the National Assembly per 50,000 inhabitants of the German Confederation, totaling 649 deputies. However, Czech-majority constituencies in Bohemia and Moravia boycotted the election, reducing the total to 585. Those elected included 157 judges and lawyers, 138 high officials, over a hundred university and high school teachers, and about 40 merchants and industrialists. Most of the 90 members of the nobility were in the learned professions, and there was only one peasant and four handwerkers (skilled artisans or craftsmen).

Aftermath

The Frankfurt Parliament convened on 18 May at Frankfurt, when the members walked in solemn procession to the Paulskirche accompanied by the roar of cannon and the ringing of bells. It included the German political leaders of the past three decades: the political professors Friedrich Dahlmann, Johann Droysen and Georg Waitz; Ernst Arndt and Turnvater Jahn (Friedrich Jahn) from 1813; radicals like Robert Blum and Arnold Ruge; liberal nobles like Prince Felix Lichnowsky, and the Catholic leader Bishop Ketteler.