mapping the red threat: the politics of exclusion in leipzig … · 2017-03-12 · century,...

Mapping the Red Threat

The Politics of Exclusion in Leipzig Before 1914

James Retallack

ABSTRACT Long before Adolf Hitlerrsquos appearance clouded democracyrsquos prospects in Germanyelection battles had provided a means to disadvantage ldquoenemies of the Reichrdquo in the pollingbooth Such battles were waged not only during election campaigns but also when new votinglaws were legislated and district boundaries were redrawn Maps produced during the Imperialera informed voters statesmen and social scientists how the principle of the fair and equal votewas compromised at the subnational level and newmaps offer historians an opportunity to considerstruggles for influence and power in visual terms This article argues that local regional and nationalsuffrages need to be considered together and in terms of their reciprocal effects On the one handfocusing on overlaps and spillovers between electoral politics at different tiers of governance can illu-minate the perceptions and attitudes that are constitutive of electoral culture On the other handusing cartography to supplement statistical analysis can make election battles more accessible tononspecialist audiences Combining these approaches allows us to rethink strategies of politicalexclusion in Imperial Germanyrsquos coexisting suffrage regimes Focusing on Leipzig and its powerfulSocial Democratic organization opens a window on larger issues about how Germans conceivedquestions of political fairness in a democratizing age

Schon lange Zeit bevor Hitler auftauchte und die Zukunftsaussichten der Demokratie inDeutschland verduumlsterte hatten heftige Auseinandersetzungen uumlber den Ablauf der Wahlen esermoumlglicht die sogenannten bdquoReichsfeindeldquo bei den Wahlen zu benachteiligen SolcheAuseinandersetzungen wurden nicht nur waumlhrend der eigentlichen Wahlkaumlmpfe gefuumlhrtsondern auch wenn neue Wahlgesetze beschlossen und Wahlbezirke neu festgelegt wurdenWaumlhrend des Kaiserreichs erstellte Karten informierten Waumlhler Staatsmaumlnner undSozialwissenschaftler daruumlber wie das Prinzip der fairen und gleichberechtigten Wahl auf der sub-nationalen Ebene kompromittiert wurde und neue Karten bieten Historikern nun dieMoumlglichkeitdieseMachtkaumlmpfe visuell zu betrachten Dieser Artikel argumentiert dass das lokale regionale undnationale Wahlrecht zusammen und hinsichtlich seiner Wechselwirkung aufeinander betrachtetwerden muss Indem der Fokus auf Uumlberschneidungen zwischen Wahlpolitiken unterschiedlicherRegierungsebenen gesetzt wird koumlnnen einerseits die Wahrnehmungen und Einstellungenbeleuchtet werden die der Wahlkultur zugrunde lagen Andererseits kann das ThemaWahlkaumlmpfe durch die Verwendung von Kartographie in Ergaumlnzung zur statistischen Analyseauch Nichtspezialisten naumlhergebracht werden Die Verbindung dieser Ansaumltze gestattet es uns dieStrategien politischer Exklusion auf den im Kaiserreich koexistierenden Wahlebenen zuuumlberdenken Das Beispiel Leipzig mit seiner maumlchtigen sozialdemokratischen Organisation bietetdabei einen Blick auf uumlbergreifende Themen wie etwa die deutschen Vorstellungen von politischerFairness im Zeitalter der Demokratisierung

For their insightful comments on a draft of this article I am grateful toCentral European Historyrsquos two anon-ymous referees and to Andrew Port For research support I am indebted to the Social Sciences andHumanities Research Council of Canada the Killam Program at the Canada Council for the Arts andthe Alexander von Humboldt Foundation For her help in adapting maps I am grateful to CherieNorthon of Mapping Solutions Anchorage Alaska

Central European History 49 (2016) 341ndash382copy Central European History Society of the American Historical

Association 2017doi101017S0008938916000662

341

httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017S0008938916000662Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore IP address 9925480146 on 20 Jan 2017 at 145217 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use available at

ldquoTHE Ministry of the Interior has no use for the map you are offeringrdquo1 This wasthe dismissive reply that Saxonyrsquos suffrage expert Georg Heink sent to RichardLiesche owner of the Graser Verlag inMarch 1909On a base map showing the

smallest towns and villages in the Kingdom of SaxonymdashImperial Germanyrsquos third-largestfederal state after Prussia and BavariamdashLieschersquos publishing house had superimposed twosets of colored lines (fig 1) The first set was in blue depicting the borders of Saxonyrsquostwenty-three Reichstag districts2 Each district was marked with a Roman numeral alsoin blue including XII for Leipzig-City and XIII for Leipzig-County3 The second set oflines was in red depicting the ninety-one Landtag districts that Heink had just drawn orredrawn as part of Saxonyrsquos suffrage reform passed earlier in 1909 Each of Saxonyrsquosforty-eight rural Landtag districts was designated by a large Arabic numeral in red includingthe twenty-second and twenty-third rural districts outside Leipzig Each of the kingdomrsquosurban Landtag districts was underlined in red and had a smaller Arabic numeral4 Becausethe use of colored ink added significantly to the cost of producing this map Lieschehoped the Saxon government would agree to buy three hundred copies No deal repliedHeink But in the margin of Lieschersquos begging letter Heink wondered what Graserrsquosprint run would be5

Heink had reason to worry about a popular outcry should Graserrsquos map reach working-class voters or be used in socialist efforts to enlighten them about their voting rights Thosevoters had just been subjected to an audacious gerrymander of Saxonyrsquos Landtag districts6

The architect and draftsman of that gerrymander was Georg Heink himself But Leipzigvoters had been subject to gerrymanders before As readers will learn below suffrage reform-ers had sought to minimize Social Democratic gains in Leipzigrsquos municipal assembly in 1894and in the Saxon Landtag in 1896 Such antisocialists pursued a strategy similar to the oneRepublicans deployed against their Democratic Party rivals in the United States starting in2010 identify local legislatures where a majority can be obtained or safeguarded use thatmajority to redraw the geographical boundaries of electoral districts in a partisan way

1Saumlchsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden (hereafter SHStAD) Saxon Ministerium des Innern (hereafterMdI) Nr 5489 Georg Heink draft reply to Richard Liesche March 27 1909

2There were 397 districts in the Reich as a whole3Leipzig-City geographically compact included Leipzigrsquos urban core and some of its inner suburbs

Graserrsquos map did not attempt to show its jagged outline (which may be seen in figure 3 discussed later)opting for a circle instead Leipzig-County a much larger area surrounding the city included most of theLeipzig administrative district (Amtshauptmannschaft)

4As will be explained below between two and fifteen towns might be stitched together into a single urban(staumldtisch) district of which there were twenty-four in Saxony (1868ndash1909) On figure 1 which showsredrawn Landtag districts after 1909 the towns of Markranstaumldt Taucha and Brandis (near Leipzig) andBorna (further south) were just some of the towns that constituted the 12th urban district of BornaGraserrsquos map left unlabeled the 20 big-city ( groszligstaumldtisch) districts after 1909 these were allotted toDresden (7) Leipzig (7) Chemnitz (4) Plauen (1) and Zwickau (1)

5SHStAD MdI Nr 5489 Georg Heink marginalia on Richard Liesche to MdI March 25 19096For a very brief visual explanation of gerrymandering see Christopher Ingraham ldquoThis Is the Best

Explanation of Gerrymandering You Will Ever See How to Steal an Election A Visual GuiderdquoWonkblog Washington Post March 1 2015 httpswwwwashingtonpostcomnewswonkwp20150301this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see See also Mark MonmonierBushmanders and Bullwinkles How Politicians Manipulate Electronic Maps and Census Data to Win Elections(Chicago University of Chicago Press 2000) and more generally Jeremy Black Maps and Politics(Chicago University of Chicago Press 1997)

JAMES RETALLACK342


then secure more victories and initiate more gerrymanders to sap the opponentrsquos strength forthe foreseeable future7 The manipulation of voting laws in Germany before 1914 dependedmore on what the British called ldquofancy franchisesrdquomdashclass-based and plural voting systemsmdashthan on the redrawing of district boundaries But usually suffrage reform and redistrictingoccurred at the same time and with the same antisocialist intent8

Fig 1 Grasers Karte von Sachsen mit Angabe der Landtags- u Reichstagswahlkreise (Annaberg Graser Verlagnd [ca 1911]) detail 1320000

7David Daley Ratflowastlowastcked The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal Americarsquos Democracy (New YorkW W Norton 2016) xiv

8The Saxon suffrage reforms of 1868 1894 (Leipzig) 1896 and 1909 are discussed below

POLITICS OF EXCLUSION IN LEIPZIG BEFORE 1914 343


The likelihood that working-class voters in 1909 would compare the size and shape ofSaxonyrsquos Reichstag and Landtag districts was small Socialist functionaries in Saxonyhowever did have the time and inclination to think about what those intersecting blueand red lines really meant Some veterans of election battles in Saxony also saw the oppor-tunity to explain to their followers how the outcome of elections fought under theReichstagrsquos universal manhood suffrage differed so fundamentally from elections foughtunder the more complicated voting systems for Saxon Landtag elections and for Leipzigrsquosmunicipal assembly9

Grasers Karte offered contemporariesmdashand now offers historiansmdashan opportunity to con-sider the ramifications of German battles for influence and power in three different politicalcultures The balance of this article argues that local regional and national suffrages need tobe considered together and in terms of their reciprocal effects to get at certain developmentscentral to the processes of political modernization Examining overlaps and spilloversbetween electoral politics at different tiers of governance can illuminate the perceptionsand attitudes that are constitutive of electoral culture10 Moreover supplementing statisticalanalysis of election returns with maps (such as Graserrsquos) that depict changing district bound-aries can make election battlesmdashover suffrage laws and during election campaignsmdashmoreaccessible to nonspecialist audiences Focusing on Leipzig its powerful Social Democraticorganization and the attempts of bourgeois elites to defend ldquotheirrdquo city from the ldquoredthreatrdquo is only one way to explore these larger issuesmdashbut it provides a new perspectiveon how Germans conceived questions of political fairness in a democratizing age

Bismarckrsquos unexpected decision in 1866ndash1867 to introduce universal manhood suffragefor Reichstag elections has been well studied as a prerequisite for a genuinely national elec-torate and for the development of mass parties11 By contrast historians have only recentlyturned their attention to three other concurrent developments that like the mass presshelped establish ldquothe circuitry of national knowledgerdquo12 In the last third of the nineteenthcentury statistics emerged as a ldquoscience of nationalityrdquo Mapping made the cultural nationvisible for the first time And radical nationalists sought to define the location of Germanyitself its language frontiers and ethnic groups that belonged to the cultural nation or laybeyond it As shown by later efforts to map German population policy in the Weimar andNazi eras neither statistics nor mapping was politically neutral scientific legitimacy served

9Most cities had a bicameral system in which the municipal assembly (Stadtverordnetenkollegium) wasthe lower chamber and the city council (Stadtrat) was the upper chamber I refer to members of these cham-bers as assemblymen and counselors

10See Thomas Kuumlhne ldquoWahlrecht ndashWahlverhalten ndashWahlkultur Tradition und Innovation in der his-torischen Wahlforschungrdquo Archiv fuumlr Sozialgeschichte 33 (1993) 481ndash547 Kuumlhne Dreiklassenwahlrecht undWahlkultur in Preuszligen 1867ndash1914 (Duumlsseldorf Droste 1994)

11For further references see James Retallack ldquoThe Authoritarian State and the Political Mass Marketrdquo inImperial Germany Revisited Continuing Debates and New Perspectives ed Sven Oliver Muumlller und CorneliusTorp (New York Berghahn 2011) 83ndash96

12The phrase comes from a recent study on which this paragraph draws Jason D Hansen Mapping theGermans Statistical Science Cartography and the Visualization of the German Nation 1848ndash1914 (OxfordOxford University Press 2015) See also Morgane Labbeacute ldquoDie Grenzen der deutschen Nation Raumder Karte Statistik Erzaumlhlungrdquo in Die Grenze als Raum Erfahrung und Konstruktion ed Franccedilois EtienneJoumlrg Seifarth and Bernhard Struck (Frankfurt am Main Campus 2007) 293ndash320 Hedwig RichterldquoWahlen und Statistik Preuszligen und die USA im 19 Jahrhundertrdquo in Kultur und Praxis der Wahlen EineGeschichte der modernen Demokratie ed Hedwig Richter and Hubertus Buchstein (Wiesbaden Springer2017) 315ndash336

JAMES RETALLACK344


political legitimacy and democratized access to information went hand in hand with effortsto impose a particular ideological reading on results13 This article does not pursue these par-ticular lines of inquiry but census results were crucial to the biologization of the nation and tothe constructionmdashnot just the tallyingmdashof election results14 By studying election returnsand cartography together one gains a better sense of the social ideological and spatial cat-egories in which Germans understood and endorsed lines of solidarity and exclusion

Among the best studies of Imperial German elections scarcely a map is to be found15 Thesame is true of the most important works on subnational suffrage laws (for the parliaments ofGermanyrsquos federal states) and for recent studies of Leipzigrsquos working classes and its bourgeoi-sie16 Cartography cannot illuminate everything that historians find interesting about ldquotheambiguities of placerdquo17 but contributions to the Historischer Atlas von Sachsen projectshow howmuch can be done18 For example bymapping ldquoparty bastionsrdquo from one electionto the next and by mapping the size of electorates in Saxonyrsquos most urbanized and industri-alized districts Wolfgang Schroumlder and Simone Laumlssig have shown how certain groups ofvoters came into political proximity with other groups and how electoral unfairness was

13See eg Guntrum Henrik Herb Under the Map of Germany Nationalism and Propaganda 1918ndash1945(London Routledge 1997)

14The importance of census data was evident in the pioneering chapters on Prussian and Saxon Landtagvoting in Gerhard A RitterWahlgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1871ndash1918(Munich CH Beck 1980) 132ndash49 163ndash82

15These studies include by publication date Stanley Suval Electoral Politics inWilhelmine Germany (ChapelHill University of North Carolina Press 1985) Karl Rohe Wahlen und Waumlhlertraditionen in Deutschland(Frankfurt am Main Suhrkamp 1992) (which has one map) Brett Fairbairn Democracy in theUndemocratic State The German Reichstag Elections of 1898 and 1903 (Toronto University of TorontoPress 1997) Jonathan Sperber The Kaiserrsquos Voters Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany (CambridgeCambridge University Press 1997) Margaret Lavinia Anderson Practicing Democracy Elections and PoliticalCulture in Imperial Germany (Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 2000) Carl-Wilhelm ReibelHandbuch der Reichstagswahlen 1890ndash1918 Buumlndnisse Ergebnisse Kandidaten 2 vols (Duumlsseldorf Droste2007) By contrast the maps outshine the analysis in Juumlrgen Schmaumldeke Waumlhlerbewegung imWilhelminischen Deutschland 2 vols (Berlin Akademie Verlag 1994)

16See Kuumlhne Dreiklassenwahlrecht Simone LaumlssigWahlrechtskampf und Wahlreform in Sachsen (1895ndash1909)(Weimar Boumlhlau 1996) On Leipzig see Thomas Adam Arbeitermilieu und Arbeiterbewegung in Leipzig1871ndash1933 (Weimar Boumlhlau 1999) Michael Schaumlfer Buumlrgertum in der Krise Staumldtische Mittelklassen inEdinburgh und Leipzig 1890 bis 1930 (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 2003) Sean DobsonAuthority and Upheaval in Leipzig 1910ndash1920 (New York Columbia University Press 2001) To be fairthe latter has an unidentified map of Leipzig printed inside its front and back covers A similar adornmentis found in Gerhard A Ritter ed Wahlen und Wahlkaumlmpfe in Deutschland (Duumlsseldorf Droste 1997)Using bourgeoisie for Buumlrgertum and burgher for Buumlrger is an inadequate but necessary shorthand

17See David Blackbourn and James Retallack introduction to Localism Landscape and the Ambiguities ofPlace German-Speaking Central Europe 1860ndash1930 ed David Blackbourn and James Retallack (TorontoUniversity of Toronto Press 2007) See also the chapters by Celia Applegate Thomas Kuumlhne HelmutWalser Smith and Thomas Mergel in part 1 of Saxony in German History Culture Society and Politics1830ndash1933 ed James Retallack (Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press 2000) 33ndash95

18Wolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur Karte D IV 3Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Akademie derWissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) (hereafter cited as SLTW) SimoneLaumlssig Reichstagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1871ndash1912 Beiheft zur Karte D IV 2 Atlas zur Geschichte undLandeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig undLandesvermessungsamt Sachsen 1998) (hereafter cited as LRTW) I am deeply indebted to both authorsfor permission to use their publications and maps as I am to Jana Moser former director of theArbeitsstelle Historischer Atlas von Sachsen in Dresden For more on this project see httpswwwsaw-leipzigdedeprojektehistorischer-atlas-von-sachsen-atlas-zur-geschichte-und-landeskunde-von-sachsen



distributed19 No multiple regression analysis and no cartographic expertise is needed to readfrom this atlas how social differentiation and political polarization shaped battles for power20

If interest in German elections peaked around 2000 scholarly attention to Germanyrsquosworking classes and its labor movement had already begun to decline in the 1980s victimto new interest in the Buumlrgertum21 Relations between working-class and bourgeoisGermans remains a worthy object of study Before 1914 many German burghers saw theGerman Social Democratic Party (SPD) as a revolutionary party in theory and in practice22

The ldquored threatrdquowas considered to be both existential and territorial socialists were closing inon social political and cultural terrain that had to be defended Such bourgeois fears wereespecially visible in Leipzig As the city expanded with the incorporation of working-classsuburbs the possibility of socialists sitting in Leipzigrsquos municipal assembly or representingthe city in the Saxon Landtag and the German Reichstag was perceived by Leipzig burghersas a challenge it required a hardheaded response The degree to which Social Democraticincursions endangered the politics of notables depended on Leipzigersrsquo ldquospace of experiencerdquoand their ldquohorizon of expectationrdquo23 The SPDrsquos steady accretion of eacutelan and electoral successevoked reactions that could be dramatic (as in calls for a coup drsquoeacutetat) or pragmatic (as in carefuladministrative reform) Responses to the rise of Social Democracy sometimes felt like the col-lision of tectonic plates whose geological outlines bear a resemblance to the jagged bound-aries of electoral districts24 but the subterranean movement of large masses was theunderlying cause of change As I have argued elsewhere the course of Germanyrsquos politicaldemocratization could be slowed stopped and even reversed on a local scale whereasldquosocial democratizationrdquomdashthe fundamental politicization of societymdashwas relentless25

The Advance of Social Democracy 1866ndash1890

Leipzig and Saxony were cradles of Germanyrsquos Social Democratic movement in the 1860sAugust Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht made Saxony their early lobbying ground not just inthe mid-1860s but extending through the next twenty-five years until as SPD chairmanPaul Singer put it they had to leave the Saxon ldquofrog pondrdquo in 1890 and lead their party

19In Saxonyrsquos 13th Reichstag district of Leipzig-County it took five times as many votes to elect oneReichstag deputy in 1912 as it did in the 9th Reichstag district of Freiberg The Social Democratsrsquo holdon Leipzig-County was so secure that they urged those supporters who could do so to relocate to thetwelfth electoral district Leipzig-City before general elections to help defeat National Liberals there

20Party bastions which are shown for the period 1871ndash1912 on maps in LRTW 52ndash58 are defined asReichstag districts where the winning candidate received at least 60 percent of the popular vote on the firstballot

21For works reflecting the high point of interest in the SPDrsquos electoral fortunes see Peter Steinbach ldquoDieEntwicklung der deutschen Sozialdemokratie im Kaiserreich im Spiegel der historischen Wahlforschungrdquoand Gerhard A Ritter ldquoDas Wahlrecht und die Waumlhlerschaft der Sozialdemokratie im Koumlnigreich Sachsen1867ndash1914rdquo in Der Aufstieg der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung ed Gerhard A Ritter (Munich R Oldenbourg1990) 1ndash36 49ndash101

22For practical reasons I use SPD as a shorthand for the socialist parties that bore different names before 189123See Reinhart Koselleck Futures Past On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York Columbia

University Press 2004) esp 259ndash6124See eg figure 9 discussed below25This is a central argument of James Retallack Red Saxony Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in

Germany 1860ndash1918 (Oxford Oxford University Press 2017) On Fundamentalpolitisierung see GustavRadbruchldquoDie politischen Parteien im System des deutschen Verfassungsrechtsrdquo in Handbuch desDeutschen Staatsrechts ed Gerhard Anschuumltz and Richard Thoma (Tuumlbingen Mohr 1930) 1285ndash294 289

JAMES RETALLACK346


from Berlin26 The year 1890 however represented no caesura in the processes of industriali-zation and urbanization that had made Saxony particularly fertile ground for Social Democracy

In Imperial Germany and in Saxony the SPD fared very differently in national regional andlocal elections27 Themoment at which Social Democracy came to be seen as a serious electoralthreat depended largelyon the breadthof the suffrage for parliaments at each tierof governance28

Between 1867 and 1890 German burghers first took notice of SPD successes in Reichstag elec-tionswhichwere foughton thebasis of universalmanhood suffrage Fromthe late 1870sonwardthe party achieved breakthroughs in Saxon Landtag elections forwhich a three-mark tax thresh-old was the principal impediment to the enfranchisement of workers And by 1890 SocialDemocrats were finding ways to gain the local citizenship (Buumlrgerrecht) needed to vote inLeipzig municipal elections The balance of this section compares the growth of Saxon SocialDemocracy in national state and local elections up to 1890 It aims to show why Leipzigrsquos cityfathers and other burghers felt a growing sense of unease about the ldquored threatrdquo and why theywerereadyafter1890 togerrymanderLeipzigrsquosdistricts forbothLandtagandmunicipalelections

National Elections

Elections to the North German Reichstag were first held in February and August 1867 Atthis timemdashin fact until the empirersquos collapse in 1918mdashSaxony was allocated twenty-threeReichstag mandates In the February election Bebel and Liebknecht won the Reichstag dis-tricts of Glauchau-Meerane and Stollberg-Schneeberg-Loumlszlignitz29 They were the onlysocialists Saxon voters sent to Berlin After August 1867 a total of five Saxon SocialDemocrats sat in the Reichstag among a national delegation (Fraktion) of only six deputiesIn March 1871 under the influence of German victories over France the Social Democraticdelegation was reduced to two deputies again (both from Saxony) This setback was soonreversed In the Reichstag elections of January 1874 Saxon socialists won six of twenty-three Reichstag seats in the kingdom with over 35 percent of the popular vote (comparedto 7 percent in the Reich) All six seats were clustered in the densely populated region aroundChemnitz where industry had spilled out into towns and villages (see fig 2) August Bebeltallied an astounding 80 percent of the vote in the district of Glauchau-Meerane

Even under the Anti-Socialist Law (1878ndash1890) Saxon SPD fortunes in Reichstag elec-tions continued to rise as table 1 shows30 By 1884 in the Reich as a whole the party had

26Paul Singer to Friedrich Engels May 13 1890 cited inWilhelm Liebknecht Briefwechsel mit Karl Marx undFriedrich Engels ed Georg Eckert (The Hague Mouton amp Co 1963) 370 n 2

27GerhardARitter appreciated the importance of this distinction in ldquoWahlen undWahlpolitik imKoumlnigreichSachsen 1867ndash1914rdquo in Sachsen imKaiserreich PolitikWirtschaft undGesellschaft imUmbruch ed Simone Laumlssig andKarl Heinrich Pohl (Dresden Saumlchsische Landeszentrale fuumlr politische Bildung 1997) 27ndash86 See also SimoneLaumlssig Karl Heinrich Pohl and James Retallack eds Modernisierung und Region im wilhelminischen DeutschlandWahlen Wahlrecht und Politische Kultur 2nd ed (Bielefeld Verlag fuumlr Regionalgeschichte 1998)

28This is not to discount the importance of membership in the party the Free Trade Unions and SocialDemocratic cultural associations

29Klaus Erich Pollmann Parlamentarismus im Norddeutschen Bund 1867ndash1870 (Duumlsseldorf Droste 1985)545 Pollmann ldquoArbeiterwahlen im Norddeutschen Bund 1867ndash1870rdquoGeschichte und Gesellschaft 15 no 2(1989) 164ndash95

30See ldquoAnti-Socialist Law (October 21 1878)rdquo in Forging an Empire Bismarckian Germany (1866ndash1890)ed James Retallack vol 4 of the digital history anthology German History in Documents and Images GermanHistorical Institute Washington DC httpgermanhistorydocsghi-dcorgsub_documentcfmdocument_id=1843



Fig 2 Reichstag districts in Saxony 1867ndash1918 Adapted from Philologisch-historische Klasse derSaumlchsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig in cooperation with the LandesvermessungsamtSachsen eds Reichstagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1871ndash1912 Karte D IV 2 Atlas zur Geschichte undLandeskunde von Sachsen (Dresden Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 1997) Used by permission

Table 1 Social Democratic votes and seats won Saxony and the Reich 1871ndash1890

ReichstagElection Year

Votes Won Seats Won

Saxony Reich Saxony (23) Reich (397)

(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()

1871lowast 42000 176 124000 32 2 87 2 051874 92000 358 352000 68 6 261 9 231877 124000 380 493000 91 7 304 12 301878 128000 376 437000 76 6 261 9 231881 88000 282 312000 61 4 174 12 301884 128000 353 550000 97 5 217 24 601887 149000 287 763000 101 0 00 11 281890 241000 421 1427000 197 6 261 35 88

Notes Vote totals have been rounded lowastIn 1871 without Alsace-Lorraine 382 seats were contestedthereafter 397 seatsSources [Eugen Wuumlrzburger] ldquoDie Wahlen zum Deutschen Reichstag im Koumlnigreich Sachsen von 1871bis 1907rdquo Zeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 54 no 2 (1908) 171ndash80 173 GerhardA Ritter ldquoDas Wahlrecht und die Waumlhlerschaft der Sozialdemokratie im Koumlnigreich Sachsen1867ndash1914rdquo in Der Aufstieg der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung ed Gerhard A Ritter (MunichR Oldenbourg 1990) 49ndash101 63 Some figures calculated by the author

JAMES RETALLACK348


largely recouped its losses in the elections of 1878 and 1881 In and around Leipzig thepartyrsquos showing in Reichstag elections was mixed The electoral district of Leipzig-Citywas consistently won by a National Liberal notable31 By contrast Social Democratic candi-dates gradually came to dominate Reichstag elections in the surrounding district of Leipzig-County Table 2 shows the dominance of theNational Liberals and Social Democrats in thesetwo Reichstag districts

The Saxon SPD suffered a rout in the elections of 1887 when the Conservatives FreeConservatives andNational Liberals rallied to Bismarckrsquos nationalKartell of ldquostate-supportingpartiesrdquomdashalso known in Saxony as the ldquoparties of orderrdquo Bismarck used a war scare againstFrance to whip up the electorate and high turnout benefited these right-wing parties TheKartell reduced the number of Saxon SPD seats from five to zero In the Reichstag constit-uency of Leipzig-County a National Liberal victory in 1887 bucked the trend of growingSPD strength Figure 3 shows areas of SPD strength (in red) in the parts of Leipzig-County that lay closest to Leipzigrsquos city center Most red patches are within the red circlethat marks a distance of five kilometers from Leipzigrsquos central market square32 The socialistincumbent in February 1887 was Louis Viereck an editor of Social Democratic newspapersand journals (most of which were banned in the 1880s)33 Viereck almost carried the day Onthe first ballot hewon 19327Reichstag votes TheNational Liberal candidatewas FerdinandGoetz a popular physician in Leipzig He polled strongly in areas beyond thoseworking-classsuburbs which are shown in blue and green This gave him a total of 20039 votes and anarrow victory

Leipzigrsquos burghers were worried by the narrowness of Goetzrsquos victory and what it por-tended Among those suburbs in Leipzig-County that were soon to be incorporated intoLeipzig-City Viereck outpolled Goetz in 1887 by 15700 to 11121 votes34 In 1890 theNational Liberals in Saxony saw their share of the statewide vote shrink from over 31percent in 1887 to less than 20 percent their number of seats fell from ten to just threethough they held Leipzig-City These losses shocked Saxon National Liberals it madethem even more willing than they were already to subordinate themselves to the dominantConservatives in the kingdom By contrast in 1890 the Saxon SPD was again on the marchIts candidates won a far higher proportion of Reichstag ballots in Saxony (42 percent) thanthe partyrsquos average in the Reich (20 percent)35 The SPD now held six Saxon seats in theReichstag These countervailing developments led Saxon National Liberals to considerhow to defend their bastion of influence in Leipzig not only in Reichstag contests butalso in Landtag and municipal elections

31Winning National Liberal candidates in Leipzig-City included Deputy Mayor Eduard Stephani futureLord Mayor Carl Troumlndlin and after 1893 Leipzigrsquos chief statistician and chairman of the Pan-GermanLeague Dr Ernst Hasse

32Suburbs lying outside this circle were not incorporated in 1889ndash9233Viereck was rumored to be the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm I he was banished from Berlin in

1879 under sect28 of the Anti-Socialist Law and late in 1887 he was expelled from the SPD after a conflictwith party leaders Wilhelm Heinz Schroumlder Sozialdemokratische Parlamentarier in den Deutschen Reichs- undLandtagen 1867ndash1933 (Duumlsseldorf Droste 1995) 781

34These latter figures are taken from Adam Arbeitermilieu und Arbeiterbewegung 28635Figures cited in the text have been rounded



Table 2 National Liberal and Social Democratic strength in Leipzig-City and Leipzig-County 1871ndash1890

ReichstagElectionYear

EligibleElectors

Votes cast in Leipzig-City WinningParty

EligibleElectors

Votes cast in Leipzig-County WinningParty

National Liberal SocialDemocratic


(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()

1871 19113 7314 742 2477 251 NLP 23399 5800 643 2903 323 NLP1874 22811 9224 706 3651 279 NLP 28325 3458 289 4627 386 SPD1877 25840 10776 606 5250 292 NLP 32738 4502 240 9420 502 Freisinn1878 27019 11940 588 5822 287 NLP 34793 ndash ndash 11253 454 RFKP1881 29695 8804 404 6482 295 NLP 37203 ndash ndash 10503 480 RFKP1884 32334 12566 512 9676 394 NLP 40710 ndash ndash 15233 548 SPD1887 34718 19520 622 10087 324 NLP 45939 20039 506 19327 488 NLP1890 36366 15518 481 12921 400 NLP 55536 18214 369 30127 610 SPD

Notes Votes cast in main election only not in runoff ballots or in by-elections Percentages shown are percentages of actual valid votes cast NLP National LiberalParty RFKP Imperial and Free Conservative Party The winner labeled ldquoFreisinnrdquo in 1877 was a candidate of the left-liberal Radical Party Highlighted cells referto the contest between Ferdinand Goetz and Louis Viereck in 1887Source [Eugen Wuumlrzburger] ldquoDie Wahlen zum Deutschen Reichstag im Koumlnigreich Sachsen von 1871 bis 1907rdquo Zeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen StatistischenLandesamtes 54 no 2 (1908) 176ndash77

JAMESRETALLA

CK

350

httpsww

wcam

bridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017S0008938916000662

Dow

nloaded from httpsw

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cambridgeorgcore IP address 9925480146 on 20 Jan 2017 at 145217 subject to the Cam

bridge Core terms of use available at

State Elections

Social Democratic success came more slowly in Saxon Landtag elections than in Reichstagelectionsmdashbut sooner than in other federal states Saxonyrsquos three-mark tax threshold forenfranchisement was the principal impediment to Social Democratic voters36 It had beenlegislated as part of a major reform of the Saxon Landtag suffrage in 1868 which did awaywith representation according to social estate But a tax threshold was not the only waythe framers of Saxonyrsquos 1868 suffrage sought to contain the effects of social democratization

Some of these ways can best be appreciated by looking at maps (figs 4ndash5) Since deputieswere elected for six-year terms only one-third of Landtag districts were contested every twoyears For example the twenty-six districts contested in 1871 were not contested again until1877 Moreover the districts in which elections were held in any given year were not con-tiguous but scattered randomly across the kingdom These two stipulations contributed to thelocalizationmdashand thus the containmentmdashof political opposition No electoral call to armshowever contentious or impassioned could produce a groundswell of support in all parts ofthe kingdom let alone an electoral landslide for one party If a Landtag election heated uplocally voters in a neighboring district might have to wait four years for their turn to cast

Fig 3 National Liberalism and Social Democracy in Leipzig-County 1887 Das Wahl-Comiteacute der ver-einigten Ordnungs-Parteien fuumlr Leipzig-Land Wahl des Herrn Dr med Ferdinand Goetz fuumlr den 13saumlchsischen Wahlkreis (Leipzig-Land) betr (Leipzig nd [May 1887]) back matter

36In the 1860s relatively few workers paid the necessary 3 marks in annual taxes which corresponded toan annual income of 600ndash700 marks But implementation of a major tax reform on Jan 1 1879 combinedwith inflation and wage increases put a much higher proportion of workers especially skilled workers andminers over this tax threshold ldquoHere wersquove practically arrived at the universal suffragerdquo complainedZwickaursquos regional governor during the autumn Landtag election campaign in 1879 SLTW 47



a ballot Moreover at least two-thirds of Landtag seats would always be held by incumbentsas the framers of the 1868 suffrage noted with satisfaction incumbents could be counted onto smooth the business of legislation and ensure its cautious consideration37

Maps can also help illustrate how workers in Saxonyrsquos towns and cities were disadvan-taged compared to farmers in the countryside The 1868 suffrage reform did away withSaxonyrsquos estate-bound suffrage but it differentiated between the thirty-five urban andforty-five rural districts This distinction was muddied somewhat because urban districtswere divided into two subgroups big-city districts (eleven) and other urban districts(twenty-four) As a result election returns were tabulated under three rubricsNevertheless the language of the law and common parlance distinguished between urban(staumldtisch) districts and those ldquoin the flat countryrdquo (auf dem platten Land) Each of thetwenty-four urban districts (not counting the big-city ones) wrenched Saxon towns out oftheir geographical hinterland and linked them together as one electoral unit The lines onfigure 4 linking them together are historical abstractions they only denote which citiesconstituted one electoral district Because each urban district was to include about thirtythousand inhabitants (and thus about three thousand enfranchised electors) the number oftowns and cities strung together to form a district varied according to the density of thelocal population38 The sixteenth urban district of Crimmitschau included just two

Fig 4 Urban districts for Saxon Landtag elections 1868ndash1909 The figures in parentheses after the nameof each district indicate the number of towns in the district Adapted from Philologisch-historische Klasse derSaumlchsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig in cooperation with the LandesvermessungsamtSachsen eds Landtagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Karte D IV 3 Atlas zur Geschichteund Landeskunde von Sachsen (Dresden Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2002) Used by permission

37On the 1868 suffrage see James Retallack ldquoSuffrage Reform Corporatist Society and theAuthoritarian State Saxon Transitions in the 1860srdquo in Saxony in German History ed James Retallack215ndash34 Retallack Red Saxony chap 2

38SLTW 11 104 Wolfgang Schroumlder introduction to Saumlchsische Parlamentarier 1869ndash1918 ed ElviraDoumlscher and Wolfgang Schroumlder (Duumlsseldorf Droste 2001) 1ndash218 Here and elsewhere I refer to electorsas persons who were stimmberechtigtmdashenfranchised for elections and thus potential voters They should not beconfused with delegates (Wahlmaumlnner) who in indirect voting systems stood between voters (Urwaumlhler) andelected deputies (Abgeordneten)

JAMES RETALLACK352


citiesmdashCrimmitschau and nearby Werdaumdashbecause population density in that region ofsouthwestern Saxony was so high The opposite extreme prevailed in the mountainousErzgebirge region southwest of Dresden In the fifth urban district of Dippoldiswalde a pop-ulation of 24063 inhabitants (1867) lived in no fewer than fifteen towns these stretchedacross an area fifty kilometers wide Figure 4 shows the towns that comprised each urban dis-trict floating like islands in (or above) a sea of rural districts Rural districts were constructed ina more familiar way as shown in figure 5 but they could include as many as 132 localities

Voters in both urban and rural Landtag districts proved susceptible to conservative admin-istrators police and newspaper editors at the grass-roots levelmdashjust as the governmentintendedmdashand they were difficult to mobilize for a particular cause When notables in sixor seven towns all sought to send a representative of their own locality to the Landtagmdashfor example to lobby for a branch railway linemdashand when candidates had to travel great dis-tances to present themselves to voters the development of integrated party organizations atthe district level was slowed This stipulation had its natural complement in the Landtag itselfseats were allocated by lot so that members of a party delegation did not sit together Thegovernmentrsquos goal was to hold back the development of cohesive party structures especiallyfor those parties likely to oppose the state and existing social relations

When the Social Democrats first broke through the tax threshold and other electoral bar-riers in the Landtag campaign of 1877 they won seats not in Saxonyrsquos big cities but in ruraldistricts Table 3 shows that socialist breakthroughs in Saxonyrsquos big cities came later

Saxonyrsquos rural districts were not rural in the classic sense they were dotted with industrialtowns and villages that were inhabited by workers miners and other likely supporters ofSocial Democracy In 1877 Wilhelm Liebknecht was elected in the thirty-sixth rural districtthat included the Lugau-Oelsnitz coal mining region39 It fell within the seventeenth

Fig 5 Rural districts for Saxon Landtag elections 1868ndash1909 Adapted from Philologisch-historischeKlasse der Saumlchsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig in cooperation with theLandesvermessungsamt Sachsen eds Landtagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Karte D IV3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Dresden Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2002)Used by permission (The digits for the sixteenth and seventeenth districts were transposed in the originallegend)

39Liebknechtrsquos election was annulled but he was soon replaced by the socialist lawyer Otto Freytag



Table 3 Social Democratic deputies in the Saxon Landtag 1877ndash1887

District(no and name)

Deputy name Proportion of population engaged in 1877 1879 1881 1883 1885 1887

Agriculture Industry Commerce Personal Service() () () ()

Rural23 Leipzig (I) August Bebel 76 424 178 248 Freisinn Freisinn SPD SPD SPD SPD24 Leipzig (II) Wilhelm Liebknecht 95 409 135 293 Freisinn SPD SPD SPD NL NL30 Chemnitz Friedrich Geyer 104 760 51 44 NL Cons Cons Cons SPD SPD36 Stollberg Liebknecht (annulled) 152 688 42 54 (SPD)

Otto Freytag (1877) SPD SPD SPD Cons Cons Cons40 Zwickau Ludwig Puttrich 121 736 54 51 Cons SPD SPD SPD

Wilhelm Stolle SPD SPDBig City

Chemnitz 2 Georg von Vollmar 05 665 181 21 NL NL NL SPD SPD SPDDresden 4 August Kaden 11 371 201 118 Cons Cons Cons Cons SPD SPD

Social Democratic Landtag caucus 1 3 4 4 5 5

Notes SPD Socialist Workersrsquo Party of Germany NL National Liberal Party District occupational profiles as of 1871 agriculture includes agriculture and forestryindustry includes mining industry and construction commerce includes trade and transportation other categories (eg army) were not included Occupationalprofiles for the electoral districts of Chemnitz 2 and Dresden 4 are for the entire citySources Elvira Doumlscher and Wolfgang Schroumlder eds Saumlchsische Parlamentarier 1869ndash1918 (Duumlsseldorf Droste 2001) 199ndash211 Wolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlenim Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur Karte D IV 3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Akademie derWissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) tables 12 20 21

JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

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Reichstag district of Stollberg-Schneeberg-Loumlszlignitz which Liebknecht had first won in1867 Saxon burghers understood that Social Democrats elected in districts with similar soci-oeconomic profiles would be hard to defeat in future elections The expansion of SaxonyrsquosLandtag electorate was worrying too40 Whereas barely 10 percent of the total Saxon pop-ulation was eligible to vote in Landtag elections in 1869 this figure had risen to over 14percent by 1895mdashthough it was still less than the proportion of Germans eligible to votein Reichstag elections (21 percent) Thanks to this expansion and rising turnout ratesamong workers by the early 1890s about thirty thousand Saxons were casting theirLandtag ballots for a Social Democrat every two years (see fig 6)

Local Elections

It remains to consider the advance of Social Democracy in local parliamentsmdashin Leipzig andits environs Social Democrats had been winning election to rural councils (Gemeinderaumlte) inLeipzigrsquos hinterland since the late 1860s Between 1869 and 1875 Social Democrats wereelected to local councils in Pieschen Plagwitz Lindenau Reudnitz and Stoumltteritz Thefirst Social Democrat entered Schoumlnefeldrsquos local council in 1876 By 1880 seventy-six social-ists sat in twenty-five such councils and their number grew during the 1880s41 In his over-views of the socialist movement written in June and December 1880 Berlin Police Director

Fig 6 Social Democratic votes and seats in the Saxon Landtag 1875ndash1895 Drawn from [EugenWuumlrzburger] ldquoDie Wahlen fuumlr die Zweite Kammer der Staumlndeversammlung von 1869 bis 1896rdquoZeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 51 (1905) 1ndash12

40Whereas Saxonyrsquos population grew by 152 percent between 1869 and 1895 (from 2476000 to3755000) the number of eligible Landtag electors grew by 219 percent (from 244600 to 536000)

41See Fritz Staude Sie waren staumlrker Der Kampf der Leipziger Sozialdemokratie in der Zeit des Sozialistengesetzes1878ndash1890 (Leipzig VEB Bibliographisches Institut 1969) 112ndash17 200



GuidoMadai referred to the SPDrsquos ldquostill undiminished strengthrdquo in Leipzigrsquos suburbs and thefuture danger of renewed cooperation between left liberals and socialists42 Police directors inLeipzig and Berlin and Saxonyrsquos minister of the interior cited complaints about SocialDemocratic agitation lodged by members of rural councils outside Leipzig when theyimposed the Lesser State of Siege on Leipzig in June 188143

In the 1880s leaders of Saxonyrsquos ldquoparties of orderrdquo realized that local politics offeredanother opportunity to revise the electoral rules of the game Citizens in the Leipzigsuburbs of Lindenau and Gohlis set the ball rolling with petitions to the Saxon Landtag advo-cating suffrage reform for elections to rural councils Authorities and councilors in otherlocalities soon joined the chorus They claimed that young adults in rural communitieswere exercising their right to vote in order to advance ldquospecial interestsrdquo contrary to thepublic welfare In 1886 on the initiative of the Saxon government Landtag legislationamended the rules for elections to rural councils it raised the voting age from twenty-oneto twenty-five and it lengthened the local residency requirement from one year to twoAt the same time an exhaustive questionnaire was introduced for those wishing to applyfor local citizenship August Bebel protested against these revisions but the five SocialDemocrats in the Landtag could not prevent the bill from passing on April 24 1886Homeowners (Ansaumlssige) already enjoyed special representation in local assemblies By theearly 1890s Social Democrats who won a majority in a local Saxon election had learnedto anticipatemdashthough they could not avoidmdashthe usual bourgeois response between an elec-tion in November or December and the formal induction of new deputies in January localsuffrages were often revised to prevent Social Democratic victories in the future

From 1867 until 1890 elections at the national state and municipal levels were mainlyfought independently of one another But gradually the SPDrsquos successes began to resonatemore broadly By 1890 what might have been a purely administrative mattermdashthe expansionof Leipzigrsquos city limitsmdashcompelled Leipzig burghers to consider a coordinated politicalresponse to the socialist danger

Creating ldquoNew Leipzigrdquo and Gerrymandering its Landtag Representation

In the late 1880s Leipzigrsquos city fathers decided to incorporate seventeen suburbs into their citylimits The scale of these incorporations (Eingemeindungen) was unequaled in the KaiserreichAccomplished within a short period of time (1889ndash1892) the cityrsquos expansion had far-reach-ing social economic and political ramifications Leipzigrsquos population rose from about 170000in 1885 to 400000 in 1895 This placed it amongGermanyrsquos largest metropolises44We knowa good deal about the contentiousness of this decision its impact on Leipzigrsquos developmentand its role in the history of the labormovementrsquos three pillars (the party the free trade unions

42Guido Madai ldquoUumlbersichtrdquo June 10 1880 in Dokumente aus geheimen Archiven ed Dieter Fricke andRudolf Knaack vol 1 1878ndash1889 (Weimar H Boumlhlaus 1983) 52 Bundesarchiv AbteilungenPotsdam (now Berlin) Reichskanzlei Nr 6466 Madai ldquoUebersichtrdquo Dec 31 1880

43Kleiner Belagerungszustand sect28 of the Anti-Socialist Law See ldquoAnti-Socialist Law (October 21 1878)rdquoin Retallack Forging an Empire

44As a direct result of the incorporations of 1889ndash92 142881 inhabitants were added to Leipzigrsquos pop-ulationmdashan increase of almost 84 percent Georg Waumlchter ldquoDie Saumlchsische Staumldte im 19 JahrhundertrdquoZeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen Statistischen Bureaus 47 (1901) 203 After further incorporations Leipzig viedwith Munich to be Germanyrsquos third-largest city after Berlin and Hamburg

JAMES RETALLACK356


and cultural associations)45 What remains unexplored is the political calculus that determinedhow Leipzig was gerrymandered and the electoral outcomes that illustrated the effects ofexclusionary practices In both cases historical cartography offers illumination

In theautumnof1889negotiationswere stillunderwaybetweenrepresentativesof the suburbsseeking incorporation intoLeipzig andthoseauthoritieswhowoulddecidewhich lobbyingeffortssucceededDepending onwhich suburbs were still in play Leipzigrsquos chief statistician ErnstHassewas asked to draw up a series of statistical tables that provided a political prognosis of future votingwhen Leipzigrsquos three Landtag districts became five (see figs 7 and 8) The boundaries of the threeexisting districts were to be revised substantially At the same time some electors from outside thecity were to be allocated to one of the existing districts or to one of the new ones46 The longprocess of redistricting was not completed until an acrimonious debate had erupted on the floorof the Landtag in 1890 and enabling legislation was passed in 1892

Ernst Hasse was well aware that members of Leipzigrsquos city council would scrutinize hisstatistical forecasts with one question in mind How would voters cast their ballots in thecityrsquos five electoral districts after 1892 (The ministry of the interior was interested in thesame question) For his forecast and his proposal for redrawing Leipzigrsquos Landtag districtsHasse examined the proportion of socialist and nonsocialist votes cast in each neighborhoodand suburb for the Reichstag election of February 1887 and for the most recent Landtag elec-tions (1885 1887 1889) Reflecting the dichotomous thinking that attended many discus-sions of Social Democracy Hasse differentiated between voters ldquoloyal to the Reichrdquo(reichstreu) and those votersmdashimplicitly disloyalmdashwho supported Social Democrats or left lib-erals47 He then grouped the neighborhoods into five electoral districts according to what hefelt was the most natural the most equitable and the most advantageous arrangement48

Table 4 provides a composite picture of Hassersquos calculations and proposals (It has been sim-plified and rearranged to correspond to the final allocation of neighborhoods in 1892)

Hasse was trying to draft a ldquosaferdquo reform that would prevent Social Democrats fromwinning too many Leipzig seats Much of his accompanying report hid the political fist inthe administrative glove49 Passages such as the following make clear what Hasse intended

45I can cite here only part of a copious scholarly literature on Kommunalpolitik in Imperial Germany OnLeipzig see Karin Pontow ldquoBourgeoise Kommunalpolitik und Eingemeindungsfrage in Leipzig im letztenViertel des 19 Jahrhundertsrdquo Jahrbuch fuumlr Regionalgeschichte 8 (1981) 84ndash106 Karl Czok ldquoDie Stellung derLeipziger Sozialdemokratie zur Kommunalpolitik in der ersten Haumllfte der neunziger Jahre des 19Jahrhundertsrdquo Arbeitsberichte zur Geschichte der Stadt Leipzig 11 Heft 1 Nr 24 (1973) 5ndash54 AdamArbeitermilieu und Arbeiterbewegung esp 285ndash303 Michael Schaumlfer ldquoBuumlrgertum Arbeiterschaft undstaumldtische Selbstverwaltung zwischen Jahrhundertwende und 1920er Jahren im deutsch-britischenVergleichrdquo Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts zur Erforschung der europaumlischen Arbeiterbewegung 20 (1998) 178ndash232Schaumlfer ldquoDie Burg und die Buumlrger Stadtbuumlrgerliche Herrschaft und kommunale Selbstverwaltung inLeipzig 1889ndash1929rdquo in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Sachsen im 20 Jahrhundert ed Werner Bramke andUlrich Heszlig (Leipzig Leipziger Universitaumltsverlag 1998) 269ndash92 Schaumlfer Buumlrgertum in der Krise 38ndash77

46Electors for Leipzigrsquos new Landtag districts were drawn from those previously casting ballots in theSaxon Landtagrsquos twenty-third and twenty-fourth rural districts (see fig 5)

47SHStADMdI Nr 5413 Ernst Hasse to Rath der Stadt Leipzig October 17 1889 At this time Saxonyhad rival Progressive ( fortschrittlich) and Radical ( freisinnig) left-liberal parties

48With his bureaucratic language Hasse admitted no contradiction between equitable and partisanredistricting

49SHStAD MdI Nr 5413 Ernst Hasse to Rath der Stadt Leipzig October 17 1889 In a cover letter tothe SaxonMinisterium des Innern Leipzig LordMayor Otto Georgi forwarded Hassersquos proposal but did notcomment on it Ibid Oct 31 1889



to achieve with his gerrymandermdashand what he knew Leipzigrsquos city fathers wanted to hearldquoConcerning the likely political effect of leaving aside [the suburbs] of StoumltteritzProbstheida Leutzsch Moumlckern Mockau and Schoumlnefeld it can only be positive hellipWith [non-incorporation of] these localities only 964 loyal [reichstreu] voters but 2127Social Democratic and Radical voters are omitted from the cityrsquos electoral districtsmdashand[yet] not so many of the latter type that the future of the rural 21st 22nd and 25th electoraldistricts are endangeredrdquo50

Fig 7 Saxon Landtag districts in Leipzig 1869ndash1892 Adapted from Wolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlenim Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur Karte D IV 3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde vonSachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Adademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig undLandesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) 21 Used by permission

50SHStADMdI Nr 5413 Ernst Hasse to Rath der Stadt Leipzig October 17 1889 It had recently beendecided that the six suburbs Hasse mentioned would not be incorporated Hassersquos reference to the rural

JAMES RETALLACK358


By comparing table 4 with figure 8 one can see which neighborhoodsmdashstrongly socialistor notmdashwere allocated to which electoral districts Even without knowing how voters inLeipzig districts 1ndash5 would cast their ballots after redistricting it is clear that Hasse performedthe classic gerrymander trick of ldquopackingrdquo the enemyrsquos voters into one district which wouldthen be sacrificed in order to win neighboring districts

Based on 1887 Reichstag voting Hassersquos proposal foresaw that only 35 percent of votersin Leipzig 1 would vote socialist Between 40 and 50 percent of voters in Leipzig 2 3 and 5

Fig 8 Saxon Landtag districts in Leipzig 1892ndash1909 Adapted from Wolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlenim Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur Karte D IV 3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskundevon Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Adademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig undLandesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) 22 Used by permission

twenty-first twenty-second and twenty-fifth electoral districts was an error as Leipzig was surrounded bythe twenty-second twenty-third and twenty-fourth rural districts



Table 4 Ernst Hasse ldquoProposal for creating five new urban Landtag districtsrdquo for Leipzig 1889

New (Old)Electoral District

Neighborhood Suburb(year of incorporation)

Inhabitants(1 Dec 1885)

Proportion of ldquoDisloyalrdquo Voters

(no) Reichstag 1887 Landtag 18858789SPD amp Freisinn () SPD only ()

1 2 3 4 5

Leipzig 1 Innere Stadt(Leipzig 1) [Innere Stadt] 20016 33 05(Leipzig 1) [Inn u Aumluszligere

Nordvorstadt]17414 33

(24th rural) Gohlis (1890) 12990 36 24(24th rural) Eutritzsch (1890) 7665 45 46

Total 63085 35 13Leipzig 2 Ostvorstadt

(Leipzig 1 2) Ostvorstadt 44800 36 31(23rd rural) Reudnitz (1889)lowast 19019 47 47(23rd rural) Anger-Crottendorf

(1889)lowastlowast4631 72 76

Total 68460 41 39Leipzig 3 Suumldvorstadt

(Leipzig 1 2) [Suumldvorstadt] 46623 44 36(24th rural) Connewitz (1891) 7756 69 77(24th rural) Loumlszlignig (1891) 500 76 70

Total 54879 48 37Leipzig 4 [Ost]

(23rd rural) Volkmarsdorf (1890) 12741 73 76(23rd rural) Neuschoumlnefeld (1890) 6164 59 59(23rd rural) Neustadt (1890) 7691 52 47(23rd rural) Sellerhausen (1890) 4899 79 85(23rd rural) Neusellerhausen (1892) 1809 70 77(23rd rural) Neureudnitz (1890) 1743 78 83(24th rural) Thonberg (1890)lowastlowastlowast 3749 70 73

Total 38796 67 61Leipzig 5 Westvorstadt

(Leipzig 3) [Westvorstadt] Westen 36489 32 25(24th rural) Kleinzschocher (1891) 4404 79 82(24th rural) Schleuszligig (1891) 871 47 57(24th rural) Plagwitz (1891) 9230 54 52(24th rural) Lindenau (1891) 15383 54 42

Total 66377 44 33Total Neu-Leipzig 291587 457 410

Notes Despite disparities the proportions of ldquodisloyalrdquo voters in Reichstag and Landtag elections shown incols 4 and 5 are similar lowastAfter Hassersquos tables were prepared in October 1889 Reudnitz oberen Teils wasincluded in Leipzig 2 and Reudnitz unteren Teils in Leipzig 4 lowastlowastAnger-Crottendorf was moved to Leipzig4 lowastlowastlowastThonberg was also moved to Leipzig 4 See fig 8 to locate each neighborhood among the districtsredrawn as Leipzig 1ndash5 (1892ndash1909)Sources Saumlchsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden Saxon Ministerium des Innern Nr 5413 Ernst HasseDirektor des Statistischen Amtes to Rath der Stadt Leipzig Oct 17 1889 table 19 ldquoDer politischeCharacter der Leipziger Stadttheile und Vororterdquo and table 23 ldquoVorschlag zur Bildung von 5 neuenstaumldtischen Landtagswahlkreisen auf Grund der Beschluumlsse vom 5 Oktober 1889rdquo For column 5 onlyWolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur Karte D IV 3Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Akademie derWissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) 80 table 9 Some figurescalculated by the author I am grateful to Gavin Wiens for scanning these tables for me

JAMES RETALLACK360


would do the same Hasse allocated working-class suburbs with a high proportion of socialistvoters mainly (though not exclusively) to Leipzig 4 Because the number of inhabitants in thenew district of Leipzig 4 was lower than in the other districts Hasse theoretically could havepacked even more working-class neighborhoods into it He appears to have been undecidedfor some time how many such neighborhoods to include in Leipzig 2 and Leipzig 4 In anycase according to Reichstag and Landtag voting patterns Hasse could expect that voters inLeipzig 4 would provide over 65 percent support to socialist candidates in the future OverallHasse and members of Leipzigrsquos city council hoped that after redistricting a candidate of theSaxon ldquoparties of orderrdquowould win four of Leipzigrsquos five Landtag districtsmdasheven though thetotal number of votes for socialist candidates across the newly enlarged city would likelyexceed 45 percent There is no evidence that this disparity troubled Hasse or Leipzigrsquos bour-geois elite51

Hassersquos plan worked Only the two partial Landtag elections of 1893 and 1895 occurredbefore the introduction of Saxonyrsquos three-class Landtag suffrage in 1896 which reshuffledthe deck (see below) In 1893 voters in Leipzig 3 4 and 5 were called to the polls InLeipzig 3 a Conservative eked out a victory over an SPD candidate (see table 5 for votetotals) In Leipzig 5 another Conservative beat another Social Democrat by a slightlylarger margin No candidate contested the heavily working-class district of Leipzig 4 forthe Saxon ldquoparties of orderrdquo that year Such a candidate would have been a sacrificiallamb given Social Democratic strength in this district Instead the Conservatives andNational Liberals nominated a candidate of the antisemitic German Social Party At thistime both parties were engaged in a fierce battle with radical antisemites for the votes oflower-middle-class Saxons The independent antisemites had just ldquostolenrdquo six Reichstagseats from the Conservatives in the Reichstag election of June 1893 In the LeipzigLandtag vote later that year the independent antisemite lost massively to a SocialDemocrat More than two thousand of the SPD votes that Hasse had packed into Leipzig4 were not needed to defeat the antisemite there This pattern was repeated in 1895when voters in Leipzig 2 and Leipzig 4 (again) went to the polls Leipzig 2 produced aNational Liberal victory over a socialist Leipzig 4 again saw a Social Democrat defeat an anti-semitemdashthis time representing the German Reform Partymdashby over two thousand votes

Looking ahead briefly to 1897ndash1907 when an indirect three-class voting system pre-vailed for Saxon Landtag elections Social Democrats stood almost no chance of gettingelected only one SPD candidate carried the day over the course of six partial elections52

Delegates (Wahlmaumlnner) elected by the first and second voting classes always outvotedthose elected by the third But Saxonyrsquos statisticians continued to survey the proportion ofsocialist and nonsocialist votes cast by ordinary voters (Urwaumlhler) Tellingly they ignored dis-tinctions among Saxonyrsquos ldquoparties of orderrdquo their published tables tallied only ldquosocial-dem-ocraticrdquo and ldquonon-social-democraticrdquo votes Table 5 compares the SPDrsquos fortunes in

51See Leo Ludwig-Wolf ldquoLeipzigrdquo in Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsorganisation der Staumldte vol 4 no 1Koumlnigreich Sachsen (hereafter cited as VfS Sachsen) Schriften des Vereins fuumlr Socialpolitik 120 no 1(Leipzig Duncker amp Humblot 1905 repr Vaduz Topos Verlag 1990) 123ndash61

52In 1905 Hermann Goldstein won election in Saxonyrsquos thirty-seventh rural district (Hartenstein) Onthe suffrage reform of 1896 see James Retallack ldquoAnti-Socialism and Electoral Politics in RegionalPerspective The Kingdom of Saxonyrdquo in Elections Mass Politics and Social Change in Modern Germanyed Larry Eugene Jones and James Retallack (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1992) 49ndash91esp 78ndash90 Retallack Red Saxony chap 7 SLTW 51ndash56



Leipzigrsquos five Landtag districts under two different suffrage regimes the 1868 Landtag suf-frage based on a tax threshold for enfranchisement (top) and the 1896 Landtag suffragebased on three-class voting (bottom)

The ldquoRed Threatrdquo and Leipzigrsquos Municipal Assembly

If growing Social Democratic strength in Reichstag and Landtag elections worried Leipzigburghers by the early 1890s the possible entry of the ldquoredsrdquo into Leipzigrsquos municipal assem-bly was a no less immediate concern In Leipzigrsquos municipal elections of 1890 SocialDemocrats received about 20 percent of the vote The National Liberalsrsquo LeipzigerTageblatt claimed that the Social Democrats wanted to impose something akin to the ParisCommune on Leipzig53 The next four years were characterized by a concerted campaignto convince workers to apply for citizenship in Leipzig even though local officials tried tomake the application process as difficult as possible The success of Social Democrats in elec-tions to Leipzigrsquos municipal assembly rose correspondingly (see table 6)

Table 5 Socialist and nonsocialist votes won in Leipzig Landtag elections 1891ndash1907

Election District Eligible Voter Votes Cast Percentage

Year Electors Turnout Total Non-SPD SPD SPD Voteslowast(no) () (no) (no) (no) ()

1891 1893 18951891 Leipzig 1 7737 553 4276 2868 1398 3281895 Leipzig 2 8179 545 4448 2479 1954 4411893 Leipzig 3 8609 666 5734 2887 2824 4941893 Leipzig 4 10009 579 5796 1763 4021 6951895 Leipzig 4 11230 481 5406 1434 3889 7311893 Leipzig 5 11295 692 7819 4039 3736 4811891ndash5 Leipzig (1ndash5)lowastlowast 47050 588 27683 13707 13801 502

1903 1905 19071903 Leipzig 1 9539 494 4709 2610 2099 4461907 Leipzig 2 8653 604 5229 2867 2362 4521905 Leipzig 3 12662 597 7552 4243 3309 4381907 Leipzig 4 15422 644 9926 4181 5745 5791905 Leipzig 5 18368 631 11588 5044 6544 5651903ndash7 Leipzig (1ndash5) 64644 603 39004 18945 20059 514

Notes lowastPercentage of total valid votes cast ignoring zersplittert votes lowastlowastThis total for all elections in Leipzig(1891ndash95) includes the election in Leipzig 4 in 1895 when a special partial election was held to bring thenew district into the six-year rhythm but it does not include the election in Leipzig 4 in 1893Sources [EugenWuumlrzburger] ldquoDieWahlen fuumlr die Zweite Kammer der Staumlndeversammlung von 1869 bis1896rdquoZeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 51 (1905) 1ndash12 2ndash4 [EugenWuumlrzburger] ldquoDieUrwahlen fuumlr die zweite Kammer der Staumlndeversammlung in den Jahren 1903 bis 1907rdquo Zeitschrift desK Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 54 (1908) 168ndash71 ldquoDie Ergaumlnzungswahlen zur zweitenStaumlndekammer des Landtags in den Jahren 1903 1905 und 1907rdquo Statistisches Jahrbuch fuumlr das KoumlnigreichSachsen 36 (1908) 1ndash5 Some figures calculated by the author Discrepancies in the sources have beenreconciled as far as possible

53Reported inDer Waumlhler Nov 13 1890 cited in Czok ldquoStellung der Leipziger Sozialdemokratierdquo 36On the Paris Commune of 1871 which Bebel defended on the floor of the Reichstag see John MerrimanMassacre The Life and Death of the Paris Commune (New York Basic Books 2014)

JAMES RETALLACK362


No socialists were actually elected to Leipzigrsquos municipal assembly in these years becauseelectors could vote for as many candidates from a party list as there were positions open theparty (or coalition) that won the most votes held all seats in the assembly But Leipzig bur-ghers feared that if this trend continued Social Democrats would win such a majority andthen ldquoterrorizerdquo Leipzigrsquos parliament To preclude this possibility Leipzigrsquos city counciland a special Suffrage Committee proposed a new three-class voting system Because ithad become ldquoextremely easyrdquo to win citizenship Leipzigers faced ldquothe danger hellip that thepresent election system will lead to a pure domination of the massesrdquo54 Saxonyrsquos ministryof the interior approved this legislation on November 1 1894 after it was whippedthrough Leipzigrsquos assembly in the face of Social Democratic protest rallies just in time forthat yearrsquos election55 Leipzigers copied the Prussian three-class suffrage according towhich electorsrsquo achievement (Leistung) and their contribution to the state (in the form oftaxes) could be assessed and rewarded In the first voting class were the small percentage ofLeipzigers who collectively paid in annual taxes a sum equivalent to five-twelfths of thetotal tax roll (for Prussian Landtag elections it was one-third) The second class of votersincluded about 15 percent of taxpayers Those remaining on the list plus all eligible non-tax-payers constituted the third voting classmdashroughly 80 percent of all electors56 This systemreflected popular conceptions of the state as a kind of joint-stock company whereby voteswere allocated to citizen ldquoshareholdersrdquo on the basis of each onersquos ldquoinvestmentrdquo in thelarger enterprise of the state57

By introducing a three-class suffrage with a direct voting procedure (unlike Prussiarsquos indi-rect suffrage) the Leipzigers virtually guaranteed that some Social Democrats would enterthe municipal parliament It would be wrong therefore to suggest that Leipzig burghers

Table 6 Elections to Leipzigrsquos municipal assembly 1889ndash1893

Year Enfranchisedelectors

Total votescast

Votes cast for nonsocialistparties

Votes cast for SocialDemocracy

1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935

Source Leo Ludwig-Wolf ldquoLeipzigrdquo in Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsorganisation der Staumldte vol 4 no 1Koumlnigreich Sachsen Schriften des Vereins fuumlr Socialpolitik 120 no 1 (Leipzig Duncker ampHumblot 1905 repr Vaduz Topos Verlag 1990) 137 Slightly different figures are given in FriedrichSeger Dringliche Reformen Einige Kapitel Leipziger Kommunalpolitik (Leipzig Bezirksvorstand dersozialdemokratischen Partei 1912) 12ndash14

54Politisches Archiv des Auswaumlrtigen Amts Bonn (now Berlin) (hereafter PAAAB) Sachsen Nr 48 Bd18 Prussian envoy to Saxony Count Carl von Doumlnhoff to Prussian Foreign Office Oct 11 1894

55The best sources are those cited for table 656According to the 1892 tax rolls the number of electors was projected to be 1171 in Class I 3552 in

Class II and 19006 in Class III Friedrich SegerDringliche Reformen Einige Kapitel Leipziger Kommunalpolitik(Leipzig Bezirksvorstand der sozialdemokratischen Partei 1912) 15

57See James Retallack and Thomas Adam ldquoPhilanthropy und politische Macht in deutschenKommunenrdquo in ldquoZwischen Markt und Staat Stifter und Stiftungen im transatlantischen Vergleichrdquo edThomas Adam and James Retallack special issue Comparativ 11 nos 5ndash6 (2001) 106ndash38



were resolved to prevent any representation of working-class interests And yet when fourSocial Democrats were elected from Class III and the defenders of Leipzigrsquos new municipalsuffrage claimed that all three classes of voters at least had equal weight in choosing theseventy-two municipal parliamentarians their argument was a sham Each vote cast inClass I carried roughly sixteen times as much weight as each vote in Class III58

National Liberals dominated the first voting class which included representatives of com-merce industry and the upper reaches of the bureaucracy Leipzigrsquos conservativeHomeownersrsquo Association allied with members of the lower-middle classes (Mittelstand)and antisemitic groups dominated the second class In the third class the SocialDemocrats were expected to win all the seats However two stipulations of Leipzigrsquos munic-ipal suffrage reform of 1894 sought to postpone or prevent this outcome First seats wouldhenceforth be contested on a two-year rhythm not annually Second and more importantLeipzig was divided into four electoral districts but only for the third voting class (fig 9)These districts had to be drawn from scratch and they reflected the same political calculusthat had determined the boundaries of the five districts for Landtag elections drawn twoyears earlier

As expected when Leipzigrsquos new suffrage was first tested in December 1894 candidatesrepresenting the ldquoparties of orderrdquo won Districts I and II in Class III Social Democrats wonDistricts III and IV to the east and west each of which sent two representatives to the munic-ipal assembly A cry of triumph emanated from Leipzigrsquos bourgeois press and governmentorgansmdashthe worst had been averted This outcome was deemed tolerable by Leipzigrsquos suf-frage expert on the city council Leo Ludwig-Wolf who had led the charge for suffrage revi-sion in 1894 Even Prussiarsquos envoy to Saxony expressed relief he reported to Berlin that ldquotheelections in the first two classes constitute a counterbalance tohellip the revolutionary idealrdquo59

To look ahead again for a moment between 1895 and 1914 socialist candidates graduallyincreased their share of the vote in Districts I and II in Leipzigrsquos third voting class But theysuffered setbacks from time to time (as in 1908) and their protests against the four-way geo-graphical division of electors in Class III fell on deaf ears When six more suburbs were incor-porated into the city on January 1 191060 Districts I through IV in the third voting class wereredrawn again in an attempt to prevent Social Democrats from winning all of them By nowDistricts III and IV each had more electors than Districts I and II together SPD protest meet-ings in favor of more equitable districting were denounced by groups of National Liberalsmembers of Leipzigrsquos Homeownersrsquo Association and Mittelstaumlndler each of which lobbiedfor their own preferred suffragemdashincluding the regressive occupational suffrage In facteach group sought to disadvantage not only Social Democrats but also their own rivals inthe first and second voting classes When municipal elections were held in October 1910

58See materials on suffrage reform in Stadtarchiv Leipzig Kap 7 Nr 36 Bd 1 and Kap 35 Nr 100Bd 1 See also Ludwig-Wolf ldquoLeipzigrdquo esp 137ndash40 Schaumlfer ldquoDie Burg und die Buumlrgerrdquo 273ndash5Schaumlfer ldquoBuumlrgertum Arbeiterschaft und staumldtische Selbstverwaltungrdquo Schaumlfer Buumlrgertum in der KriseAdam Arbeitermilieu und Arbeiterbewegung 293ndash98

59SHStAD MdI Nr 5414 Stadtrat Ludwig-Wolf (Leipzig) to Geh Reg-Rat Bruno Oswin Merz (MdIDresden) Dec 27 1895 PAAAB Sachsen Nr 48 Bd 18 Carl von Doumlnhoff to Prussian Foreign OfficeNov 29 1895 For elections in the period 1894ndash1912 cf the opposing views in SegerDringliche Reformen15ndash32 and Ludwig-Wolf ldquoLeipzigrdquo See also Schaumlfer Buumlrgertum in der Krise

60The six suburbs incorporated were Doumllitz Doumlsen Probstheida Stoumltteritz Stuumlnz andMoumlckern On Jan1 1913 Leutzsch Schoumlnefeld and Mockau were also incorporated

JAMES RETALLACK364


Social Democrats won 65 percent of the votes in Class III and all eight seats At that point theldquoparty of revolutionrdquo held almost one-third of all seats in Leipzigrsquos municipal assembly61

Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

In 1905 the Verein fuumlr Sozialpolitik (Association for Social Policy) published a new volumein its series on German municipal governance62 In the careful language of contemporarysocial science this volume documented how the city fathers [sic] in Leipzig Chemnitz

Fig 9 Leipzigrsquos four electoral districts for municipal elections (class III only) This map shows districtboundaries after more suburbs (eg Probstheida) were incorporated into Leipzig on January 1 1910Friedrich Seger Dringliche Reformen Einige Kapitel Leipziger Kommunalpolitik (Leipzig 1912) back matter

61That is the SPD held twenty-one of seventy-two seats For the preceding details see Seger DringlicheReformen 22ndash29 and statistical appendix

62VfS Sachsen On the association itself see inter alia Dieter Lindenlaub Richtungskaumlmpfe im Verein fuumlrSozialpolitik Wissenschaft und Sozialpolitik im Kaiserreich (Wiesbaden Franz Steiner 1967)



andDresden introduced class-based suffrages63 All three suffrage reforms were meant to limitor exclude the participation of Social Democrats in local government

Reformers in the industrial city of Chemnitz were the first to follow Leipzigrsquos lead Theypassed a new suffrage law in 1898 based on citizenship and occupational status64 Electorswere divided into six classes which elected fifty-seven members of the municipal assemblyAll citizens who earned less than 2500 marks annually belonged to Class A65 All citizenswho were required to pay fees to the old age and invalid insurance schemes belonged toClass B Civil servants teachers physicians and clergy were gathered in Class C Class D con-sisted of people who engaged in trade and manufacturing and who earned more than 2500marks annually Class E included all owners and shareholders of manufacturing and joint-stock enterprises if their annual incomes exceeded 2500 marks66

Dresdenrsquos municipal assembly followed suit in 1905 Its deputies too devised a votingscheme based on occupation Electors were divided into five classes and elected a total ofeighty-four representatives Class A consisted of people without any profession (Beruf)Class B included those who paid fees to the old age and pension schemes Class C comprisedcivil servants priests lawyers physicians and intellectuals Class D included those who wereengaged in trade and industry but were not members of the chamber of commerce whilethose who did belong to the latter were included in Class E Dresdeners added anotherwrinkle their suffrage privileged those who had held local citizenship for more than tenyears Thus every class contained two groups of electors those who had been citizens ofDresden for more than a decade and those who had not67

The bourgeois character of these reforms deserves emphasis In local as in state-level pol-itics many Saxon burghers believed that socialists were going to infiltrate then dominatethen tyrannize municipal parliaments This was part of their broader outlook on the stateand its representative institutions68 When Leipzig burghers claimed for themselves positionsof leadership in local society they staked their claim to disproportionate influence in elec-tions A typical statement reflecting this viewpoint was offered by Dr JohannesHuumlbschmann who was a Chemnitz city counselor and who wrote the chapter onChemnitz in the volume commissioned by the Verein fuumlr Sozialpolitik As Huumlbschmannput it Chemnitz burghers believed that property and intellect should not be ldquosacrificed toheadcountsrdquo or the possibility that ldquoa single party would achieve domination in the munic-ipal parliamentrdquo69 These phrases recurred often in debates about Landtag suffrage reformtoo For Huumlbschmann Chemnitzrsquos occupational suffrage ldquoenfranchise[d] the most diverse

63See Rudolf Heinze ldquoDresdenrdquo in VfS Sachsen 85ndash122 Leo Ludwig-Wolf ldquoLeipzigrdquo ibid 123ndash61Johannes Huumlbschmann ldquoChemnitzrdquo ibid 163ndash79

64Chemnitzrsquos population in 1905 stood at 243476 persons of whom about 16500 held the BuumlrgerrechtHuumlbschmann ldquoChemnitzrdquo 165

65Class A was subdivided into Classes A1 and A2 according to whether individuals earned more or lessthan 1900 marks annually

66Huumlbschmann ldquoChemnitzrdquo 165ndash6967Heinze ldquoDresdenrdquo 115ndash21 Heinze a right-wing National Liberal served briefly as Saxonyrsquos govern-

ment leader in OctoberndashNovember 191868See Manfred Hettling and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann eds Der buumlrgerliche Wertehimmel (Goumlttingen

Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 2000)69Huumlbschmann ldquoChemnitzrdquo 168 See also Merith Niehuss ldquoStrategieen zur Machterhaltung

buumlrgerlicher Eliten am Beispiel kommunaler Wahlrechtsaumlnderungen im ausgehenden Kaiserreichrdquo inPolitik und Milieu ed Heinrich Best (St Katharinen Scripta Mercaturae 1989) 60ndash91

JAMES RETALLACK366


strata of the population according to the measure of their interest in the common good and oftheir importance to it it also open[ed] up to the most insightful and talented men the pros-pect of being electedrdquoWriting in 1905 Huumlbschmann reported that Chemnitzrsquos experiencewith the new suffrage had been ldquocompletely satisfactoryrdquo70

Landtag Reform

In the years 1905ndash1910 suffrage reform seemed to be on everyonersquos lips Saxon SocialDemocrats took to the streets of Leipzig and Dresden to demand a new suffrage for theirLandtag Prussian socialists did the same with mounting fervor while a transnational conver-sation about expanding voting rights also gathered steam The promise of another antisocialistsuffrage reform in the Saxon Landtag contributed to Leipzigersrsquo wait-and-see attitude at thisjuncture The growth of radical nationalist associations such as the Imperial League againstSocial Democracy and the setback suffered by Social Democracy in the Reichstag electionsof January 1907 convinced some German burghers that the ldquored threatrdquo could be met byfine-tuning existing suffrage laws Others were not so sure

When the Saxon government announced new plans to reform the Landtag suffrage inJuly 1907 it faced an uphill struggle The governmentrsquos draft bill reverted to the samekind of hybrid system that had doomed an earlier proposal in 1903ndash1904 This time it pro-posed a Landtag of eighty-two members71 Forty-two deputies would be elected by secretand direct voting incorporating proportional representation and with a moderate systemof plural ballots whereby no voter would be accorded more than two ballots The remainingforty deputies would be elected through the organs of local government72 In proposing thissystem which included a very modest increase in the number of urban districts the govern-ment cited the arguments of Albert Schaumlffle among others A noted sociologist and politicalobserver in 1890 Schaumlffle had argued that the representation of local interests provided acounterweight to direct and equal voting73 The preamble to the governmentrsquos proposalclaimed that because municipal assemblymen and counselors had other public functions tofulfill they were ipso facto too high-minded to indulge in partisan politics74

Chief defender of this complicated scheme was Saxonyrsquos government leader CountWilhelm von Hohenthal und Bergen He was trying to convince National Liberals thattheir strength in Saxon city halls might translate into power in the Landtag As a gestureto the Conservatives the government offered the specious argument that the distributionof seats in a reformed Landtag should be determined not only by population (Recht desMenschen) but also by territory (Recht der Flaumlche) This terminology had been excoriated

70Huumlbschmann ldquoChemnitzrdquo 168ndash6971Landtags-Akten 190709 Koumlnigl Dekrete vol 3 pt 1 (Dresden 1909) Dekret Nr 12 On the prin-

ciples behind the governmentrsquos draft legislation see SHStAD MdI Nr 5455 Georg Heinkrsquos forty-pagememorandum [for government leader Count Wilhelm von Hohenthal und Bergen] Nov 1 1906Oumlsterreichisches Staatsarchiv Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv Vienna Politisches Archiv V (Sachsen) Nr53 ldquoAllgemeine Begruumlndungrdquo in the printed ldquoEntwurf zum Wahlgesetz fuumlr die Zweite Kammer derStaumlndeversammlungrdquo [July 5 1907] appended to a report from the acting Austrian envoy to SaxonyBaron Erwein Gudenus to the Austrian Foreign Office July 18 1907

72The local government bodies that would elect the remaining deputies were the district councils(Bezirksverbaumlnde) municipal assemblies and municipal councils

73A[lbert] Schaumlffle ldquoDie Bekaumlmpfung der Sozialdemokratie ohne Ausnahmegesetzrdquo Zeitschrift fuumlr diegesamte Staatswissenschaft 46 (1890) 201ndash87 esp 263

74See the more detailed analysis in Retallack Red Saxony chaps 8ndash10



years earlier in March 1890 when August Bebel spoke during a Landtag debate aboutadding two new Leipzig districts he demanded that Saxony abandon the out-of-date elec-toral distinction between urban and rural districts whichmdashwithout geographical redistrict-ingmdashhad already rendered the weight of ballots cast by rural and urban voters grosslyunequal75 Since 1900 the National Liberal Party in Saxony had focused on this disparityeven as its Landtag deputies moved closer to agreeing with Conservatives on plural ballotingIn 1908 the governmentrsquos endorsement of the principle of territoriality was a rhetorical giftto Conservative hardliners It drew the scorn of the liberals however One left-liberal deputywondered whether the Conservatives were ldquoperhaps imagining that they were looking at theNorth African desert or the colony of South-West Africa [Great amusement] There onecould speak of a right of territorialityrdquo However he added ldquoin an industrialized denselypopulated state [such as Saxony] we cannot draw districts hellip according to the number ofoxen that may be roaming around on them [Great amusement]rdquo76

Germanyrsquos Suffrage Reform Discourse

Space permits only a general comment about the contribution of Leipzigers to these suffragedebates As they had in the years 1894ndash1896 when they helped prepare the way for theregressive three-class Landtag suffrage of 189677 prominent Leipzigers such as formermayor Otto Georgi and Regional Governor Otto von Ehrenstein came forward in 1906with their own suffrage proposals78 Like the governmentrsquos proposal these were calibratedaccording to each reformerrsquos wish to limit Social Democratic gains in state elections andhis willingness to state that goal explicitly Other voices were also raised in these yearshowever They objected to the idea of weighting votes at all let alone doing so in waysthat disadvantaged Social Democrats specifically

Max Weber is known for his impassioned attacks on Prussiarsquos three-class suffrage but in1907 he inveighed against those who like Georgi and Ehrenstein sought to limit or excludeSocial Democrats from participating fully in municipal affairs The occasion was the annualmeeting of the Verein fuumlr Sozialpolititik which that year had chosen as its theme the con-stitution and administrative organization of citiesWeber was frustrated by the arguments thatthe conservative political economist Adolph Wagner and others had put forward InWagnerrsquos comments Weber claimed he had heard ldquonothing other than hellip the remark[that] we cannot allow the cities to fall under the influence of the lower classesrdquo Weberrsquosrejoinder was blunt ldquoAlright then why notrdquoWhereas one could demand the highest qual-ifications of intellect and education in the selection of municipal civil servants Weber couldnot see how it was possible to establish formal criteria for universally acceptable qualifications

75August Bebel March 21 1890 in Mitteilungen uumlber die Verhandlungen des ordentlichen Landtags imKoumlnigreiche Sachsen hellip 1889ndash1890 Zweiter Kammer (Dresden 1890) 2950ndash60

76Oskar Guumlnther Nov 30 1908 in Mitteilungen uumlber die Verhandlungen des ordentlichen Landtags imKoumlnigreiche Sachsen hellip 1908ndash1909 Zweiter Kammer (Dresden 1909) 54129

77I am grateful to Daniel Fischer for providing me scans of material from SHStADMdI Nr 5414 whichdocument secret discussions and correspondence among Saxon antisocialists in 1894ndash95

78See Otto Georgi Zur Reform des Wahlrechts fuumlr die Zweite Saumlchsische Kammer (Leipzig Duncker ampHumblot 1906) 11ndash12 35ndash37 39ndash40 42ndash44 54ndash55 79ndash81 Otto von Ehrenstein Das System derVerhaumlltniswahlen in Sachsen (Dresden v Zahn amp Jaensch 1906) 3 16ndash20 36ndash38 Ehrenstein Reden undAnsprachen nebst Anhang Ein Vorschlag zur Reform des Wahlrechts fuumlr die Saumlchsische Zweite Kammer (LeipzigBrockhaus 1906) 211ndash17

JAMES RETALLACK368


among urban electorates ldquoThat holds for the city as for the staterdquo No suffrage he declaredwas capable of classifying electors in such a way that only the best informed and least partisanvoters would have a voice and determine the outcome of elections Germanyrsquos future heimplied would be endangered if fear-mongering and the manipulation of municipal suffragelaws continued79

Georg JellinekrsquosGeneral Theory of the State (1900) had cemented the authorrsquos internationalreputation as a constitutional scholar80 On March 18 1905 Jellinek addressed DresdenrsquosGehe-Stiftung where public lectures often treated issues of municipal reform from aliberal perspective His topic was ldquoThe Plural Suffrage and its Effectsrdquo81 Jellinek secondedcomplaints from National Liberals that by preserving the distinction between electors incities and the countryside the ldquoplural suffrage system can be described as a rural suffragesystemrdquo Even more pointedly he asked his audience how the achievements of an electorshould be measured ldquoEven someone who is twenty times as clever as someone whosetalents extend to simple understanding can hardly elect a parliamentary deputy who istwenty times better hellip Just as no one can say that this girl is four times prettier than thatone so too it is impossible to convert the intellectual measure of one man into a multipleof mediocritiesrdquo For Jellinek an estate-bound suffrage a plural suffrage mandatoryvoting and proportional representation were all too undemocraticmdashnone of them shouldbe considered for Saxonyrsquos Landtag Jellinek urged his audience to reject all complicated suf-frages ldquoeither one is capable of exercising a public function or one is nothellipThere is no halfor one-third ability either the voter is completely able to carry out the function conceivedfor him or not at allrdquo82 Neither Weberrsquos argument nor Jellinekrsquos however resonatedamong antisocialists in Saxony

Gerrymandering Leipzig for Landtag Elections 1908ndash1909

Among many thick files in Saxonyrsquos interior ministry documenting the path to Landtag suf-frage reform in 1909 only two chronicled the redrawing of district boundaries as part of thisreform Conservatives successfully resisted National Liberal demands for roughly equalnumbers of enfranchised electors in each urban and rural district Only minor changeswere made Georg Heink added three new rural districts to the existing forty-five and heshifted a few other rural boundaries as a housekeeping measure The number of districts

79MaxWeber ldquoDiskussionsbeitraghellip 2 Oktober 1907rdquo inWirtschaft Staat und Sozialpolitik Schriften undReden 1900ndash1912 ed Wolfgang Schluchter et al Max Weber Gesamtausgabe Abt I Bd 8 (TuumlbingenMohr Siebeck 1998) 300ndash315 (emphasis added)

80Georg Jellinek Allgemeine Staatslehre 3rd ed (1900 Berlin Springer 1929)81At this time a plural suffragemdashrather than the governmentrsquos more complicated schememdashhad emerged

as the most likely common ground on which Conservatives and National Liberals could achieve a Landtagsuffrage reform compromise These parties and the government still disagreed about how many extra ballotswould be awarded to enfranchised electors It was only in the course of protracted political wrangling in1908 and early 1909 that the new Saxon Landtag suffrage came to be premised on the awarding of up tothree extra ballots to qualified electors But in 1905 it was already clear that the criteria for such prefermentwould include taxable income property ownership professional status and perhaps age The issue of redis-tricting was evenmore contentious TheNational Liberals wanted manymore seats allocated to Saxon citieswhereas the Conservatives knew that their electoral fortunes depended on the overrepresentation of ruralvoters

82For these and other points registered in his lecture see Georg Jellinek Das Pluralwahlrecht und seineWirkungen (Dresden v Zahn amp Jaensch 1905) 6 15 29 32 34 39 43ndash44 (emphasis added)



allocated to Dresden and Leipzig was increased from five to seven each Those allocated toChemnitz doubled from two to four and Plauen was awarded its own big-city district tomatch Zwickaursquos These changes did not come close to producing an equitable divisionof Landtag seats Voters living in the Saxon countryside still carried much more electoralweight than voters in the big cities as they hadmdashincreasinglymdashsince 186883

A more important aspect of Saxonyrsquos 1909 suffrage reform was the introduction of up tothree supplementary ballots for privileged electors84 This plural ballot system has to be con-sidered together with the redistricting of Saxonyrsquos big-city districts Even though few civilservants besides Georg Heink were involved in both processes these reforms were twosides of the same coinmdashcomplementary strategies to limit the number of SocialDemocrats in the Landtag The property income education and age thresholds that pro-vided extra ballots were calculated and recalculated in the hope that no more than fifteensocialists would enter the new Landtag which now comprised ninety-one seats This goalwas pursued by the National Liberal Progressive and Conservative parties as it was byHeink and the director of Saxonyrsquos Royal Statistical Office Eugen Wuumlrzburger It was onHeinkrsquos and Wuumlrzburgerrsquos statistical forecasts that Landtag parliamentarians relied Almostall individuals and parties privy to these negotiations knew that Social Democrats wouldwin the support of more than 50 percent of Saxon Landtag voters Their task thereforewas to define criteria for awarding extra ballots and to draw up district boundaries thatwould transform a majority of SPD voters into a minority of SPD ballots and an evensmaller minority of Landtag seats85

How did this process unfold in Leipzig It was possible there to create two new Landtagdistricts and to reshuffle the old ones in a way designed to limit Social Democratic gains Thiswas easier than predicting how plural voting would affect the outcome But neither under-taking was certain to succeed In September 1908 when suffrage reform entered its finalcritical stage City Counselor Leo Ludwig-Wolf wrote to Heink ldquoHere is the districtarrangement you requested Things can be changed and moved around of course but nomatter how one does it a positive favorable result cannot by any means be predictedbecause the whole plural suffrage system is a leap in the dark and one has no clue what itseffect will actually be I have noted my political weather forecast with red pencil on each dis-trict numeral but correctly or not Qui vivragrave verragrave [Time will tell]rdquo86 Ludwig-Wolfrsquos rednotations were on a tabular listing of his proposed electoral districts not on a map87

83In 1909 a total of 407525 enfranchised electors lived in Saxonyrsquos forty-three urban districts 365591electors lived in forty-eight rural districts The disparity was greatest between Saxonyrsquos twenty big-city dis-tricts which held on average 11749 electors and its forty-eight rural districts which held on average just7616 electors [Eugen Wuumlrzburger] ldquoDie Wahlen fuumlr die Zweite Kammer der Staumlndeversammlungvom Oktober und November 1909 Erster Teilrdquo Zeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 55(1909) 220ndash43 222ndash23

84On the Saxon suffrage reform of 1909 see James Retallack ldquolsquoWhat is to Be Donersquo The Red SpecterFranchise Questions and the Crisis of Conservative Hegemony in Saxony 1896ndash1909rdquo Central EuropeanHistory 23 (1990) 271ndash312 SLTW 64ndash66 Laumlssig Wahlrechtskampf

85See Retallack Red Saxony chap 1186SHStAD MdI Nr 5489 Leo Ludwig-Wolf to Georg Heink Sept 5 1908 Ludwig-Wolf sent two

schemes dividing Leipzig into six and seven Landtag districts I discuss only the second of these87The maps accompanying documents in SHStAD MdI Nr 5489 were likely removed when the files

were prepared for archival use I am grateful to Gisela Petrasch (SHStA Dresden) and Simone Laumlssig(Washington DC) for locating some for my use

JAMES RETALLACK370


Cartography was neither Ludwig-Wolfrsquos nor Heinkrsquos principal tool for drawing up the newLandtag districts Heink relied on his own travels around Saxony in 1908 as well as listeningto Conservative whispers in his ear88 For his part Ludwig-Wolf guessed correctly that hiscity might be allocated seven districts and on that basis drew up his redistricting proposal(see table 7)

Like Ernst Hasse before him Ludwig-Wolf tried to redraw Leipzigrsquos Landtag districts tominimize the number of seats Social Democrats would win He succeeded in part Three ofLeipzigrsquos seven districts went ldquoredrdquo in October 190989 Counting voters who supportedSocial Democratic candidates rather than the total number of ballots they cast the SPDrsquosmargin of victory was much higher in the districts they won than was their margin ofdefeat in the districts they lost This suggests that Ludwig-Wolf was able at least in ageneral way to pack Social Democratic votes into districts the ldquoparties of orderrdquo had nohope of winning

Otherwise Ludwig-Wolf was not concerned to smooth out differences in the number ofenfranchised electors in each district90 But one would like to understand why with his tin-kering he chose one neighborhood over the other91 Ludwig-Wolf had underlined Leipzig2 in red indicating to Georg Heink that it would probably be won by the SPD Did thissuggest that some rethinking was necessary Very possibly Ludwig-Wolf would also havestudied the effect that plural voting would have on the number of ballots cast in each district(the decisive factor in deciding winners and losers) and he likely rearranged his electoral dis-tricts accordingly

But redistricting did not affect the outcome of Landtag voting in October 1909 as muchas two other factors The first was Wuumlrzburgerrsquos and Heinkrsquos faulty estimates about howmany extra ballots workers would be entitled to When the voting was finished Saxons dis-covered that a much higher proportion of working-class electors had been entitled to casttwo or even three ballots than their suffrage experts had expected Workers were eligibleto cast multiple ballots principally because their income exceeded the first tax threshold orbecause they had reached the age of fifty Second between final passage of Saxonyrsquos suffragereform in January 1909 and the Landtag election that October the demise of the Buumllow Blocin the Reichstag drove a wedge between Conservatives and National Liberals92 NationalLiberals successfully painted Conservatives as self-interested agrarians out of touch withpublic opinion Because of new taxes and high prices many Mittelstand voters were in afoul mood and they were inclined to support a Social Democratic candidate in order to

88See eg SHStAD MdI Nr 5489 Georg Heink ldquoSkizze zu einer Wahlkreiseinteilung im KgrSachsen (bei 95 Wahlkreisen)rdquo nd [ca Sept 8 1908]

89These districts are identified in figure 13 discussed below90The sources I consulted for this article do not permit a more fine-grained analysis of Ludwig-Wolfrsquos

motivations When I worked in Leipzigrsquos and Dresdenrsquos city archives I was pursuing a different researchagenda

91In the course of 1908ndash9 Ludwig-Wolfrsquos proposed seven districts (Leipzig 1ndash7) changed fundamentallybefore Leipzigrsquos districts I-VII (now with Roman numerals) were finalized some months later Whereas theneighborhoods Ludwig-Wolf put into Leipzig 3 ended up by and large in the final district of Leipzig V thefour large neighborhoods he initially allocated to Leipzig 2 ended up in different districts At some pointPlagwitz and Schleuszligig were allocated to the new Leipzig VI while Lindenau and Kleinzschoscher wereallocated to Leipzig VII

92On the Buumllow Bloc see Katherine A Lerman The Chancellor as Courtier Bernhard von Buumllow and theGovernance of Germany 1900ndash1909 (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1990)



Table 7 Leo Ludwig-Wolf proposal for Leipzigrsquos seven Landtag districts September 5 1908

Proposed Neighborhood Population Final Within LeipzigDistrict Suburb Name District City Limits

1 2 3 4 5

Leipzig 1 Leutzsch 10000 Leipzig VIIlowast 1 Jan 1913Moumlckern 13000 Leipzig II 1 Jan 1910Eutritzsch 12500 Leipzig II yesGohlis 30115 Leipzig II yesAeuszlig Nordvorst[adt] 12000 Leipzig II yes

Total ca 75700

Leipzig 2 Lindenau 45000 Leipzig VII yes[underlined in red] Plagwitz 17000 Leipzig VI yes

Kl[ein-] Zschocher 16000 Leipzig VII yesSchleuszligig 10000 Leipzig VI yes

Total ca 88000

Leipzig 3 Suumldvorstadt 63000 Leipzig V yesConnewitz 15000 Leipzig V yesLoumlsnig 700 Leipzig V yesDoumllitz 2500 Leipzig V 1 Jan 1910Doumlsen 1600 Leipzig V 1 Jan 1910

Total ca 82800

Leipzig 4 Probstheida 2000 Leipzig V 1 Jan 1910[underlined in red] Stoumltteritz 13300 Leipzig IV 1 Jan 1910

A[nger]-Crottendorf 18300 Leipzig IV yesSellerhausen 13200 Leipzig IV yesStuumlntz 3600 Leipzig IVlowast 1 Jan 1910Paunsdorf 6000 Leipzig IVlowast noVolkmarsdorf (partial) 15000 Leipzig III yes

Total ca 71500

Also Neusellerhausen 2800 Leipzig IV yesTotal ca 74300

Leipzig 5 Reudnitz 47000 Leipzig III yes[ldquordquo in red] Neureudnitz 2300 Leipzig IV yes

Neustadt 13000 Leipzig III yes[struck through] Neusellerhausen 2500

Volkmarsdorf (partial) 8200 Leipzig III yesTotal ca 70500

Leipzig 6 Schoumlnefeld 12500 Leipzig IV 1 Jan 1913[ldquordquo in red] Neuschoumlnefeld 6500 Leipzig III yes

Nordostvorstadt 17500 Leipzig III IV yesSuumldostvorstadt 27000 Leipzig III IV yesThonberg 6500 Leipzig IV yes

Total ca 74000

Leipzig 7 Westvorstadt 44000 Leipzig VI yesInnere Stadt 17000 Leipzig I yesInn[ere] Nordvorstadt 10600 Leipzig I II yes

Total ca 71600

Notes Cols 1ndash3 from Leo Ludwig-Wolf to Georg Heink cols 4ndash5 added by the author lowastThese districts areincluded in Wolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur Karte D IV3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Akademie derWissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) 108 table 30 and in official lists butthey are (erroneously) not included among the districts found on the map (Schroumlder Landtagswahlen 23) fromwhich my figures 10ndash13 were derivedSource Saumlchsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden Saxon Ministerium des Innern Nr 5489 Leo Ludwig-WolfLeipzig to Georg Heink Dresden Sept 5 1908 appendix ldquoWahlkreisbildung II Bei Zuweisung von 7Wahlkreisenrdquo

JAMES RETALLACK372


register a protest vote Thus workers were not as disadvantaged as the architects of Saxonyrsquosplural suffrage had intended and the SPDrsquos fellow travelers were more numerous than theyhad foreseen

Landtag Voting in Leipzig under the Plural Suffrage 1909

Maps can convey statistical information about the Saxon electorate to which Ludwig-Wolf andother suffrage experts had access before the 1909 suffrage reform In conjunction with tabulatedelection returns maps can also illuminate howmdashandwheremdashSaxonyrsquos new plural voting systemdisadvantaged Leipzigrsquos working classes most egregiously It is not always possible to demonstratelinkages between the gerrymandering of electoral districts and the preferment of wealth prop-erty and status at the polls Nevertheless these factors tilted the playing field against SocialDemocrats in ways that do not align with the principles of democracy According to democraticcriteria the Saxon suffrage of 1909 still stood far behind theReichstag suffrageMoreover it wasa step backward not forward when compared to the relatively equitable system that had pre-vailed from 1868 to 189693 If ldquodemocracyrdquo could be found in Saxonyrsquos new election law assome scholars have argued it was written in disappearing ink

Table 8 demonstrates that in Leipzig Social Democratic candidates often reached a runoffballot in the Landtag elections of October 1909 because competing candidates mounted by

Table 8 Landtag voting in Leipzig I-VII voters and ballots cast October 1909

Candidate name (title occupation) (winner in italics)

Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()

Leipzig I (Innere Stadt)Main Election

Otto Enke (Baurat) MVgg 251 111 218 271 404 307Dr Arthur Loumlbner (Hofrat) NLP 287 108 231 244 488 363Schuchardt(Gewerkschaftsbeamte)

SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329

Runoff ElectionDr Arthur Loumlbner NLP 512 193 411 577 876 645Schuchardt SPD 489 807 589 423 124 355

Leipzig II (Nordvorstadt)Main Election

Dr med Adolph Bruumlckner(Sanitaumltsrat)

Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184

Georg Wappler (Kaufmann) NLP 230 81 191 296 422 304Engler (Lehrer) Freisinn 167 99 181 265 204 192

Continued

93Compare Ritter ldquoWahlen und Wahlpolitikrdquo 83 with whom I agree on this point and the followingSimone Laumlssig Wahlrechtskampf 232ndash47 Laumlssig ldquoWahlrechtsreformen in den deutschen EinzelstaatenIndikatoren fuumlr Modernisierungstendenzen und Reformfaumlhigkeit im Kaiserreichrdquo in Laumlssig Pohl andRetallack Modernisierung und Region 127ndash69 Karl Heinrich Pohl ldquoSachsen Stresemann und dieNationalliberale Partei Anmerkungen zur politischen Entwicklung zum Aufstieg des industriellenBuumlrgertums und zur fruumlhen Taumltigkeit Stresemanns im Koumlnigreich Sachsenrdquo Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus-Forschung 4 (1992) 197ndash216 207



Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()

Friedrich Seger (RedakteurLVZ)

SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321

Runoff ElectionGeorg Wappler NLP 479 175 397 635 865 630Friedrich Seger SPD 521 825 603 365 135 370

Leipzig III (OumlstlicheVorstadt)

Main ElectionFelix Houmlhne (Architekt) MVgg 182 73 146 241 377 243Otto Muumlller (Fabrikant) NLP 214 69 163 322 462 295Richard Illge (Redakteur) SPD 602 857 691 435 161 461

Runoff ElectionOtto Muumlller NLP 355 107 262 518 799 496Richard Illge SPD 645 893 738 482 201 504

Leipzig IV (Ost)Main ElectionDr Clemens Thieme(Architekt)

Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146

Dr Adolf von Brause(Professor)

NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234

Heinrich Lange (Lagerhalter) SPD 738 892 782 524 238 620

Leipzig V (AumluszligereSuumldvorstadt)

Main ElectionWolfgang Schnauszlig

(Rechtsanwalt)AS Reform 181 66 149 210 333 237

Dr Johannes Rudolph(Amtsrichter)

NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401

Adolf Bammes (Lagerhalter) SPD 515 831 614 376 109 361Runoff ElectionDr Johannes Rudolph NLP 458 137 346 594 876 615Adolf Bammes SPD 542 863 654 406 124 385

Leipzig VI (WestlicheVorstadt)

Main ElectionSeifert (Kaufmann) MVgg 180 87 136 189 278 219Dr Albert Steche(Fabrikbesitzer)

NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328

Dr Barge (Oberlehrer) Freisinn 146 79 151 208 174 164Lehmann (Buchdrucker) SPD 431 778 590 372 78 289

Runoff ElectionDr Albert Steche NLP 528 172 354 592 8941 674Lehmann SPD 472 828 646 408 106 326

Leipzig VII (Suumldwest)Main ElectionJaumlhne (Rechnungsrat) Cons 78 23 72 125 278 124Emil Nitzschke (Kaufmann) NLP 173 60 167 359 510 261

JAMES RETALLACK374


the ldquostate-supporting partiesrdquo split the nonsocialist vote94Runoffswere necessary in five of sevenLeipzig districts invariably pitting a National Liberal against a Social Democrat95 The NationalLiberal candidatewon in fourof those five runoffs Ludwig-Wolf left toomanySPDsupporters intheOumlstliche Vorstadt (Leipzig III) including somewho might have been packed further east intoLeipzig IV The SPD editor Richard Illge won the close runoff contest with 504 percent of allballots cast (though he won 645 percent of all voters) For all seven districts highlighted cellsin table 8 will help readers see how plural balloting transformed SPD majorities among votersinto SPD minorities (losses) when total ballots were counted

Figure 10 shows information that Leo Ludwig-Wolf would have had access to the pro-portion of workers among electors in each of Leipzigrsquos Landtag districts Statistical studies ofSaxonyrsquos electorate under the three-class suffrage had been published before Ludwig-Wolfbegan the work of redistricting in 1908 Both Ernst Hasse in 1889 and Ludwig-Wolf in1908 ruminated on the best possible allocation of working-class neighborhoods amongnew electoral districts especially but not exclusively on Leipzigrsquos eastern side Yet thesemaps prompt conjecture that may or may not be answered by future researchers Why forexample were the working-class neighborhoods of Plagwitz and Schleuszligig included inLeipzig VI when they might have been packed into the unwinnable Leipzig VII Is theanswer that the proportion of workers in Leipzig VI overall at 35 percent was lowenough to augur future victories for the ldquoparties of orderrdquo

Figures 11 and 12 should be considered in conjunction with table 8 Ignoring the per-centage of ballots cast for Social Democratic candidates figure 11 shows the percentage ofvoters who supported the SPD in each of Leipzigrsquos districts in the Landtag elections ofOctober 1909 (Recall that a single voter might cast one two three or four ballots) Theproportion of voters who supported the SPD was under 50 percent in Leipzig I II andVI It lay in the midndash70 percent range in the east and west in Leipzig IV and VII InLeipzig III the SPDrsquos 60 percent share of voters translated to only 46 percent of ballots onthe main ballot and a runoff was required Most supporters of the Mittelstand candidate

Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()

Alfred Keimling (Redakteur) SPD 748 917 760 516 208 614

Note Percentages do not add up to 100 because of rounding and omission of splintered (zersplittert) votesMVgg Saxon Mittelstand Union The antisemite in Leipzig V represented the German Reform PartyTitles and occupations were left in the original German to avoid ambiguitySources [Eugen Wuumlrzburger] ldquoDie Wahlen fuumlr die Zweite Kammer der Staumlndeversammlung vomOktober und November 1909 Erster Teilrdquo Zeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 55(1909) 220ndash43 230ndash31 Saumlchsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden Kreishauptmannschaft Leipzig Nr 250Kriminal-Kommissar Foumlrstenberg ldquoUebersicht uumlber die politische und gewerkschaftliche Bewegung im12 und 13 Reichstagswahlkreise im Jahre 1909rdquo [1910] some biographical details from Elvira Doumlscherand Wolfgang Schroumlder eds Saumlchsische Parlamentarier 1869ndash1918 (Duumlsseldorf Droste 2001) passim

94As in Reichstag elections a runoff election was held when no candidate won an absolute majority ofballots in the main election

95District boundaries for Leipzig I to VII are shown in figure 13 discussed below



Felix Houmlhne on the main ballot switched their support to the NLP candidate OttoMuumlller inthe runoff The SPDrsquos Richard Illgewon anyway The opposite situation prevailed in LeipzigV On the main ballot the SPD candidate won the support of 52 percent of voters an anti-semitic and a National Liberal candidate split the remaining 48 percent of voters But thebalance tipped to the National Liberal Johannes Rudolph in the runoff election He wonthe support of only 46 percent of voters in that runoff but they were more privilegedvoters and had more ballots to cast This left him with almost 62 percent of total ballots inthe runoff and an impressive victory in what might have been a toss-up district

Figure 12 provides information that Ludwig-Wolf could not have known in 1908 Tojudge by othersrsquo reactions to unexpected Social Democratic strength among Mittelstand

Fig 10 Percentages of workers among enfranchised electors in Saxon Landtag elections in Leipzig 1909Adapted fromWolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur KarteD IV 3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Adademie derWissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) 23 Used by permissionPercentages from [Eugen Wuumlrzburger] ldquoDie Wahlen fuumlr die Zweite Kammer der Staumlndeversammlungvom Oktober und November 1909 Zweiter Teilrdquo Zeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes58 no 2 (1912) 263ndash64

JAMES RETALLACK376


voters in October 1909 such a map would have upset him It is possible to determine theproportion of SPD votes that were cast by non-working-class ldquofellow travelersrdquo becauseSaxon statisticians tracked (a) the number of enfranchised workers in each district (b) thenumber of actual voters who were workers and (c) the number of actual voters who sup-ported the SPD Socialist victories in Leipzigrsquos two eastern districts were facilitated by thesupport of significant proportions of voters who were not working class96 The SPDrsquosability to recruit fellow travelers did not ensure a victory under Saxonyrsquos plural suffrage

Fig 11 Percentages of Social Democratic voters in Saxon Landtag elections in Leipzig 1909 Adaptedfrom Wolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur Karte D IV3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Adademie derWissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) 23 Used by permissionPercentages from [Eugen Wuumlrzburger] ldquoDie Wahlen fuumlr die Zweite Kammer der Staumlndeversammlungvom Oktober und November 1909 Erster Teilrdquo Zeitschrift des K Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 55(1909) 230-31

96Eighteen percent of SPD voters in Leipzig III did not belong to the working classes and the same wastrue of 14 percent of SPD voters in Leipzig IV



however97 At best the SPDrsquos ability to draw the support of non-working-class votersmdashwho in general had more ballots to cast than workers didmdashonly mitigated the exclusionaryeffect of the plural suffrage it could not overcome it

Fig 12 Percentages of non-working-class Social Democrat voters in Saxon Landtag elections in Leipzig1909 Adapted fromWolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlen im Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zurKarte D IV 3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Adademie derWissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) 23 Used by permission Percentagesof voters (not ballots) calculated by the author from [Eugen Wuumlrzburger] ldquoDie Wahlen fuumlr die ZweiteKammer der Staumlndeversammlung vom Oktober und November 1909 Erster Teilrdquo Zeitschrift desK Saumlchsischen Statistischen Landesamtes (ZSSL) 55 (1909) 230ndash31 and [Eugen Wuumlrzburger] ldquoDieWahlen fuumlr die Zweite Kammer der Staumlndeversammlung vom Oktober und November 1909 ZweiterTeilrdquo ZSSL 58 no 2 (1912) 263ndash64

97Significant non-working-class support for SPD candidates was also found in districts the socialists didnot win namely Leipzig I (20 percent) Leipzig V (18 percent) and Leipzig VI (14 percent) Along withLeipzig II (10 percent) these districts provided National Liberal candidates with their four 1909 victoriesin Leipzig (see fig 13)

JAMES RETALLACK378


As figure 13 shows the Landtagrsquos plural suffrage in 1909 combined with artfully drawnelectoral districts provided National Liberals with four victories (shown in yellow) and onlythree defeats in what had been the cradle of German Social Democracy and remained one ofits heartlands Separating areas of overwhelming socialist strength (shown in red) in Leipzigrsquoseastern and western neighborhoods National Liberals could plausibly claim to representLeipzigrsquos political backbone Whether they had won those four districts through a fairvotemdashthat is another matter

Conclusion

It was not easy for German burghers to forge mental maps of how different suffrage regimesoverlapped the simultaneity of electoral cultures at the local regional and national levels was

Fig 13 Saxon Landtag elections in Leipzig 1909 Adapted from Wolfgang Schroumlder Landtagswahlenim Koumlnigreich Sachsen 1869ndash18951896 Beiheft zur Karte D IV 3 Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde vonSachsen (Leipzig Verlag der Saumlchsischen Adademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig undLandesvermessungsamt Sachsen 2004) 23 Used by permission



not evident in the quotidian routines of politics But the redistricting exercises and copycatsuffrage reforms examined in this article suggest that some burghers learned after 1890 how tomake their influence feltmdashsimultaneously or notmdashin interconnected political spheres Ifstatesmen and Reichstag deputies in Berlin appeared unable as in the mid-1890s toprotect law-abiding burghers from ldquomurderous ruffiansrdquo and other subversivesmdashas munic-ipal petitioners and Landtag deputies demandedmdashlegislation to address these dangers couldbe enacted at lower tiers of governanceWhatever the level of politics at which such strategieswere deployed election battles over suffrage reform unfolded in German cities states and theReich with ripple effects A common denominator was the struggle to retain politicallegitimacy It was waged by the authoritarian state and by social elites Each sought toavoid drowning under the numerical weight of those who wanted a say in the exercise ofpower

Local regional and national bastions of existing authority had to be defended with acoordinated responsemdashor so it appeared to many German burghers before 1914 ANational Liberal candidate of the ldquoparties of orderrdquo who hoped to win election in thecenter of Leipzig could not rely exclusively on his local reputation he had to seek thesupport of all voters ldquoloyal to the Reichrdquo If there were not presently enough of them tocarry the day or secure the future then he had to strike an alliance with local antisemitesMittelstaumlndler and members of Leipzigrsquos Homeownersrsquo Association Such alliances basedon complex political relationships and allegiances usually rested on shifting sand SocialDemocrats could not be dislodged from Leipzigrsquos eastern and western neighborhoods redis-tricting and the introduction of a plural suffrage could only put off the day of reckoning Butthe suddenness with which Saxonyrsquos overlapping electoral cultures lurched forward (or back-ward)mdashwhen bourgeois civil servants redrew electoral districts or when bourgeois parlia-mentarians legislated unfair suffragesmdashultimately had a destabilizing effect Saxonyrsquosldquostate-supporting partiesrdquo successfully wrenched Reichstag districts back from the ldquoredsrdquoin 1907 whereupon Kaiser Wilhelm II singled them out for praise But Wilhelmrsquos chancel-lor Bernhard von Buumllow wondered how much longer these parties could afford to bickeramong themselves and risk competing antisocialist candidacies98 The unexpected dismaloutcome of plural Landtag voting in October 1909 and the ldquoredrdquo Reichstag elections ofJanuary 1912 provided an answer99

Maps can reflect the dynamic aspects of political territoriality only approximatelyThey inevitably depict a moment in time The maps included in this article show thatthe urban-rural divide in Imperial Germany was ldquoconstructedrdquo it was permeable influx negotiated The Saxon state and the parties that supported it wanted to deny that per-meability when they repeatedly endorsed the black-and-white distinction between urbanand rural electoral districts By doing so they left a rich statistical artifact allowing histo-rians to study the social profile of electorates and the distribution of votes they cast in stat-istically distinct categories In Leipzig the lines that divided and defined the city inopposition to its environs were under duress from the 1880s onward The daily movementof peoples between Leipzig and its outlying districts and the need for a modern urban

98For citations and other details see Retallack Red Saxony chap 1099After the 1909 elections the SPD delegation in Saxonyrsquos Landtag with 25 mandates was only slightly

smaller than those of the Conservative and National Liberal parties (28 each) After 1912 110 of 397 man-dates in the Reichstag were held by Social Democrats

JAMES RETALLACK380


infrastructure to address their needs forced administrators to coordinate their policies By1900 at the latest the myth that German cities were merely ldquoadministeredrdquo in a nonpar-tisan way had been exploded Yet suffrage experts and other urban reformers continued topretend that they were not in effect excluding certain categories of people from realinfluence in municipal and state-level politics

The years 1890ndash1896 were transformative in this process In Leipzig each suffrage reformfollowed hard upon the last Redistricting was necessary in 1892 to add two Landtag seats toLeipzigrsquos previous complement Prompt action was again needed allegedly to avert the pos-sibility of socialists ldquoconqueringrdquo Leipzigrsquos municipal assembly in 1894 And two years laterthe crisis unleashed by a wave of anarchist murders outside Germany did not go to waste itwas used to rush through a new suffrage law to prevent Social Democrats winning ldquotoomanyrdquo Landtag seats100 Then in 1903 the disparity between SPD fortunes in nationaland regional electoral cultures became clear for all to see SPD candidates triumphed intwenty-two of Saxonyrsquos twenty-three Reichstag districts This bursting of the dam wasdescribed in territorial termsmdashas covering the land ( flaumlchendeckend) Such terminologyunderscored the fact that not a single socialist sat in the Saxon Landtag at that time101

The ldquofrog pondrdquo that had become the ldquopioneer land of reactionrdquo in 1896 underwent meta-morphosis again and emerged in 1903 as ldquoRed Saxonyrdquo

Yet as we have seen antidemocrats did not abandon the struggle to contain the ldquoredthreatrdquo at the polls Instead they tried harder to find ldquoremediesrdquo for universal manhood suf-frage At the national level the Reichstag suffrage was never revised but it was denouncedoften by right-wing politicians and its fairness looked different depending on where youstood in the Kaiserreich At the subnational level gerrymandered districts and class-basedvoting were the norm though they too were contested throughout the Kaiserreich BymappingGerman electorates with careful attention to place and time we can see that democ-racy was practiced and deferred at the same time102

This article has suggested lastly that the bourgeois architects of Leipzigrsquos and Saxonyrsquossuffrage reforms mapped a way forward in ways that deserve further attention Key sourcesare now more accessible than they were before the fall of the Berlin Wall They will yieldtheir secrets reluctantly for the internal workings of Saxonyrsquos statistical offices and its ministryof the interior are not easy to penetrate Privy counselors and professional statisticians such asLeo Ludwig-Wolf Georg Heink Ernst Hasse and Eugen Wuumlrzburger rarely mused on thepolitical objectives they sought On the fairness of new suffrage regimes they wasted not onewordmdashat least not in print Wewould like to knowmore about these individualsmdashnot onlyas statisticians and city planners but also as members of associations with distinctively liberalreform agendas103 It is worth more than a passing note that these experts did not propose to

100For one study of the mood of crisis in 1894ndash95 see Eleanor L Turk ldquoThe Political Press and thePeoplersquos Rights The Role of the Political Press in the Debates over the Association Right in Germany1894ndash1899rdquo (PhD diss University of WisconsinmdashMadison 1975)

101Under the three-class suffrage instituted in 1896 Social Democrats exited the Landtag with each partialelection until none were left in 1901

102The allusion here is to differences and similarities between Anderson Practicing Democracy andRetallack Red Saxony For two recent transnational perspectives see Paul Nolte ed TransatlanticDemocracy in the Twentieth Century Transfer and Transformation (Berlin De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2016)Richter and Buchstein eds Kultur und Praxis der Wahlen

103Eg the Gehe-Stiftung in which Leo Ludwig-Wolf Theodor Petermann Victor Boumlhmert and otherSaxon statisticians were active or the Deutscher Verein fuumlr Armenpflege und Wohltaumltigkeit See Danny



reduce the overall size of the electorate The principle of universal suffrage and the habit ofcasting a ballot in free elections had become deeply ingrained in Germanyrsquos electoralculturemdashso deeply that reformers did not dare disenfranchise voters outright But theyshaped electorates and counted ballots in particular ways and when one means failed toachieve the desired outcome they came up with another104 We still know too littleabout how these individuals and the political masters they served conceived the bundleof rights and exclusions that shaped democratic practices and undemocratic outcomes Buttheir determination to defeat the ldquored threatrdquomdashto limit Social Democrats to a ldquotolerablerdquoshare of parliamentary seats because their voters were disloyal to the Reichmdashwasunshakeable

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Weber Die saumlchsische Landesstatistik im 19 Jahrhundert Institutionalisierung und Professionalisierung (StuttgartFranz Steiner 2003) esp 69ndash134 See also ldquo175 Jahre amtliche Statistik in Sachsen Festschriftrdquo Statistikin Sachsen 12 no 1 (2006) httpswwwstatistiksachsendedownload300_Voe-Zeitschriftzeits-chrift_2006_1pdf

104See eg SHStADMdI Nr 5491 EugenWuumlrzburger to MdI Jan 8 1909 appendix table B (hand-written) showing the expected support for Social Democracy according to the number of ballots awarded todifferent groups of electors See also SHStAD MdI Nr 5455 Georg Heinkrsquos memorandum [forHohenthal] Nov 1 1906 which is also discussed in Retallack Red Saxony chap 11 There Heinkwrote ldquo[The] disloyal population wants the general equal secret and direct suffrage for male and femalepersons and if it had this it would want to reduce the voting age and would not rest until it had imple-mented its demands not only for elections to the Landtag but also for municipal rural district and allother elections hellip Demands for the implementation of socialist principles naturally cannot be fulfilledrdquo

JAMES RETALLACK382


Mapping the Red Threat The Politics of Exclusion in Leipzig Before 1914

Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections


The ldquoRed Threatrdquo and Leipzigs Municipal Assembly

Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform

Germanys Suffrage Reform Discourse



Conclusion

ldquoTHE Ministry of the Interior has no use for the map you are offeringrdquo1 This wasthe dismissive reply that Saxonyrsquos suffrage expert Georg Heink sent to RichardLiesche owner of the Graser Verlag inMarch 1909On a base map showing the

smallest towns and villages in the Kingdom of SaxonymdashImperial Germanyrsquos third-largestfederal state after Prussia and BavariamdashLieschersquos publishing house had superimposed twosets of colored lines (fig 1) The first set was in blue depicting the borders of Saxonyrsquostwenty-three Reichstag districts2 Each district was marked with a Roman numeral alsoin blue including XII for Leipzig-City and XIII for Leipzig-County3 The second set oflines was in red depicting the ninety-one Landtag districts that Heink had just drawn orredrawn as part of Saxonyrsquos suffrage reform passed earlier in 1909 Each of Saxonyrsquosforty-eight rural Landtag districts was designated by a large Arabic numeral in red includingthe twenty-second and twenty-third rural districts outside Leipzig Each of the kingdomrsquosurban Landtag districts was underlined in red and had a smaller Arabic numeral4 Becausethe use of colored ink added significantly to the cost of producing this map Lieschehoped the Saxon government would agree to buy three hundred copies No deal repliedHeink But in the margin of Lieschersquos begging letter Heink wondered what Graserrsquosprint run would be5

Heink had reason to worry about a popular outcry should Graserrsquos map reach working-class voters or be used in socialist efforts to enlighten them about their voting rights Thosevoters had just been subjected to an audacious gerrymander of Saxonyrsquos Landtag districts6

The architect and draftsman of that gerrymander was Georg Heink himself But Leipzigvoters had been subject to gerrymanders before As readers will learn below suffrage reform-ers had sought to minimize Social Democratic gains in Leipzigrsquos municipal assembly in 1894and in the Saxon Landtag in 1896 Such antisocialists pursued a strategy similar to the oneRepublicans deployed against their Democratic Party rivals in the United States starting in2010 identify local legislatures where a majority can be obtained or safeguarded use thatmajority to redraw the geographical boundaries of electoral districts in a partisan way

1Saumlchsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden (hereafter SHStAD) Saxon Ministerium des Innern (hereafterMdI) Nr 5489 Georg Heink draft reply to Richard Liesche March 27 1909

2There were 397 districts in the Reich as a whole3Leipzig-City geographically compact included Leipzigrsquos urban core and some of its inner suburbs

Graserrsquos map did not attempt to show its jagged outline (which may be seen in figure 3 discussed later)opting for a circle instead Leipzig-County a much larger area surrounding the city included most of theLeipzig administrative district (Amtshauptmannschaft)

4As will be explained below between two and fifteen towns might be stitched together into a single urban(staumldtisch) district of which there were twenty-four in Saxony (1868ndash1909) On figure 1 which showsredrawn Landtag districts after 1909 the towns of Markranstaumldt Taucha and Brandis (near Leipzig) andBorna (further south) were just some of the towns that constituted the 12th urban district of BornaGraserrsquos map left unlabeled the 20 big-city ( groszligstaumldtisch) districts after 1909 these were allotted toDresden (7) Leipzig (7) Chemnitz (4) Plauen (1) and Zwickau (1)

5SHStAD MdI Nr 5489 Georg Heink marginalia on Richard Liesche to MdI March 25 19096For a very brief visual explanation of gerrymandering see Christopher Ingraham ldquoThis Is the Best

Explanation of Gerrymandering You Will Ever See How to Steal an Election A Visual GuiderdquoWonkblog Washington Post March 1 2015 httpswwwwashingtonpostcomnewswonkwp20150301this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see See also Mark MonmonierBushmanders and Bullwinkles How Politicians Manipulate Electronic Maps and Census Data to Win Elections(Chicago University of Chicago Press 2000) and more generally Jeremy Black Maps and Politics(Chicago University of Chicago Press 1997)

JAMES RETALLACK342















JAMES RETALLACK344























JAMES RETALLACK346





National Elections













Votes Won Seats Won


(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()

1871lowast 42000 176 124000 32 2 87 2 051874 92000 358 352000 68 6 261 9 231877 124000 380 493000 91 7 304 12 301878 128000 376 437000 76 6 261 9 231881 88000 282 312000 61 4 174 12 301884 128000 353 550000 97 5 217 24 601887 149000 287 763000 101 0 00 11 281890 241000 421 1427000 197 6 261 35 88


JAMES RETALLACK348













EligibleElectors


EligibleElectors




(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()



JAMESRETALLA

CK

350

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww



State Elections












JAMES RETALLACK352




















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion














JAMES RETALLACK344























JAMES RETALLACK346





National Elections













Votes Won Seats Won


(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()

1871lowast 42000 176 124000 32 2 87 2 051874 92000 358 352000 68 6 261 9 231877 124000 380 493000 91 7 304 12 301878 128000 376 437000 76 6 261 9 231881 88000 282 312000 61 4 174 12 301884 128000 353 550000 97 5 217 24 601887 149000 287 763000 101 0 00 11 281890 241000 421 1427000 197 6 261 35 88


JAMES RETALLACK348













EligibleElectors


EligibleElectors




(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()



JAMESRETALLA

CK

350

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww



State Elections












JAMES RETALLACK352




















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion






















JAMES RETALLACK346





National Elections













Votes Won Seats Won


(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()

1871lowast 42000 176 124000 32 2 87 2 051874 92000 358 352000 68 6 261 9 231877 124000 380 493000 91 7 304 12 301878 128000 376 437000 76 6 261 9 231881 88000 282 312000 61 4 174 12 301884 128000 353 550000 97 5 217 24 601887 149000 287 763000 101 0 00 11 281890 241000 421 1427000 197 6 261 35 88


JAMES RETALLACK348













EligibleElectors


EligibleElectors




(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()



JAMESRETALLA

CK

350

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww



State Elections












JAMES RETALLACK352




















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion




National Elections













Votes Won Seats Won


(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()

1871lowast 42000 176 124000 32 2 87 2 051874 92000 358 352000 68 6 261 9 231877 124000 380 493000 91 7 304 12 301878 128000 376 437000 76 6 261 9 231881 88000 282 312000 61 4 174 12 301884 128000 353 550000 97 5 217 24 601887 149000 287 763000 101 0 00 11 281890 241000 421 1427000 197 6 261 35 88


JAMES RETALLACK348













EligibleElectors


EligibleElectors




(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()



JAMESRETALLA

CK

350

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww



State Elections












JAMES RETALLACK352




















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion




Votes Won Seats Won


(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()

1871lowast 42000 176 124000 32 2 87 2 051874 92000 358 352000 68 6 261 9 231877 124000 380 493000 91 7 304 12 301878 128000 376 437000 76 6 261 9 231881 88000 282 312000 61 4 174 12 301884 128000 353 550000 97 5 217 24 601887 149000 287 763000 101 0 00 11 281890 241000 421 1427000 197 6 261 35 88


JAMES RETALLACK348













EligibleElectors


EligibleElectors




(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()



JAMESRETALLA

CK

350

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww



State Elections












JAMES RETALLACK352




















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion












EligibleElectors


EligibleElectors




(no) () (no) () (no) () (no) ()



JAMESRETALLA

CK

350

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww



State Elections












JAMES RETALLACK352




















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion

State Elections












JAMES RETALLACK352




















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion






JAMES RETALLACK352




















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion



















JAMESRETALLA

CK

354

httpsww

wcam


Dow

nloaded from httpsw

ww




Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion


Local Elections















JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion









JAMES RETALLACK356

















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion
















JAMES RETALLACK358














1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion













1 2 3 4 5















JAMES RETALLACK360




















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion



















JAMES RETALLACK362






Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion





Total votescast



1889 13061 6809 6795 ndash1890 17697 11520 9191 23291891 21706 14674 10361 43131892 22245 15245 10341 49041893 24308 15770 9835 5935















JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion








JAMES RETALLACK364



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion


Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs


















JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion












JAMES RETALLACK366



Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion


Landtag Reform



















JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion









JAMES RETALLACK368




















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion



















JAMES RETALLACK370















1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion














1 2 3 4 5


Total ca 75700



Total ca 88000


Total ca 82800



Total ca 71500







Total ca 74000


Total ca 71600


JAMES RETALLACK372








Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion







Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()



SPD 459 780 551 384 107 329




Cons 136 45 106 141 272 184


Continued




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion

Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()


SPD 467 774 522 298 103 321






Cons 103 50 85 151 303 146


NLP 158 58 133 325 459 234






NLP 304 103 237 412 557 401




NLP 243 57 124 230 469 328




JAMES RETALLACK374





Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion




Table 8 Continued


Party VotersTotal

Voterswith 1ballot

Voterswith 2ballots

Voterswith 3ballots

Voterswith 4ballots

BallotsTotal

() () () () () ()










JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion




JAMES RETALLACK376










JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion









JAMES RETALLACK378



Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion


Conclusion










JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion






JAMES RETALLACK380

















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion
















JAMES RETALLACK382



Abstract


National Elections

State Elections

Local Elections



Where to Turn

Municipal Affairs

Landtag Reform




Conclusion