Democracy and its Enemies

Under the constitution passed on January 7, 1921, Hamburg became a democratic city state in the German Reich. The City Council elected by universal, direct, equal and secret ballot was now the city’s highest authority. The senate was elected by and answerable to the City Council. And above all, women now had the vote.

Economic and social hardship was harsh in the postwar years, and enemies of the republic from both the right (the Kapp Putsch of 1920) and the left (the Communist uprising of 1923) repeatedly attempted to overthrow the republic. But the democratic state proved resilient. This was due in part to the support it received from some Hanseatic conservatives and Wilhelminian institutions. In many areas of life, continuity was therefore greater than the revolutionary events of 1918 would suggest. Continuity also prevailed in the senate, where the SPD and the German Democratic Party (from 1924 together with the German People's Party) held power until 1933.

Under its chairman Ernst Thälmann, the German Communist Party (KPD) gained support among those who wanted more radical change, but the party wrongly saw the ruling SPD as its political opponent, rather than the extreme-right enemies of the republic. From 1925 onwards, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) began to attract those disappointed with the republic or robbed of a future by unemployment, especially in the middle classes.

From 1930, violent conflict weakened the state, although democratic organizations like the conservative-led Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, the SPD, the free trade unions and workers' sports associations joined forces in 1931 to form an "Iron Front" against the enemies of the republic. In the City Council elections of 1931, however, the KPD received 16 percent of the vote, while the National Socialist received 31.2 percent with their radical and anti-Semitic slogans, making them the strongest party in the council.


Hamburg in the 20th.century (1)
-    Imperial Germany and the Struggle for Voting Rights
-    Life in Wilhelmine Germany
-    The Mobile City
-    International Port and Economic Center
-    Revolution in Hamburg
-    Democracy and its Enemies
-    A Decade of Economic Crisis
-    Greater Hamburg
-    Life Under the Swastika
-    The Abolition of Democracy
-    Towards a War Economy
-    Persecution and resistance in the National Socialist state
-    Hamburg at war
-    Destruction by Fire Storm

Hamburg in the 20th.century (2)