1920 German federal election
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All 459 seats in the Reichstag 230 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Registered | 35,949,774 ( 2.3%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 79.2% ( 3.8pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Politics of Germany |
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Federal elections were held in Germany on 6 June 1920 to elect the first Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. It succeeded the Weimar National Assembly elected in January 1919, which had drafted and ratified the Weimar Constitution. The election took place during a period of political violence and widespread anger over the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The voting resulted in substantial losses for the three moderate parties of the Weimar Coalition that had dominated the National Assembly. There were corresponding gains for the parties on the left and right which had not supported the Assembly's aims.
The new Reichstag was unable to form a majority ruling coalition and settled for a centre-right minority government. The Weimar Republic's first election revealed an early loss of faith in democracy among German voters which foreshadowed the parliamentary difficulties that troubled the Republic throughout its short life. Of the 17 additional governments before Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933, only two (Stresemann I and Müller II) had majority coalitions in the Reichstag during their full term of office.