Monday, Mar. 21, 1932
"Vive Hindenburg!"
Germans, shouting "Hoch Hindenburg!" as der Feldmarschall's armies battled and blasted toward Paris, never dreamed that their beloved Hindenburg would be cheered in Paris by Frenchmen in 1932. Yet this astounding thing came to pass last week.
Paris had been extremely nervous lest Adolf Hitler win the German election and repudiate the Treaty of Versailles. Massed in the Place de l'Opera, a tense French throng awaited bulletins. Suddenly, when the flash came that Herr Hitler had definitely not been elected, a joyous French cheer went up "Vive Hindenburg! Vive la France!"
Nobody won the German election. Nobody has ever been elected President of Germany by popular vote on the first ballot. To be so elected a candidate must win 50% of all votes cast plus one vote more. In 1925 Paul von Hindenburg was not even a candidate on the first ballot; on the second (when the candidate who has a plurality wins), Old Paul was elected by 14,648,877 votes.
The returns last week:
Candidate Ballots
Von Hindenburg (Coalitionist) . 18,661,736
Hitler (Fascist) 11,328,571
Thaelmann (Communist) 4,971,079
Dusterberg (Monarchist) 2,517,876
Winter (Revolutionist) 181,114
Total 37,660,377
Candidate Gustave Winter, darkest of dark horses, could fairly be said to have prevented President von Hindenburg's reelection. His platform was that some payment or restitution should be made to holders of "worthless" German paper mark banknotes of 1,000-mark denominations or larger.
The people who still have such banknotes, the 181,115 disgruntled Germans who voted for Candidate Winter (even though he was in jail on a minor sentence last week), would almost certainly have voted for Old Paul if they had not voted for Prisoner Winter. Their votes, a mere handful in so large an election, would nevertheless have sufficed to re-elect the President. Since nobody was elected, Germans will vote again Sunday, April 10.
Significance-- Day before the election Adolf Hitler said, "I will get more than 12,000,000 votes," thus tacitly admitting that he did not expect to be elected President on the first ballot.*
The record of Fascist progress in Germany is that Herr Hitler's party polled 6,500,000 votes in the Reichstag election of 1930 and last week polled over eleven million votes.
The Communist Party, which won 4,590,000 votes in 1930 and was expected to make large gains last week, fooled everyone, made virtually no gain. Only 4,900,000 Germans voted for Comrade Ernst Thaelmann, "The Red Napoleon." In Hamburg, his native city, Comrade Thaelmann trailed both Hitler and Hindenburg; but in Berlin the big, blond, leather-lunged Red ran ahead of Hitler though behind Hindenburg.
Day after the No. 1 election, Adolf Hitler announced himself a candidate in the No. 2 election and so did President von Hindenburg. Most observers assumed that the President will of course be re-elected on April 10--by a huge plurality. But granting this, there remains the question whether Paul von Hindenburg can possibly live out a second term, at the end of which he would be 91. Well might Frenchmen cry last week "Vive Hindenburg!" for the President's life is precious to order and peace.
* Everyone knew that to win the winner would have to win nearly 19,000,000 votes.
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