The Last Election Under the Kaiser (1912)

This is a historical essay to lay out the German voting pattern of 1912....the last election that you'd see with the Kaiser in charge of Germany.

The previous election had been in 1907, and this had run five years before this election occurred.

There would be around a dozen-plus parties in the mix, but to be honest....only five of them would get one-million votes or more....the rest were more or less non-players in the landscape.

Number of votes cast?  Roughly 12.2-million votes out of a population of around 63-million.  This would be the last election in Germany where only men would vote....to explain why it was only 12.2-million out of 63-million.

Chief winner?  With around 38-percent, the SPD Party (left-of-center) would win.  In second place was the Centre Party with 16.4-percent of the vote.  For reference, the Centre Party was right-of-center, and mostly regarded as the Catholic agenda group.  After WW II, they would rebound and eventually become the CDU/CSU Party.

In third place was the National Liberal Party with around 13-percent of the vote. Their agenda was mostly leaning toward a business agenda and they'd be regarded as right-of-center.

Then at fourth place was the Progressive People's Party, with around 12-percent of the vote.  This was a highly fragmented groups (a minimum of three different parties tied into this one national group, and leaned mostly left-of-center.  This was also the party which pressed hard for women's voting rights.

One key thing that you can take out of this election....it was the last time in German history that the Bundestag functioned with less than 400 members (397 members).