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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2017

James Retallack
James Retallack*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

Long before Adolf Hitler’s appearance clouded democracy’s prospects in Germany, election battles had provided a means to disadvantage “enemies of the Reich” in the polling booth. Such battles were waged not only during election campaigns but also when new voting laws were legislated and district boundaries were redrawn. Maps produced during the Imperial era informed voters, statesmen, and social scientists how the principle of the fair and equal vote was compromised at the subnational level, and new maps offer historians an opportunity to consider struggles for influence and power in visual terms. This article argues that local, regional, and national suffrages need to be considered together and in terms of their reciprocal effects. On the one hand, focusing on overlaps and spillovers between electoral politics at different tiers of governance can illuminate the perceptions and attitudes that are constitutive of electoral culture. On the other hand, using cartography to supplement statistical analysis can make election battles more accessible to nonspecialist audiences. Combining these approaches allows us to rethink strategies of political exclusion in Imperial Germany’s coexisting suffrage regimes. Focusing on Leipzig and its powerful Social Democratic organization opens a window on larger issues about how Germans conceived questions of political fairness in a democratizing age.

Schon lange Zeit bevor Hitler auftauchte und die Zukunftsaussichten der Demokratie in Deutschland verdüsterte, hatten heftige Auseinandersetzungen über den Ablauf der Wahlen es ermöglicht, die sogenannten „Reichsfeinde“ bei den Wahlen zu benachteiligen. Solche Auseinandersetzungen wurden nicht nur während der eigentlichen Wahlkämpfe geführt, sondern auch wenn neue Wahlgesetze beschlossen und Wahlbezirke neu festgelegt wurden. Während des Kaiserreichs erstellte Karten informierten Wähler, Staatsmänner und Sozialwissenschaftler darüber, wie das Prinzip der fairen und gleichberechtigten Wahl auf der subnationalen Ebene kompromittiert wurde, und neue Karten bieten Historikern nun die Möglichkeit diese Machtkämpfe visuell zu betrachten. Dieser Artikel argumentiert, dass das lokale, regionale und nationale Wahlrecht zusammen und hinsichtlich seiner Wechselwirkung aufeinander betrachtet werden muss. Indem der Fokus auf Überschneidungen zwischen Wahlpolitiken unterschiedlicher Regierungsebenen gesetzt wird, können einerseits die Wahrnehmungen und Einstellungen beleuchtet werden, die der Wahlkultur zugrunde lagen. Andererseits kann das Thema Wahlkämpfe durch die Verwendung von Kartographie in Ergänzung zur statistischen Analyse auch Nichtspezialisten nähergebracht werden. Die Verbindung dieser Ansätze gestattet es uns die Strategien politischer Exklusion auf den im Kaiserreich koexistierenden Wahlebenen zu überdenken. Das Beispiel Leipzig mit seiner mächtigen sozialdemokratischen Organisation bietet dabei einen Blick auf übergreifende Themen wie etwa die deutschen Vorstellungen von politischer Fairness im Zeitalter der Demokratisierung.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 49 , Issue 3-4 , December 2016 , pp. 341 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association 2016 

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References

1 Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden (hereafter SHStAD), Saxon Ministerium des Innern (hereafter MdI), Nr. 5489, Georg Heink, draft reply to Richard Liesche, March 27, 1909.

2 There were  397 districts in the Reich as a whole.

3 Leipzig-City, geographically compact, included Leipzig's urban core and some of its inner suburbs. Graser's 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 the Leipzig administrative district (Amtshauptmannschaft).

4 As will be explained below, between two and fifteen towns might be stitched together into a single urban (städtisch) district, of which there were twenty-four in Saxony (1868–1909). On figure 1, which shows redrawn Landtag districts after 1909, the towns of Markranstädt, Taucha, and Brandis (near Leipzig) and Borna (further south) were just some of the towns that constituted the 12th urban district of Borna. Graser's map left unlabeled the 20 big-city (großstädtisch) districts: after 1909 these were allotted to Dresden (7), Leipzig (7), Chemnitz (4), Plauen (1), and Zwickau (1).

5 SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5489, Georg Heink, marginalia on Richard Liesche to MdI, March 25, 1909.

6 For a very brief visual explanation of gerrymandering, see Christopher Ingraham, “This Is the Best Explanation of Gerrymandering You Will Ever See: How to Steal an Election; A Visual Guide,” Wonkblog, Washington Post, March 1, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/. See also Monmonier, Mark, Bushmanders and Bullwinkles: How Politicians Manipulate Electronic Maps and Census Data to Win Elections (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and, more generally, Black, Jeremy, Maps and Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

7 Daley, David, Ratf**cked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy (New York, W. W. Norton, 2016), xiv Google Scholar.

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

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

10 See Kühne, Thomas, “Wahlrecht – Wahlverhalten – Wahlkultur. Tradition und Innovation in der historischen Wahlforschung,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 33 (1993): 481–547 Google Scholar; Kühne, Dreiklassenwahlrecht und Wahlkultur in Preußen 1867–1914 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1994)Google Scholar.

11 For further references, see Retallack, James, “The Authoritarian State and the Political Mass Market,” in Imperial Germany Revisited: Continuing Debates and New Perspectives, ed. Torp, Sven Oliver Müller und Cornelius (New York: Berghahn, 2011), 83–96 Google Scholar.

12 The phrase comes from a recent study on which this paragraph draws: Hansen, Jason D., Mapping the Germans: Statistical Science, Cartography, and the Visualization of the German Nation, 1848–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)Google Scholar. See also Labbé, Morgane, “Die Grenzen der deutschen Nation. Raum der Karte, Statistik, Erzählung,” in Die Grenze als Raum, Erfahrung und Konstruktion, ed. Etienne, François, Seifarth, Jörg, and Struck, Bernhard (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2007), 293–320 Google Scholar; Richter, Hedwig, “Wahlen und Statistik. Preußen und die USA im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Kultur und Praxis der Wahlen. Eine Geschichte der modernen Demokratie, ed. Richter, Hedwig and Buchstein, Hubertus (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2017), 315–336 Google Scholar.

13 See, e.g., Herb, Guntrum Henrik, Under the Map of Germany: Nationalism and Propaganda, 1918–1945 (London: Routledge, 1997)Google Scholar.

14 The importance of census data was evident in the pioneering chapters on Prussian and Saxon Landtag voting in Ritter, Gerhard A., Wahlgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch. Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1871–1918 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1980), 132–49, 163–82Google Scholar.

15 These studies include, by publication date: Suval, Stanley, Electoral Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Rohe, Karl, Wahlen und Wählertraditionen in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992) (which has one map)Google Scholar; Fairbairn, Brett, Democracy in the Undemocratic State: The German Reichstag Elections of 1898 and 1903 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Sperber, Jonathan, The Kaiser's Voters: Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Anderson, Margaret Lavinia, Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Reibel, Carl-Wilhelm, Handbuch der Reichstagswahlen 1890–1918. Bündnisse, Ergebnisse, Kandidaten, 2 vols. (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2007)Google Scholar. By contrast, the maps outshine the analysis in Schmädeke, Jürgen, Wählerbewegung im Wilhelminischen Deutschland, 2 vols. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994)Google Scholar.

16 See Kühne, Dreiklassenwahlrecht; Lässig, Simone, Wahlrechtskampf und Wahlreform in Sachsen (1895–1909) (Weimar: Böhlau, 1996)Google Scholar. On Leipzig, see Adam, Thomas, Arbeitermilieu und Arbeiterbewegung in Leipzig 1871–1933 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1999)Google Scholar; Schäfer, Michael, Bürgertum in der Krise. Städtische Mittelklassen in Edinburgh und Leipzig 1890 bis 1930 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003)Google Scholar; Dobson, Sean, Authority and Upheaval in Leipzig, 1910–1920 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001)Google Scholar. To be fair, the latter has an unidentified map of Leipzig printed inside its front and back covers. A similar adornment is found in Ritter, Gerhard A., ed., Wahlen und Wahlkämpfe in Deutschland (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1997)Google Scholar. Using bourgeoisie for Bürgertum and burgher for Bürger is an inadequate but necessary shorthand.

17 See Blackbourn, David and Retallack, James, introduction to Localism, Landscape, and the Ambiguities of Place: German-Speaking Central Europe, 1860–1930, ed. Blackbourn, David and Retallack, James (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007)Google Scholar. See also the chapters by Applegate, Celia, Kühne, Thomas, Smith, Helmut Walser, and Mergel, Thomas in part 1 of Saxony in German History: Culture, Society, and Politics, 1830–1933, ed. Retallack, James (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 33–95 Google Scholar.

18 Schröder, Wolfgang, Landtagswahlen im Königreich Sachsen 1869–1895/1896. Beiheft zur Karte D IV 3, Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig: Verlag der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen, 2004)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as SLTW); Lässig, Simone, Reichstagswahlen im Königreich Sachsen 1871–1912. Beiheft zur Karte D IV 2, Atlas zur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Sachsen (Leipzig: Verlag der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig und Landesvermessungsamt Sachsen, 1998)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as LRTW). I am deeply indebted to both authors for permission to use their publications and maps, as I am to Jana Moser, former director of the Arbeitsstelle Historischer Atlas von Sachsen in Dresden. For more on this project, see https://www.saw-leipzig.de/de/projekte/historischer-atlas-von-sachsen-atlas-zur-geschichte-und-landeskunde-von-sachsen.

19 In Saxony's 13th Reichstag district of Leipzig-County, it took five times as many votes to elect one Reichstag deputy in 1912 as it did in the 9th Reichstag district of Freiberg. The Social Democrats' hold on Leipzig-County was so secure that they urged those supporters who could do so to relocate to the twelfth electoral district, Leipzig-City, before general elections to help defeat National Liberals there.

20 Party bastions, which are shown for the period 1871–1912 on maps in LRTW, 52–58, are defined as Reichstag districts where the winning candidate received at least 60 percent of the popular vote on the first ballot.

21 For works reflecting the high point of interest in the SPD's electoral fortunes, see Peter Steinbach, “Die Entwicklung der deutschen Sozialdemokratie im Kaiserreich im Spiegel der historischen Wahlforschung,” and Ritter, Gerhard A., “Das Wahlrecht und die Wählerschaft der Sozialdemokratie im Königreich Sachsen 1867–1914,” in Der Aufstieg der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, ed. Ritter, Gerhard A. (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1990), 1–36, 49–101Google Scholar.

22 For practical reasons I use SPD as a shorthand for the socialist parties that bore different names before 1891.

23 See Koselleck, Reinhart, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), esp. 259–61Google Scholar.

24 See, e.g., figure 9, discussed below.

25 This is a central argument of Retallack, James, Red Saxony: Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar. On Fundamentalpolitisierung, see Radbruch, Gustav,“Die politischen Parteien im System des deutschen Verfassungsrechts,” in Handbuch des Deutschen Staatsrechts, ed. Anschütz, Gerhard and Thoma, Richard (Tübingen: Mohr, 1930), 1:285–294, 289Google Scholar.

26 Singer, Paul to Engels, Friedrich, May 13, 1890, cited in Wilhelm Liebknecht: Briefwechsel mit Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels, ed. Eckert, Georg (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1963), 370 n. 2Google Scholar.

27 Ritter, Gerhard A. appreciated the importance of this distinction in “Wahlen und Wahlpolitik im Königreich Sachsen 1867–1914,” in Sachsen im Kaiserreich. Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im Umbruch, ed. Lässig, Simone and Pohl, Karl Heinrich (Dresden: Sächsische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1997), 27–86 Google Scholar. See also Lässig, Simone, Pohl, Karl Heinrich, and Retallack, James, eds., Modernisierung und Region im wilhelminischen Deutschland. Wahlen, Wahlrecht und Politische Kultur, 2nd ed. (Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 1998)Google Scholar.

28 This is not to discount the importance of membership in the party, the Free Trade Unions, and Social Democratic cultural associations.

29 Pollmann, Klaus Erich, Parlamentarismus im Norddeutschen Bund 1867–1870 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1985), 545 Google Scholar; Pollmann, “Arbeiterwahlen im Norddeutschen Bund 1867–1870,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 15, no. 2 (1989): 164–95Google Scholar.

30 See “Anti-Socialist Law (October 21, 1878),” in Forging an Empire: Bismarckian Germany (1866–1890), ed. James Retallack, vol. 4 of the digital history anthology German History in Documents and Images, German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1843.

31 Winning National Liberal candidates in Leipzig-City included Deputy Mayor Eduard Stephani, future Lord Mayor Carl Tröndlin, and, after 1893, Leipzig's chief statistician and chairman of the Pan-German League, Dr. Ernst Hasse.

32 Suburbs lying outside this circle were not incorporated in 1889–92.

33 Viereck was rumored to be the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm I; he was banished from Berlin in 1879 under §28 of the Anti-Socialist Law; and late in 1887 he was expelled from the SPD after a conflict with party leaders. Schröder, Wilhelm Heinz, Sozialdemokratische Parlamentarier in den Deutschen Reichs- und Landtagen 1867–1933 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1995), 781 Google Scholar.

34 These latter figures are taken from Adam, Arbeitermilieu und Arbeiterbewegung, 286.

35 Figures cited in the text have been rounded.

36 In the 1860s, relatively few workers paid the necessary 3 marks in annual taxes, which corresponded to an annual income of 600–700 marks. But implementation of a major tax reform on Jan. 1, 1879, combined with inflation and wage increases, put a much higher proportion of workers, especially skilled workers and miners, over this tax threshold. “Here we've practically arrived at the universal suffrage,” complained Zwickau's regional governor during the autumn Landtag election campaign in 1879. SLTW, 47.

37 On the 1868 suffrage, see James Retallack, “Suffrage Reform, Corporatist Society, and the Authoritarian State: Saxon Transitions in the 1860s,” in Saxony in German History, ed. James Retallack, 215–34; Retallack, Red Saxony, chap. 2.

38 SLTW, 11, 104; Schröder, Wolfgang, introduction to Sächsische Parlamentarier 1869–1918, ed. Döscher, Elvira and Schröder, Wolfgang (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2001), 1–218 Google Scholar. Here and elsewhere I refer to electors as persons who were stimmberechtigt—enfranchised for elections and thus potential voters. They should not be confused with delegates (Wahlmänner) who, in indirect voting systems, stood between voters (Urwähler) and elected deputies (Abgeordneten).

39 Liebknecht's election was annulled, but he was soon replaced by the socialist lawyer Otto Freytag.

40 Whereas Saxony's population grew by 152 percent between 1869 and 1895 (from 2,476,000 to 3,755,000), the number of eligible Landtag electors grew by 219 percent (from 244,600 to 536,000).

41 See Staude, Fritz, Sie waren stärker. Der Kampf der Leipziger Sozialdemokratie in der Zeit des Sozialistengesetzes 1878–1890 (Leipzig: VEB Bibliographisches Institut, 1969), 112–17, 200Google Scholar.

42 Madai, Guido, “Übersicht,” June 10, 1880, in Dokumente aus geheimen Archiven, ed. Fricke, Dieter and Knaack, Rudolf, vol. 1, 1878–1889 (Weimar: H. Böhlaus, 1983), 52 Google Scholar; Bundesarchiv, Abteilungen Potsdam (now Berlin), Reichskanzlei Nr. 646/6, Madai, “Uebersicht,”  Dec. 31, 1880.

43 Kleiner Belagerungszustand, §28 of the Anti-Socialist Law. See “Anti-Socialist Law (October 21, 1878),” in Retallack, Forging an Empire.

44 As a direct result of the incorporations of 1889–92, 142,881 inhabitants were added to Leipzig's population—an increase of almost 84 percent. Wächter, Georg, “Die Sächsische Städte im 19. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift des K. Sächsischen Statistischen Bureaus 47 (1901): 203 Google Scholar. After further incorporations, Leipzig vied with Munich to be Germany's third-largest city after Berlin and Hamburg.

45 I can cite here only part of a copious scholarly literature on Kommunalpolitik in Imperial Germany. On Leipzig, see Pontow, Karin, “Bourgeoise Kommunalpolitik und Eingemeindungsfrage in Leipzig im letzten Viertel des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbuch für Regionalgeschichte 8 (1981): 84–106 Google Scholar; Czok, Karl, “Die Stellung der Leipziger Sozialdemokratie zur Kommunalpolitik in der ersten Hälfte der neunziger Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Arbeitsberichte zur Geschichte der Stadt Leipzig 11, Heft 1, Nr. 24 (1973): 5–54 Google Scholar; Adam, Arbeitermilieu und Arbeiterbewegung, esp. 285–303; Schäfer, Michael, “Bürgertum, Arbeiterschaft und städtische Selbstverwaltung zwischen Jahrhundertwende und 1920er Jahren im deutsch-britischen Vergleich,” Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts zur Erforschung der europäischen Arbeiterbewegung 20 (1998): 178–232 Google Scholar; Schäfer, “Die Burg und die Bürger. Stadtbürgerliche Herrschaft und kommunale Selbstverwaltung in Leipzig 1889–1929,” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Sachsen im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Bramke, Werner and Heß, Ulrich (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 1998), 269–92Google Scholar; Schäfer, Bürgertum in der Krise, 38–77.

46 Electors for Leipzig's new Landtag districts were drawn from those previously casting ballots in the Saxon Landtag's twenty-third and twenty-fourth rural districts (see fig. 5).

47 SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5413, Ernst Hasse to Rath der Stadt Leipzig, October 17, 1889. At this time Saxony had rival Progressive (fortschrittlich) and Radical (freisinnig) left-liberal parties.

48 With his bureaucratic language, Hasse admitted no contradiction between equitable and partisan redistricting.

49 SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5413, Ernst Hasse to Rath der Stadt Leipzig, October 17, 1889. In a cover letter to the Saxon Ministerium des Innern, Leipzig Lord Mayor Otto Georgi forwarded Hasse's proposal but did not comment on it. Ibid., Oct. 31, 1889.

50 SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5413, Ernst Hasse to Rath der Stadt Leipzig, October 17, 1889. It had recently been decided that the six suburbs Hasse mentioned would not be incorporated. Hasse's reference to the rural twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-fifth electoral districts was an error, as Leipzig was surrounded by the twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth rural districts.

51 See Leo Ludwig-Wolf, “Leipzig,” in Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsorganisation der Städte, vol. 4, no. 1, Königreich Sachsen (hereafter cited as VfS Sachsen), Schriften des Vereins für Socialpolitik 120, no. 1 (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1905; repr., Vaduz: Topos Verlag, 1990), 123–61.

52 In 1905, Hermann Goldstein won election in Saxony's thirty-seventh rural district (Hartenstein). On the suffrage reform of 1896, see Retallack, James, “Anti-Socialism and Electoral Politics in Regional Perspective: The Kingdom of Saxony,” in Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Modern Germany, ed. Jones, Larry Eugene and Retallack, James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 49–91, esp. 78–90Google Scholar; Retallack, Red Saxony, chap. 7; SLTW, 51–56.

53 Reported in Der Wähler, Nov. 13, 1890, cited in Czok, “Stellung der Leipziger Sozialdemokratie,” 36. On the Paris Commune of 1871, which Bebel defended on the floor of the Reichstag, see Merriman, John, Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune (New York: Basic Books, 2014)Google Scholar.

54 Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Bonn (now Berlin) (hereafter PAAAB), Sachsen Nr. 48, Bd. 18, Prussian envoy to Saxony, Count Carl von Dönhoff, to Prussian Foreign Office, Oct. 11, 1894.

55 The best sources are those cited for table 6.

56 According to the 1892 tax rolls, the number of electors was projected to be 1,171 in Class I, 3,552 in Class II, and 19,006 in Class III.  Seger, Friedrich, Dringliche Reformen. Einige Kapitel Leipziger Kommunalpolitik (Leipzig: Bezirksvorstand der sozialdemokratischen Partei, 1912), 15 Google Scholar.

57 See James Retallack and Thomas Adam, “Philanthropy und politische Macht in deutschen Kommunen,” in “Zwischen Markt und Staat. Stifter und Stiftungen im transatlantischen Vergleich,” ed. Adam, Thomas and Retallack, James, special issue, Comparativ 11, nos. 5–6 (2001): 106–38Google Scholar.

58 See materials on suffrage reform in Stadtarchiv Leipzig, Kap. 7, Nr. 36, Bd. 1, and Kap. 35, Nr. 100, Bd. 1. See also Ludwig-Wolf, “Leipzig,” esp. 137–40; Schäfer, “Die Burg und die Bürger,” 273–5; Schäfer, “Bürgertum, Arbeiterschaft und städtische Selbstverwaltung”; Schäfer, Bürgertum in der Krise; Adam, Arbeitermilieu und Arbeiterbewegung, 293–98.

59 SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5414, Stadtrat Ludwig-Wolf (Leipzig) to Geh. Reg.-Rat Bruno Oswin Merz (MdI Dresden), Dec. 27, 1895; PAAAB, Sachsen Nr. 48, Bd. 18, Carl von Dönhoff to Prussian Foreign Office, Nov. 29, 1895. For elections in the period 1894–1912, cf. the opposing views in Seger, Dringliche Reformen, 15–32, and Ludwig-Wolf, “Leipzig.” See also Schäfer, Bürgertum in der Krise.

60 The six suburbs incorporated were Dölitz, Dösen, Probstheida, Stötteritz, Stünz, and Möckern. On Jan. 1, 1913, Leutzsch, Schönefeld, and Mockau were also incorporated.

61 That is, the SPD held twenty-one of seventy-two seats. For the preceding details, see Seger, Dringliche Reformen, 22–29 and statistical appendix.

62 VfS Sachsen. On the association itself, see, inter alia, Lindenlaub, Dieter, Richtungskämpfe im Verein für Sozialpolitik. Wissenschaft und Sozialpolitik im Kaiserreich (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1967)Google Scholar.

63 See Rudolf Heinze, “Dresden,” in VfS Sachsen, 85–122; Leo Ludwig-Wolf, “Leipzig,” ibid., 123–61; Johannes Hübschmann, “Chemnitz,” ibid., 163–79.

64 Chemnitz's population in 1905 stood at 243,476 persons, of whom about 16,500 held the Bürgerrecht. Hübschmann, “Chemnitz,” 165.

65 Class A was subdivided into Classes A1 and A2 according to whether individuals earned more or less than 1,900 marks annually.

66 Hübschmann, “Chemnitz,” 165–69.

67 Heinze, “Dresden,” 115–21. Heinze, a right-wing National Liberal, served briefly as Saxony's government leader in October–November 1918.

68 See Hettling, Manfred and Hoffmann, Stefan-Ludwig, eds., Der bürgerliche Wertehimmel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000)Google Scholar.

69 Hübschmann, “Chemnitz,” 168. See also Niehuss, Merith, “Strategieen zur Machterhaltung bürgerlicher Eliten am Beispiel kommunaler Wahlrechtsänderungen im ausgehenden Kaiserreich,” in Politik und Milieu, ed. Best, Heinrich (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae, 1989), 60–91 Google Scholar.

70 Hübschmann, “Chemnitz,” 168–69.

71 Landtags-Akten 1907/09, Königl. Dekrete, vol. 3, pt. 1 (Dresden, 1909), Dekret Nr. 12. On the principles behind the government's draft legislation, see SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5455, Georg Heink's forty-page memorandum [for government leader Count Wilhelm von Hohenthal und Bergen], Nov. 1, 1906; Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna, Politisches Archiv, V (Sachsen), Nr. 53, “Allgemeine Begründung” in the printed “Entwurf zum Wahlgesetz für die Zweite Kammer der Ständeversammlung” [July 5, 1907] appended to a report from the acting Austrian envoy to Saxony, Baron Erwein Gudenus, to the Austrian Foreign Office, July 18, 1907.

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

73 Schäffle, A[lbert], “Die Bekämpfung der Sozialdemokratie ohne Ausnahmegesetz,” Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft 46 (1890): 201–87, esp. 263Google Scholar.

74 See the more detailed analysis in Retallack, Red Saxony, chaps. 8–10.

75 Bebel, August, March 21, 1890, in Mitteilungen über die Verhandlungen des ordentlichen Landtags im Königreiche Sachsen … 1889–1890: Zweiter Kammer (Dresden, 1890), 2:950–60Google Scholar.

76 Günther, Oskar, Nov. 30, 1908, in Mitteilungen über die Verhandlungen des ordentlichen Landtags im Königreiche Sachsen … 1908–1909: Zweiter Kammer (Dresden, 1909), 5:4129Google Scholar.

77 I am grateful to Daniel Fischer for providing me scans of material from SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5414, which document secret discussions and correspondence among Saxon antisocialists in 1894–95.

78 See Georgi, Otto, Zur Reform des Wahlrechts für die Zweite Sächsische Kammer (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1906), 11–12 Google Scholar, 35–37, 39–40, 42–44, 54–55, 79–81; Ehrenstein, Otto von, Das System der Verhältniswahlen in Sachsen (Dresden: v. Zahn & Jaensch, 1906), 3, 16–20, 36–38Google Scholar; Ehrenstein, Reden und Ansprachen, nebst Anhang. Ein Vorschlag zur Reform des Wahlrechts für die Sächsische Zweite Kammer (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1906), 211–17Google Scholar.

79 Weber, Max, “Diskussionsbeitrag … 2. Oktober 1907,” in Wirtschaft, Staat und Sozialpolitik. Schriften und Reden 1900–1912, ed. Schluchter, Wolfgang et al. ., Max Weber Gesamtausgabe, Abt. I, Bd. 8 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 300–315 (emphasis added)Google Scholar.

80 Jellinek, Georg, Allgemeine Staatslehre, 3rd ed. (1900; Berlin: Springer, 1929)Google Scholar.

81 At this time, a plural suffrage—rather than the government's more complicated scheme—had emerged as the most likely common ground on which Conservatives and National Liberals could achieve a Landtag suffrage reform compromise. These parties and the government still disagreed about how many extra ballots would be awarded to enfranchised electors. It was only in the course of protracted political wrangling in 1908 and early 1909 that the new Saxon Landtag suffrage came to be premised on the awarding of up to three extra ballots to qualified electors. But in 1905 it was already clear that the criteria for such preferment would include taxable income, property ownership, professional status, and perhaps age. The issue of redistricting was even more contentious. The National Liberals wanted many more seats allocated to Saxon cities, whereas the Conservatives knew that their electoral fortunes depended on the overrepresentation of rural voters.

82 For these and other points registered in his lecture, see Jellinek, Georg, Das Pluralwahlrecht und seine Wirkungen (Dresden: v. Zahn & Jaensch, 1905), 6, 15, 29, 32, 34, 39, 43–44 (emphasis added)Google Scholar.

83 In 1909, a total of 407,525 enfranchised electors lived in Saxony's forty-three urban districts; 365,591 electors lived in forty-eight rural districts. The disparity was greatest between Saxony's twenty big-city districts, which held on average 11,749 electors, and its forty-eight rural districts, which held on average just 7,616 electors. [Würzburger, Eugen], “Die Wahlen für die Zweite Kammer der Ständeversammlung vom Oktober und November 1909, Erster Teil,” Zeitschrift des K. Sächsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 55 (1909): 220–43, 222–23Google Scholar.

84 On the Saxon suffrage reform of 1909, see Retallack, James, “‘What is to Be Done?’ The Red Specter, Franchise Questions, and the Crisis of Conservative Hegemony in Saxony, 1896–1909,” Central European History 23 (1990): 271–312 Google Scholar; SLTW, 64–66; Lässig, Wahlrechtskampf.

85 See Retallack, Red Saxony, chap. 11.

86 SHStAD, 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 these.

87 The 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 Lässig (Washington, DC) for locating some for my use.

88 See, e.g., SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5489, Georg Heink, “Skizze zu einer Wahlkreiseinteilung im Kgr. Sachsen (bei 95 Wahlkreisen),” n.d. [ca. Sept. 8, 1908].

89 These districts are identified in figure 13, discussed below.

90 The sources I consulted for this article do not permit a more fine-grained analysis of Ludwig-Wolf's motivations When I worked in Leipzig's and Dresden's city archives I was pursuing a different research agenda.

91 In the course of 1908–9, Ludwig-Wolf's proposed seven districts (Leipzig 1–7) changed fundamentally before Leipzig's districts I-VII (now with Roman numerals) were finalized some months later. Whereas the neighborhoods Ludwig-Wolf put into Leipzig 3 ended up, by and large, in the final district of Leipzig V, the four large neighborhoods he initially allocated to Leipzig 2 ended up in different districts. At some point Plagwitz and Schleußig were allocated to the new Leipzig VI while Lindenau and Kleinzschoscher were allocated to Leipzig VII.

92 On the Bülow Bloc, see Lerman, Katherine A., The Chancellor as Courtier: Bernhard von Bülow and the Governance of Germany, 1900–1909 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

93 Compare Ritter, “Wahlen und Wahlpolitik,” 83, with whom I agree on this point, and the following: Simone Lässig, Wahlrechtskampf, 232–47; Lässig, “Wahlrechtsreformen in den deutschen Einzelstaaten. Indikatoren für Modernisierungstendenzen und Reformfähigkeit im Kaiserreich?,” in Lässig, Pohl, and Retallack, Modernisierung und Region, 127–69; Pohl, Karl Heinrich, “Sachsen, Stresemann und die Nationalliberale Partei. Anmerkungen zur politischen Entwicklung, zum Aufstieg des industriellen Bürgertums und zur frühen Tätigkeit Stresemanns im Königreich Sachsen,” Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus-Forschung 4 (1992): 197–216, 207Google Scholar.

94 As in Reichstag elections, a runoff election was held when no candidate won an absolute majority of ballots in the main election.

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

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

97 Significant non-working-class support for SPD candidates was also found in districts the socialists did not win, namely, Leipzig I (20 percent), Leipzig V (18 percent), and Leipzig VI (14 percent). Along with Leipzig II (10 percent), these districts provided National Liberal candidates with their four 1909 victories in Leipzig (see fig. 13).

98 For citations and other details, see Retallack, Red Saxony, chap. 10.

99 After the 1909 elections, the SPD delegation in Saxony's Landtag, with 25 mandates, was only slightly smaller than those of the Conservative and National Liberal parties (28 each). After 1912, 110 of 397 mandates in the Reichstag were held by Social Democrats.

100 For one study of the mood of crisis in 1894–95, see Eleanor L. Turk, “The Political Press and the People's Rights: The Role of the Political Press in the Debates over the Association Right in Germany, 1894–1899” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1975).

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

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

103 E.g., the Gehe-Stiftung, in which Leo Ludwig-Wolf, Theodor Petermann, Victor Böhmert, and other Saxon statisticians were active, or the Deutscher Verein für Armenpflege und Wohltätigkeit. See Weber, Danny, Die sächsische Landesstatistik im 19. Jahrhundert. Institutionalisierung und Professionalisierung (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2003), esp. 69–134 Google Scholar. See also “175 Jahre amtliche Statistik in Sachsen. Festschrift,” Statistik in Sachsen 12, no. 1 (2006), https://www.statistik.sachsen.de/download/300_Voe-Zeitschrift/zeitschrift_2006_1.pdf.

104 See, e.g., SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5491, Eugen Würzburger to MdI, Jan. 8, 1909, appendix, table B (handwritten), showing the expected support for Social Democracy according to the number of ballots awarded to different groups of electors. See also SHStAD, MdI, Nr. 5455, Georg Heink's memorandum [for Hohenthal], Nov. 1, 1906, which is also discussed in Retallack, Red Saxony, chap. 11. There Heink wrote: “[The] disloyal population wants the general, equal, secret, and direct suffrage for male and female persons, and if it had this, it would want to reduce the voting age and would not rest until it had implemented its demands not only for elections to the Landtag but also for municipal, rural, district, and all other elections. … Demands for the implementation of socialist principles naturally cannot be fulfilled.”