No fewer than five elections took place in 1932. In March new presidential elections were held with three main candidates in the run off: Hindenburg, Hitler and Thälmann. The Social Democrats, who had opposed the arch-militarist Hindenburg in 1925, now decided to support him “as the lesser evil”. The result:

Hindenburg 19,360,000 53%
Hitler 13,418,500 36.8%
Thälmann 3,706,800 10.2%

The Hitler movement had doubled its strength in 17 months. The labour leaders, who completely underestimated the seriousness of the situation, consoled themselves with Hindenburg’s victory.

Under pressure, the Bruening government had banned the SA and the SS. Within six weeks of this order, Hindenburg had appointed Franz von Papen in place of Bruening. After a short interval, von Papen rescinded the ban on the fascist military organizations, which unleashed a terror campaign without parallel, with hundreds dead or wounded, and with every locality reporting deaths from assassinations by the Nazis. New elections were then announced for the end of July.

On the pretext of a violent street battle with the Nazis in Hamburg, where 18 lives were lost, von Papen appointed himself the new head of Prussia, after dismissing the Social Democratic government. Workers throughout the country looked to the SPD leaders for a call to action.

The “Iron Front”, the military defence organization of the labour movement which included the Social Democratic-republican Reichsbanner, had demonstrated its power in mass marches and were determined to fight in defence of the Republic. The Social Democratic Minister of the Interior calmed workers’ fears: “Rest assured that I shall mobilize the Reichsbanner as auxiliary police and arm them when the hour of danger comes.” The Reichsbanner alone had three million members with a hard core of a highly trained military elite consisting of 400,000 men.

Unfortunately, the SPD leaders capitulated ignominiously, deciding instead to challenge the actions in the reactionary courts. The KPD issued the call for a general strike, but after its disgraceful role in the “Red Referendum”, it fell, not surprisingly, on deaf ears.

Within days, the KPD reverted to its attacks on the “social fascists”. In the elections on 31 July, the National Socialist Workers’ Party became the largest party in the Reichstag. The results for the major parties were:

National Socialists 13,745,800 37.4%
Social Democrats 7,959,700 21.6%
KPD 5,282,600 14.6%
Centre Party 4,589,300 12.5%
Nationalist Party 2,177,400 5.9%

It was a stunning success for the fascists, who had dramatically increased their vote at the expense of all the other bourgeois parties, except the Centre Party. As a whole, the working class electorate remained solidly with the workers’ organizations, and there was a steady increase in support for the KPD at the expense of the Social Democrats. The Communists declared themselves as the “sole victor”! When the Reichstag met on 12 September, von Papen received a vote of censure, resulting in the Reichstag once more being dissolved and new elections called for 6 November.

Thälmann once again warned against “opportunist exaggeration of Hitler Fascism”, and again reiterated the party’s strategy of directing its “main thrust” against social democracy. Even where the Communist Party leaders partially recognized the strength of fascism, they rejected it out of hand with the phrase “After Hitler, our turn!”

But in the Reichstag elections in November, the Nazis were taken aback at the results. The fascist movement had peaked early, losing two million votes. The results were:

National Socialists 11,737,000 33.1%
Social Democrats 7,248,000 20.4%
KPD 5,980,000 16.9%
Centre Party 4,231,000 11.9%
Nationalist Party 2,959,000 8.8%

The Nazis’ vote was now less than the combined SPD-KPD vote. This was the last “free” election of the Weimar Republic, where two-thirds of the population voted against the Nazis.