Weimar 1933 almost ready

[RI Democrat]

I discovered that, at least as best as I could tell, voting in the Weimar Republic was done by party lists through a proportional representation system, so the inability to find candidate and riding names proved less important. Instead, I just divided the various regions up into "polling districts," so that a riding now looks like this, for example:

Berlin Polling District 4

SPD Candidate: 30%

NSDAP Candidate: 35%

ZP/BVP Candidate: 10%

DNVP Candidate: 10%

KPD Candidate: 15%

I used what little detail is available online about the results to estimate party strength by region, and then I ended up just assigning the same percentages to each riding in that region.

Some notes and questions for further feedback:

- Does anyone have any idea how party strength may have varied by, say, urban vs. rural voting within the different regions? The info I found showed the Nazis running below their nationwide percentage in Hamburg and Berlin -- was this the case in other cities as well? If so, I could use that to create a little more variety among the riding percentages.

- For endorsers, I have President Hindenburg, former chancellor and Ret. Gen. Schleicher, the Stahlhelm militia, and the Nazis' official newspaper. Any suggestions for further endorsers?

- The Reichstag Fire almost always happens, but the date and outcome are variable to prevent deliberate gaming of the scenario. Any other events that I should add?

- I have coalition offers allowed, with the Nazis and DNVP starting out in a coalition together (as they essentially were IRL). The Social Democrats and the Centre/BVP have a party relations rating of 50 (and I have gotten them into a coalition together a couple times), while both of them have very poor relations with the Communists. Again, is there any reason I should approach this differently?

- Should I make the Catholic Church an issue to limit the Centre/BVP's appeal outside of Catholic constituencies?

Anyway, here's a screenshot of the beginning of the game:

And here's one of the outcomes (this is the best I have done so far playing as the SPD - I actually formed a minority government in coalition with the Centre/BVP in this round):

DISCLAIMER: I know we talked about this when I first raised the idea of creating this scenario, but just to be clear - I did NOT create this to enable people to play as the Nazis. If I could set them as computer-controllable only, I would, but that doesn't seem to be possible.

[gopprogressive]

Wow, that's impressive! How did you do the map?

Also- I thought Franz Von Pappen was the leader of the Zentrum party?

And- from what I understand Southern Germany was a Nazi stronghold as much as Prussia was, while Northwestern Germany was strongly SPD.

From what I understand, while Bremen, Berlin, and Hamburg weren't Nazi strongholds (though the Nazis did better in Berlin)- most other German cities were (especially Munich, Dresden, and Nuremberg)

[RI Democrat]

I took the map from a site I found online that actually gave some local party strength numbers (only for the Nazis, though), and then combined some of the regions that appeared electorally similar. (There were 35 different regions in that map.)

Franz Von Papen was a member of the Zenstrum, but I'm not sure he was ever leader - he was briefly Chancellor in 1932 and came into conflict with his party. He ended up leaving the party in anticipation of being expelled according to Wikipedia. In any case, Kaas was in charge at the time of the 1933 election. You can also pick Heinrich Bruening (another former Chancellor) as leader in this scenario, as well as Heinrich Held, who led the BVP at the time.

The Nazis did well in S. Germany, though I think the Centre and BVP were strong there too due to the larger Catholic population.

[Treasurer]

Can't wait to play this and pulverize the Nazi's!

[matvail2002]

Yes, I would play as the National Socialist party....and makes them lose big time so they will not even be close to 5%!

[Kauai]

http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/g/germany/weimar-germany-legislative-election-1933.html

That site has some info by region.

Also, the SPD and the KPD shouldn't have super bad relations. There was a lot of talk about a possible SPD-KPD coalition to stop the Nazis.

[RI Democrat]

http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/g/germany/weimar-germany-legislative-election-1933.html

That site has some info by region.

Also, the SPD and the KPD shouldn't have super bad relations. There was a lot of talk about a possible SPD-KPD coalition to stop the Nazis.

Yeah, I've seen that site and used it for some of the party strength data. The main problem is that a huge proportion of the country falls under Prussia (Preussen) in that breakdown, which isn't all that helpful when trying to break it down into smaller regions.

I will edit the SPD/KPD relations, though I think the KPD had, at least for a while, viewed the SPD as their primary enemies.

[matvail2002]

Politically, Prussia was one of the biggest National Socialist stronghold during the Weimar elections.

[thetrotsky]

interesting scenario. is it doen? if so could someone e-mail me it. iwould love to smash some nazi scum!

thewhorock93@hotmail.co.uk

[Frank78]

Does anyone have any idea how party strength may have varied by, say, urban vs. rural voting within the different regions? The info I found showed the Nazis running below their nationwide percentage in Hamburg and Berlin -- was this the case in other cities as well? If so, I could use that to create a little more variety among the riding percentages.-

Yes, since the cities were usually strongholds of the KPD and SPD (proportionally more workers lived in the cities)

For endorsers, I have President Hindenburg, former chancellor and Ret. Gen. Schleicher, the Stahlhelm militia, and the Nazis' official newspaper. Any suggestions for further endorsers?-

Quite a lot of newspapers were in the hand of conservative/imperial Hugenberg a member of the DNVP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hugenberg

I have coalition offers allowed, with the Nazis and DNVP starting out in a coalition together (as they essentially were IRL).

Don't make it that easy, they did not have a coaltion. In fact most DNVP members were quite sceptical about the "redneck" NSDAP

The Social Democrats and the Centre/BVP have a party relations rating of 50 (and I have gotten them into a coalition together a couple times), while both of them have very poor relations with the Communists. Again, is there any reason I should approach this differently?- Should I make the Catholic Church an issue to limit the Centre/BVP's appeal outside of Catholic constituencies?

Definitely. The "Zentrum" hardly gained over 1% in Protestant areas or wasn't even on the ballot.

Catholicism had also an effect on the NSDAP.Catholics were a bit more resistant to the Nazi party than Protestant voters. I guess somewhat between 5-10% on average.

[Frank78]

I've found a useful link (in German) for all Reichstags elections from 1919-1933. You can also view the results in the different German states.

http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Preussen/Uebersicht_RTW.html

Click "Deutsches Reich", "Preußen", "Thüringen" (on the right) and so on and then on top of the page "Reichstag".