Illustration S.13.2     “On January 12th” (Simplicissimus, 1912)

 

On New Year’s Day 1912, the satirical cartoonist Thomas Theodor Heine provided a foreboding of the “red” Reichstag election twelve days later.

 

Since 1909 the Catholic Center Party (represented by the priest on the right) had been allied with the German Conservative Party (represented by the agrarian on the left) in the so-called “Black-Blue Bloc” (black for Catholics, blue for Conservatives). These parties had refused to pass the inheritance tax advocated by Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, leading to his dismissal by the Kaiser and replacement by Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg in July 1909. The Conservatives and Centrists had instead passed indirect taxes on consumer goods, which contributed to a strong protest vote in 1912 and a major victory of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). After the election, 110 of 397 seats in the Reichstag were held by Social Democrats.

 

Caption: “The pillars of the throne and heaven are having a difficult time. One umbrella cannot protect both of them when it rains red ballots.”

 

 

Source: Thomas Theodor Heine, “Am 12. Januar,” Simplicissimus 16, Nr. 10 (1 January 1912), “Wahlnummer.” Simplicissimus Online: Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek Weimar.

 

Copyright © 2017 James Retallack. All rights reserved. This page is part of the Online Supplement to James Retallack, Red Saxony: Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860-1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). ISBN 978-0-19-966878-6. Last updated: 5 March 2022.