1919 German federal election

1919 German federal election

← 1912 19 January 1919 (1919-01-19) 1920 →
All 423 seats in the Weimar National Assembly 212 seats needed for a majority
Registered	36,779,888 ( 154.7%)
Turnout	83.0% ( 1.9pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Friedrich Ebert & Philipp Scheidemann Adolf Gröber Friedrich von Payer Party SPD CVP DDP Seats won 165 91 75 Popular vote 11,516,852 5,980,259 5,643,506 Percentage 37.9% 19.7% 18.6%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner Hugo Haase Rudolf Heinze Party DNVP USPD DVP Seats won 44 22 19 Popular vote 3,121,541 2,319,235 1,345,712 Percentage 10.3% 7.6% 4.4%
Results by electoral constituency Results by former Imperial Reichstag constituency
Government before election Council of the People's Deputies SPD–USPD Government after election Scheidemann cabinet SPD–DDP–Z

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Federal elections were held in Germany on 19 January 1919 to elect a national constituent assembly^[1] that would write a new constitution for Germany following the collapse of the German Empire at the end of World War I. The election, which took place amid the sometimes violent political upheaval of the German revolution, used a form of proportional representation, lowered the voting age to 20 and allowed women to vote for the first time.

With the exception of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Centre Party (which ran under the name 'Christian People's Party'), the major parties which took part in the election were newly formed from elements of parties that had been active during the German Empire. The three-week-old Communist Party of Germany (KPD) chose not to participate.

The Weimar National Assembly elected on 19 January was dominated by the moderate wing of the SPD, which formed a coalition with the largely middle-class Centre and German Democratic (DDP) parties. The Assembly drafted and adopted the Weimar Constitution, opening the way for the first election to the new republican Reichstag on 6 June 1920.