Federal elections were held in Germany on 15 June 1893. Despite the Social Democratic Party (SPD) receiving a plurality of votes, the Centre Party remained the largest party in the Reichstag after winning 96 of the 397 seats, whilst the SPD won just 44. Voter turnout was 72.4%.

Campaign

The election became necessary after the Reichstag was dissolved on the 6th of May 1893, at the request of Chancellor Leo von Caprivi. As with the 1887 dissolution, the cause was a military appropriations bill proposed by the Government. Caprivi had planned to increase the size of the army by around 500,000 men, and failed to get this through the Reichstag: the Social Democrats, a majority of the Centre and part of the Free-minded Party rejected the proposal. The Free-mindeds split into the Free-minded People's Party and the Free-minded Union as a result of this. The election resulted in a narrow victory for the pro-government “Cartel” parties (German Conservatives, Free Conservatives and National Liberals). Once again, the Social Democrats, now freed from the Anti-Socialist Laws, made gains, as did the Antisemites. The latter primarily won seats in the Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau, the Grand Duchy of Hesse, eastern and central Saxony, and single ones in the Neumark and Eastern Pomerania. In Lower Bavaria and Middle Franconia, four seats were won by the Bavarian Peasants' League, formed to defend the interests of Bavarian agriculture against Chancellor Caprivi’s free trade policies. The divided liberal bloc saw significant losses. On the whole, the new Reichstag was more divided than ever before. Due to the continued lack of constituency boundary changes, the majority election system brought strong disparities between the popular vote and the size of the parliamentary parties. For the first and only time, a Polish nationalist candidate, Antoni Wolszlegier, won an East Prussian constituency (Allenstein). The new Reichstag approved the Government’s military appropriations bill by a narrow majority of 201 votes.

Results

Alsace-Lorraine