34. Social Democrats and Communists
For most of Germany’s pre-Nazi parliamentary history, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the country’s single biggest party. It drew its support from a coalition of blue-collar unionized workers, landless farm laborers, intellectuals, and women from working-class families. From 1919 to 1932, the SPD was the party that received the most votes in national elections, and had the largest legislative delegation in the Reichstag. It was a bulwark of the Weimar Republic, and the most active opponent of antisemitism in Germany.
The German Communist Party (KPD) was founded in late 1918, amidst revolutionary chaos in the immediate aftermath of Germany’s defeat in WWI. Its base was radical workers, and radical intellectuals. The KPD fundamentally opposed the existence of the Weimar Republic, and although a leftist party, it was vehemently hostile towards the Social Democratic Party, whom it viewed as its main adversary.
