1950 Hessian state election

1950 Hessian state election

← Dec. 1946 19 November 1950 1954 →

All 80 seats in the Landtag of Hesse
41 seats needed for a majority
Turnout1,936,762 (64.9% Decrease 8.3pp)
  First party Second party
 
Georg-August Zinn.jpg
August-Martin Euler.jpg
Candidate Georg-August Zinn August-Martin Euler
Party SPD FDPGB/BHE
Last election 38 seats, 42.7% 14 seats, 15.7%[a]
Seats won 47 21
Seat change Increase 9 Increase 7
Popular vote 821,268 588,739
Percentage 44.4% 31.8%
Swing Increase 1.7pp Increase 16.1pp

  Third party Fourth party
 
Werner Hilpert.png
Candidate Werner Hilpert
Party CDU KPD
Last election 28 seats, 31.0% 10 seats, 10.7%
Seats won 12 0
Seat change Decrease 16 Decrease 10
Popular vote 348,148 87,878
Percentage 18.8% 4.7%
Swing Decrease 12.1pp Decrease 5.9pp

Results for the single-member constituencies.

Government before election

Stock cabinet
SPDCDU

Government after election

First Zinn cabinet
SPD

The 1950 Hessian state election was held on 19 November 1950 to elect the 2nd Landtag of Hesse. The outgoing government was a grand coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Minister-President Christian Stock, who retired at the election. He was succeeded as SPD lead candidate by Georg-August Zinn.

The SPD won a clear majority of seats thanks to quirks of the electoral system, which had been modified since 1946 to a form of mixed-member proportional representation. The Hessian CDU, who took a left-of-centre course in government with the SPD, were heavily defeated and pushed to third place with 19%. An alliance of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and All-German Bloc/League of Expellees (GB/HBE) emerged as the second-largest party with 32%, but were unable to prevent the SPD from achieving its majority. Further, the Communist Party (KPD) slipped just below the 5% electoral threshold and lost their seats. After the election, Minister-President Stock retired and was succeeded by justice minister Georg-August Zinn, who led an SPD majority government.
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