Weimar Coalition Parties Get a Majority in the Reichstag, 1928

Can anyone think of a plausible scenario by which the "Weimar coalition" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Coalition parties--the SPD, the Zentrum, and the Democrats--could get a majority in the Reichstag in the 1928 elections, so that--at least in theory--they could govern until 1932 without the support of the DVP, without presidential decrees (which Hindenburg would not in any event use to support a coalition that included Social Democrats, as distinguished from a bourgeois coalition reluctantly tolerated by the SPD) and without new elections? One possibility would be a cut-off point by which very small parties--and in 1928 that would include the Nazis, who got only 2.6 percent that year--could not get the benefits of proportional representation. (It is true that if that cut-off point were five percent as under the Federal Republic, the Democrats themselves might be excluded as they got only 4.8 percent of the vote in 1928. So maybe we can make it 3.0 or 4.0 percent.) Another possibility would be that the Wittorf embezzlement scandal in the KPD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittorf_affair becomes public knowledge *before* the election and leads just enough OTL KPD voters to vote for the SPD.

Admittedly, even this would not guarantee Germany stable government, since there was a right wing of the Zentrum that was increasingly wary of cooperation with the SPD. But it would certainly offer better prospects for stable *parliamentary* government (i.e., not resting on presidential decrees) than Germany had in OTL. A coalition stretching from the SPD to the right-liberalism of the DVP would be hard to maintain in the best of times--which, obviously, 1928-32 were not.

For the actual results of the 1928 election, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_election,_1928 The SPD, Zentrum and Democrats combined won 239 seats out of 491--seven seats short of a majority. In December 1924 the same parties had gotten 232 seats out of 493. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_December_1924 Thus, after their spectacular showing in the January 1919 elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_1919 the "Weimar coalition" parties were sufficiently weakened by the Versailles Treaty that they would never again quite get a majority, not even in the two elections (December 1924 and May 1928) that were relatively most favorable for Weimar democracy.
 
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NoMommsen

Donor
TBH : No, I don't see a possible, plausible scenario for what you want without some major or many smaller changes from the first cabinet Müller (27.03.1920 - 20.06.1920) onwards (if you keep the Weimar constitution as it was).
BTW the 1928 election was already an - for Weimar conditions - an almost landslide victory for the SPD against the right-wingers of DVP (well, they lost mainly to the WP) and esp. DNVP. Hard to see how they could have performed better and if it would have been on further costs of democratic orientated parties (esp. DDP).

To install a cut-off point after 1923 would be impossible. There would never be the necessary 2/3 majority obtainable. Though in the interest of the 'major' parties, out of ideological reasons as well as trying to bartgain they wouldn't come together.

To install it in the Weimar constitution right from the beginning ... would need a lot of hindsight. The National Assambly was eager to create the most democratic constitution possible, giving almost every citizen a 'vote' in parliament. That doesn't fit with exemption of some million voters/citizens wishes.
 
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TBH : No, I don't see a possible, plausible scenario for what you want without some major or many smaller changes from the first cabinet Müller (27.03.1920 - 20.06.1920) onwards (if you keep the Weimar constitution as it was).
BTW the 1928 election was already an - for Weimar conditions - an almost landslide victory for the SPD against the right-wingers of DVP (well, they lost mainly to the WP) and esp. DNVP. Hard to see how they could have performed better and if it would have been on further costs of democratic orientated parties (esp. DDP).

To install a cut-off point after 1923 would be impossible. There would never be the necessary 2/3 majority obtainable. Though in the interest of the 'major' parties, out of ideological reasons as well as trying to bartgain they wouldn't come together.

To install it in the Weimar constitution right from the beginning ... would need a lot of hindsight. The National Assambly was eager to create the most democratic constitution possible, giving almost every citizen a 'vote' in parliament. That doesn't fit with exemption of some million voters/citizens wishes.

OK, even if there is no cut-off point, if the KPD can simply be held to the 9 percent they got in December, 1924 instead of the 10.6 percent they got in 1928 in OTL, that by itself would be extremely close to giving the Weimar coalition parties a majority (provided that the difference went to the SPD). As I noted, having the Wittorf embezzlement scandal become public knowledge before the election seems a plausible POD.
 
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