German federal election, 1848

The German Federal Election, 1848 was held on 1 May 1848 throughout the 39 states of the German Confederation to elect members of a new National Assembly known as the Frankfurt Parliament. The ballot was not secret, and elected 583 members, mostly from the middle class.

The Frankfurt Parliament convened on 18 May at Frankfurt, when the members walked in solemn procession to the Paulskirche accompanied by the roar of cannon and the ringing of bells. It included the German political leaders of the past three decades: the political professors Friedrich Dahlmann, Johann Droysen and Georg Waitz; Ernst Arndt and Turnvater Jahn (Friedrich Jahn) from 1813; radicals like Robert Blum and Arnold Ruge; and the Catholic leader Bishop Ketteler.

The Pre-Parliament which arranged the election had favoured universal suffrage, although individual states set their own qualifications. While Austria, Prussia and Schleswig-Holstein imposed no restrictions, farm hands were excluded in Baden and Saxony. Bavaria and Wutternberg excluded domestic servants and workers, and Bavaria included only those paying direct taxation. Those elected included 157 judges and lawyers, 138 high officials, over a hundred university and high school teachers, and about 40 merchants and industrialists. Most of the 90 members of the nobility were in the learned professions, and there was only one peasant and four handwerkers (skilled artisans or craftsmen).

The Pre-Parliament (Vorparlement) had convened in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt on 31 March 1848. Most of the 521 members of it were from South and West Germany, including 2 from Austria. From Prussia there were 141 representatives, of which 100 from the Rhineland with a strong liberal tradition. The Pre-Parliament dispersed on 3 April having appointed a committee of 50. The radicals Friedrich Heckler and Gustav Struve were excluded as they had walked out; they had favoured abolition of both hereditary monarchy and standing armies, and a Federal constitution on North American lines. The rebuffed Hecker proclaimed a German Republic in Baden on 12 April, but the so-called Heckenputsch failed within a week. Heckler escaped to Switzerland and went to the United States, becoming a farmer. Later Struve also went into exile (in Switzerland and the United States) before returning to Germany.