1928 German federal election

Federal elections were held in Germany on 20 May 1928. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) remained the largest party in the Reichstag after winning 153 of the 491 seats. Voter turnout was 75.6%.

Campaign
5,484 candidates were nominated by 31 parties in the 646 electoral districts and 540 candidates in the 31 Reich lists. The Nazi candidate list was published in April 1928, and featured thirty-six names running in thirty-five districts. Twelve of the candidates were Gauleiters. Joseph Goebbels, Gregor Strasser, and others were candidates in multiple districts.

The only two parties to gain significantly were the SPD, which received almost a third of the vote, and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which completed a thorough victory of the left wing. However, the SPD still failed to win a clear majority, resulting in another coalition government, led by Hermann Müller. Following his appointment as Chancellor, Müller, who had previously held the post for four months in 1920, created a grand coalition of members of the SPD, the German Democratic Party, the Centre Party, the German People's Party and the Bavarian People's Party. However, the coalition was plagued by internal divisions right from the beginning, with each party more concerned with their own interests than the interests of the government. As a result, Müller asked German President Paul von Hindenburg for emergency powers, but when Hindenburg refused, he resigned, marking the end of the "last genuinely democratic government of the Weimar Republic" on 27 March 1930.

The recently reformed Nazi Party contested the elections after the ban on the party had been lifted in 1925. However, the party received less than 3% of the vote and won only 12 seats in the Reichstag. Adolf Hitler, who had been incarcerated in Landsberg prison for his involvement in the Beer Hall Putsch until Christmas 1924, had concentrated on re-establishing himself as the leader of the Nazi Party after his release rather than on his party's electability.

Analysis
Twelve Nazis were elected, six from electoral districts and six from the Reich list. The Nazis performed best in the rural areas of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Thuringia, and Upper Bavaria. Their share in urban areas fell from the previous election, with them losing 2.6% in Hamburg and 1.3% in the Ruhr. They placed third in Munich and their vote in Berlin reached a nadir of 1.5%.

The German National People's Party (DNVP) saw their support in rural Protestant areas fall from 39% to 27%. The DNVP received twice as much support in rural areas than in urban areas.

The KDP increased its support from the previous election by 500,000 votes, with 130,000 of this coming from Berlin. The SPD reached the apex of its support in Hamburg with 36.8% of the vote.