Today 100 Years Ago: Headlines from 29 March 1925
Looking Back a Century
Welcome to Today 100 Years Ago, the daily time-machine ride where we rewind the newsreel exactly one century. On 29 March 1925, Europe was still piecing itself together after the Great War, radio was the new social media, and flappers were challenging every dress code in sight. Let’s step onto a chilly Berlin street and watch democracy experiment with something brand-new: a direct presidential vote.
1. Berlin’s First Popular Presidential Election
[STORY_1_IMAGE]
What happened?
On 29 March 1925, German voters headed to the polls for the first direct election of a head of state in their history. With President Friedrich Ebert dead only a month, the Weimar Republic rolled out ballots bearing an unfamiliar set of names:
- Karl Jarres (liberal-conservative German People’s Party) led early counting.
- Otto Braun, Social Democrat and seasoned Prussian minister-president, galvanized the left.
- Wilhelm Marx of the Centre Party courted Catholics and moderates.
- Ernst Thälmann flew the communist red banner.
No one crossed the 50 % finish line, forcing the republic into a runoff that would, four weeks later, hand victory to Paul von Hindenburg—a result with consequences echoing all the way to the 21st century.
Why it mattered
- It tested the still-fragile Weimar constitution in front of a skeptical public.
- It introduced mass campaign techniques—radio spots, press ads, even airplane leaflet drops—that feel almost quaint next to 2025’s algorithm-targeted messaging.
- It set the stage for political polarization that extremists later exploited.
2025 side-glance
In our biometric-ID era, Germans tap phones at polling booths or mail secure QR codes; turnout analytics refresh in real time. Yet trust in institutions remains a delicate thing—something Weimar’s voters remind us can never be taken for granted.
Quick facts
- Eligible voters: ≈39 million
- Turnout: 68.9 %
- Campaign buzzword: Volksentscheid (people’s decision)
Final Thought
One hundred years ago today, Berliners in wool coats and cloche hats queued outside smoky cafés to test-drive a democratic tool many of us now consider routine. Their hopes—and the fragility of the system they hoped would safeguard them—still speak loudly to 2025. Democracy, then as now, is a work in progress.