Federal elections were held in Germany on 31 July 1932, following the premature dissolution of the Reichstag. The Nazi Party made significant gains and became the largest party in the Reichstag for the first time, although they failed to win a majority. The Communist Party increased their vote share as well. All other parties combined held less than half the seats in the Reichstag, meaning no majority coalition government could be formed without including at least one of these two parties.

The presidential cabinets were a succession of governments of the Weimar Republic whose legitimacy derived exclusively from presidential emergency decrees. From April 1930 to January 1933, three chancellors, Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, and Kurt von Schleicher were appointed by President Paul von Hindenburg, and governed without the consent of the Reichstag, Germany's lower house of parliament. After Schleicher's tenure, the leader of the Nazis Adolf Hitler succeeded to the chancellorship and regained the consent of the Reichstag by obtaining a majority in the March 1933 German federal election with DNVP.