Socialists", whose methods of agitation they rejected just as much as they did their social and economic policy demands. As a result, Hugenberg acted sharply against the dissenters, a move that contributed to a split in the party. Westarp resigned, and some dissenters founded the "German National Association". This gave rise to the short-lived Conservative People's Party. The path to the referendum The initiators now applied for a referendum to be held. The Reich government deliberately set the date for it on 22 December, the last Sunday before Christmas, in order to keep the number of people voting low. The referendum's sponsors again stepped up their propaganda. They were able to exploit statements critical of the government made by Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht as well as the state court ruling that allowed civil servants to participate in the vote. In contrast, opponents of the referendum scarcely addressed the issue. The Reich government judged the bill behind the referendum to be unconstitutional, which meant that adoption of the bill would require amendments to the constitution. Passing the referendum therefore required the approval of more than 50% of those eligible to vote, whereas if the bill that had been constitutional, a majority of those voting would have sufficed. As it turned out, only 13.8% of eligible voters approved the referendum, barely more than in the initiative. Thus the right-wing parties' campaign failed to reach its goal. Overall, a comparison with the 1930 Reichstag election shows that there were correlations between a high approval rating for the referendum and a particularly strong showing by the NSDAP. On 12 March 1930 the Reichstag ratified the Young Plan by a vote of 270 to 192. Consequences The failure of the campaign seemed to show the Republic's remarkable stability. But the propaganda that for months had attempted to tarnish the reputation of parliamentary democracy permanently altered the political culture. Changes began to take place on the political right that ultimately led to the weakening of its more conservative forces in favor of the NSDAP. Just how unstable the Republic was became apparent only a few months later with the onset of the Great Depression, the subsequent rise of the NSDAP and the final erosion of parliamentary democracy. One of Hugenberg's core goals was to use the campaign against the Young Plan to bring the political right together. This goal failed with the breakup of his own