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German Democratic Party

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Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox political party The German Democratic Party ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, DDP) was a liberal political party in the Weimar Republic, considered centrist<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> or centre-left.<ref name="LeftWingLiberal">Template:Cite book</ref> Along with the right-liberal German People's Party ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, DVP), it represented political liberalism in Germany between 1918 and 1933. It was formed in 1918 from the Progressive People's Party and the liberal wing of the National Liberal Party, both of which had been active in the German Empire.

After the formation of the first German state to be constituted along pluralist-democratic lines, the DDP took part as a member of varying coalitions in almost all Weimar Republic cabinets from 1919 to 1932. Before the Reichstag elections of 1930, it united with the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, which was part of the national liberal Young German Order ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}). From that point on the party called itself the German State Party ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, DStP) and retained the name even after the Reich Association left the party. Because of the connection to the Reich Association, members of the left wing of the DDP broke away from the party and toward the end of the Republic founded the Radical Democratic Party, which was unsuccessful in parliament. Others joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

After the National Socialists took power, the German State Party was dissolved on 28 June 1933 as part of the process of Gleichschaltung (coordination) by means of which the Nazis established totalitarian control over German society.

HistoryEdit

BackgroundEdit

The German Empire had a series of major liberal parties, including the National Liberal Party (NLP). The German Progress Party and Liberal Union merged into the German Free-minded Party. Friedrich Naumann's National-Social Association merged into the Free-minded Union in 1903. Theodor Barth and his supporters broke away into the Democratic Union in 1908, and maintained their independence until joining the DDP in 1918. The other liberal parties united into the left-liberal Progressive People's Party (FVP) in 1910. The FVP received 1.5 million votes in the 1912 election, the last one before the outbreak of World War I.Template:Sfn

Foundation and riseEdit

File:Portrait Friedrich Naumann (ca. 1911).jpg
Friedrich Naumann Template:Circa
File:Hugo Preuß 1919 (cropped).jpg
Hugo Preuß in 1919


A proposal to merge the NLP and FVP was made in the waning days of World War I, but faced opposition from the NLP's right-wing and FVP's left-wing. The formation of the German Democratic Party was announced on 16 November. Among the founding members were Template:Ill, Richard Witting, Template:Ill, Hjalmar Schacht, and Kurt von Kleefeld. The group contacted Theodor Wolff, the editor-in-chief of the Berliner Tageblatt, about how to organize the party. It was named the Democratic Party at Wolff's insistence. On 16 November 1918, one week after the November Revolution, an appeal for the founding of a new democratic party was written by Wolff and signed by 60 people.Template:Sfn An almost identical statement was published at the same time by the Vossische Zeitung (Voss's Newspaper).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The FVP, NLP's left-wing, and DDP merged together on 20 November. Right-wing members of the NLP formed the German People's Party (DVP).Template:Sfn

The FVP raised 26,000 RM in 1911, and had 1,054 individual contributors in 1912. The DDP raised millions in the leadup to the 1919 election and had over one million members by January 1919.Template:Sfn The party won 75 seats in the election and became the third-largest party in the Weimar National Assembly, but their support halved in the 1920 election and their seat total fell to 39.Template:Sfn

The DDP was a member of the Scheidemann cabinet, but left in June 1919 in response to the Treaty of Versailles before returning to the coalition in October.Template:Sfn Friedrich von Payer resigned as chair of the DDP's legislative caucus after voting in favor of the treaty.Template:Sfn It was heavily involved with the creation of the Weimar Constitution. The document was drafted by Preuß, Max Weber influenced the section covering the presidency, and Erich Koch-Weser wrote the section covering referendums.Template:Sfn

Naumann served as the first chair of the party until his death in 1919. His faction and ideological allies included Gertrud Bäumer, Template:Ill, Template:Ill, Theodor Heuss, Carl Wilhelm Petersen, and Gustav Stolper. This group held positions of high leadership within the party for the entirety of its history. Petersen served as chair until 1924, when he resigned after his election as mayor of Hamburg.Template:Sfn

The Berliner Tageblatt, Frankfurter Zeitung, and Vossische Zeitung were among the leading newspapers that supported the party. Rudolf Oeser, an editor at FZ, became a cabinet member. Support for the DDP from these newspapers waned as the party went rightward.Template:Sfn

The DDP initially voted against joining the First Wirth cabinet, but later joined it. It left the Wirth cabinet after the partition of Upper Silesia.Template:Sfn

DeclineEdit

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S81877, Marie-Elisabeth Lüders (cropped).jpg
Marie-Elisabeth Lüders

20,000 people attended the first national convention of the Young Democratic Organization, but active membership declined to a few thousand members as the 1920s continued and 2,000 people attended the 1929 convention.Template:Sfn

The party's membership fell from around 800,000 one year after its foundation to 117,000 by 1927.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In spite its steadily dwindling size, the DDP played an important political role in the early years of the Republic. For one, its position between the SPD and the Centre Party helped stabilize the Weimar Coalition nationwide and especially in Prussia. Wilhelm Abegg, for example, the state secretary in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, reorganized and modernized the Prussian police. In addition, members of the DDP formed an important reservoir of personnel for high positions in public administration. No other party was able to provide to a similar extent civil servants who both possessed the professional training and were loyal to the democratic system of the Weimar Republic, something that was not the case with the mostly monarchist and anti-democratic civil servants inherited from the Empire.

In 1920, the DDP had already lost votes, in large measure to the German People's Party, German National People's Party, and to parties focused on single issues. This was due to disagreements within the DDP over how to deal with the Versailles Peace Treaty, of which some deputies approved. The loss of votes was accompanied by a simultaneous loss of members, finances and journalistic support. Important newspapers such as the Vossische Zeitung and the Frankfurter Zeitung held views that were close to those of the DDP, but the party was never able to establish an important party paper of its own such as the SPD's Vorwärts or later the Nazis' Völkischer Beobachter. The prejudice that the DDP was the 'party of big capital' held credence among part of the public, a prejudice that was factually false and charged with anti-Semitism. In later years, the Nazi Party exploited this by defaming the DDP as 'the Jewish party'.

Another reason for the decline was their program of 'social capitalism' in which workers and owners mutually recognized "duty, right, performance and profit"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and where solidarity was to prevail between employees, workers and owners. This visionary idea was out of touch with the reality of rising unemployment and economic difficulties under the pressure of the Treaty of Versailles.

Renaming to the German State PartyEdit

In July 1930, the DDP united with the People's National Reich Association (VNR) to form the German State Party, initially for the upcoming Reichstag elections. This brought fierce conflicts within the party, as the VNR was the political arm of Artur Mahraun's national liberal Young German Order.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the merger, many members of the left wing, including Ludwig Quidde and Hellmut von Gerlach, left the party and founded the Radical Democratic Party in 1930, which was largely unsuccessful politically. The Young German Order broke away from the DDP immediately after the Reichstag elections,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> but the DDP nevertheless formally reorganized itself the German State Party (DStP) on 8 November 1930.Template:Sfn

The party received 1.3 million votes and 20 seats in the 1930 election. Its electoral performance continued to decline in the 1930s. Its seat total declined by sixteen in the July 1932 election, where it received 371,000 votes. Hermann Dietrich called for the party to be dissolved after these results. Its seat total fell to two after the November 1932 election. Hermann von Richthofen, Peter Reinhold, and others left the party after failing to convince its leadership to dissolve it. It gained three seats in the March 1933 election, but its share of the vote declined. The DStP obtained these five seats with the help of a combined list with the SPD.Template:Sfn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The DStP deputies, as opposed to the SPD, voted for the Nazi-sponsored Enabling Act, which effectively disempowered the Reichstag.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Their "yes" to the Enabling Act was justified by the deputy Reinhold Maier. The final sentence of his speech read: "In the interest of the people and the Fatherland and in the expectation of lawful developments, we will put aside our serious misgivings and agree to the Enabling Act."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The DStP deputies in the Landtag of Prussia were removed as they worked with the SDP in their electionTemplate:Sfn and was banned from engaging in political activity in Prussia in June.Template:Sfn Since the mandates of the DStP’s Reichstag deputies had been won by means of nominations from the Social Democratic Party, they expired in July 1933 based on a provision of the Gleichschaltung Law of 31 March 1933.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The self-dissolution of the DStP, forced by the Nazis, took place on 28 June 1933. The law against the formation of new parties enacted on 14 July codified the existence of a single party in the Nazi state and any activity on behalf of other parties was made a punishable offense.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Resistance to National SocialismEdit

File:Otto Geßler.jpg
Otto Geßler

Individual members of the DStP participated in the resistance to National Socialism. The only left-liberal resistance group, the Robinsohn-Strassmann group, consisted mainly of former DDP/DStP members. A middle-class resistance circle with about sixty members was the Sperr Circle in Bavaria. It consisted of the diplomat Franz Sperr as well as the former Weimar Reich ministers and DDP members Otto Geßler and Eduard Hamm. Many former members of the DDP and Radical Democratic Party also found themselves forced into exile either because of their stance against the regime or their pacifist attitudes, among them Ludwig Quidde and Wilhelm Abegg. Others were murdered by the National Socialists, including Fritz Elsas.

DDP politicians after World War IIEdit

After World War II, former members of the DDP were instrumental in founding both the West German Free Democratic Party (FDP) – for example Theodor Heuss, Thomas Dehler and Reinhold Maier – and the East German Liberal Democratic Party (LDPD) – including Wilhelm Külz, Eugen Schiffer and Waldemar Koch – while others such as Ernst Lemmer, Ferdinand Friedensburg and August Bach went to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), or the Social Democratic Party, including Erich Lüth. Otto Nuschke became leader of the East German CDU.

The youth organization Young Democrats ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), which had been close to the DDP, continued to exist until 2018.

Political positionsEdit

The program of the DDP was a synthesis of liberal and social ideas. Naumann attempted this fusion in the pre-war period. Supporters and members of the party were recruited primarily from the Bildungsbürgertum. It was also supported by executives and civil servants, industrialists mainly from the chemical and electrical industries and liberal Jews. More Jews voted for the DDP than for any other party.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It was therefore dubbed the "party of Jews and professors".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The DDP was divided between supporting a centralized or federal system. Weber and Preuß supported a centralized system and breaking up Prussia into multiple states. Otto Fischbeck, Conrad Haußmann, and Payer supported the continued existence of the Prussian state.Template:Sfn

The party was divided over changing the flag. Democrats in the north supported maintaining the imperial flag while those in the south supported changing it. The party's deputies voted 43 to 14 against the new flag. Bernhard Dernburg, Fischbeck, Georg Gothein, Koch-Weser, Naumann, Petersen, and Schiffer opposed changing the flag while Template:Ill, Haussmann, Nuschke, Payer, and Quidde supported changing it.Template:Sfn

The Bavarian affiliate of the DDP, which the DVP merged into, supported anti-clericalism.Template:Sfn

The party never accepted the eastern boundaries of Weimar Germany. It supported returning the Free City of Danzig to Germany andTemplate:Sfn uniting Germany and Austria into one country.Template:Sfn It initially supported the League of Nations, but this waned due to rulings that did not benefit Germany.Template:Sfn

Election resultsEdit

Election year Votes % Seats +/–
1919 5,641,825 18.6 (3rd) Template:Composition bar New Party
1920 2,333,741 8.3 (6th) Template:Composition bar Template:Decrease 36
May 1924 1,655,129 5.7 (7th) Template:Composition bar Template:Decrease 11
December 1924 1,919,829 6.3 (6th) Template:Composition bar Template:Increase 4
1928 1,479,374 4.8 (6th) Template:Composition bar Template:Decrease 7
1930 1,322,034 3.8 (8th) Template:Composition bar Template:Decrease 5
July 1932 371,800 1.0 (8th) Template:Composition bar Template:Decrease 16
November 1932 336,447 1.0 (9th) Template:Composition bar Template:Decrease 2
1933 334,242 0.9 (9th) Template:Composition bar Template:Increase 3
Elections in the Prussian Landtag 1918–1933
1919 1% 65 Seats
1921 Template:05,9 % 26 Seats
1924 Template:05,9 % 27 Seats
1928 Template:04,4 % 21 Seats
1932 Template:01,5 % Template:02 Seats
1933 Template:00,7 % Template:03 Seats

Party chairmen of the DDP and DStP

Year Party Chairman
1919 DDP Friedrich Naumann
1919–1924 DDP Carl Wilhelm Petersen
1924–1930 DDP Erich Koch-Weser
1930–1933 DStP Hermann Dietrich

MembershipEdit

40% of the attendees to the party conference in December 1919 had a doctorate. Three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry were members of the party.Template:Sfn

Noted members of the DDP and DStPEdit

PicturesEdit

  • Bundesarchiv Bild 183-Z1117-502, Berlin, Staatsakt für Walter Rathenau.jpg

    Funeral celebration for Walther Rathenau, the murdered DDP minister of foreign affairs, 1922

  • Bundesarchiv Bild 102-01209, Berlin, Willy Hellpach spricht im Sportpalast.jpg

    Psychologist Willy Hellpach, DDP candidate for Reich Presidency in 1925

  • Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00147A, Wilhelm Külz und Otto Karl Geßler.jpg

    DDP Ministers Wilhelm Külz (left, Interior) and Otto Gessler (Defense), 1926

  • Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10015, Robert Hermann Dietrich.jpg

    One of the political leaders of the party, Hermann Dietrich, 1926

  • DBP - Nobelpreisträger, Ludwig Quidde - 50 Pfennig - 1975 fixed.jpg

    Ludwig Quidde, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize of 1927

  • DDP-Wahlkampf 1929.jpg

    Paper flag from the DDP campaign for the Berlin City Council in 1929.

  • Bundesarchiv Bild 102-12088, Bernhard Dernburg.jpg

    Former DDP minister Bernhard Dernburg in 1931

  • Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1984-040-26, Hjalmar Schacht.jpg

    Allied prisoner Hjalmar Schacht in 1945

  • Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1983-098-20a, Heuss.jpg

    Federal President Theodor Heuss in 1953

See alsoEdit

Template:S-start Template:S-bef Template:S-ttl Template:S-aft Template:S-end

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

Works citedEdit

Further readingEdit

Template:Max Weber Template:Weimar Republic political parties

Template:Authority control

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