The Bavarian Patriotic Party (German: Bayerische Patriotenpartei or Bayerische Patriotische Partei) was a Catholic-oriented political party in the Kingdom of Bavaria founded in 1869. From 1887 onwards, it was known as the Bavarian Centre Party (German: Bayerische Zentrumspartei).[1]
The Bavarian Patriotic Party emerged from the Catholic-Greater German-conservative movements of the Bavarian Vormärz and the German revolutions of 1848–1849, such as the "Confederates" group in the first Bavarian Landtag, the Catholic Eos and Görres circles, and numerous conservative constitutional associations.[1]
Against this background and in view of a new school law in Bavaria influenced by liberal ideas, deputies in the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies formed the "Patriotic Faction" in mid-1869. A parallel development occurred simultaneously in Prussia with the founding of the Centre Party: the victory of the Protestant great power Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the subsequent exclusion of Austria—the traditional protector of German Catholics—from the collapsing German Confederation meant a setback for Catholicism in Germany.[1]
The Patriotic Party positioned itself against a Lesser German empire under Prussian leadership, against state encroachment on the church, and against both Liberalism and Nationalism. It advocated for Catholic ecclesiastical interests, a Catholic-conservative social and economic model, and a Greater German solution to the German question while simultaneously preserving Bavarian statehood and independence.[1]
In its early phase, the Patriotic Party did not have a rigid organization. In the Chamber of Deputies, it was united primarily by a shared Catholic-conservative mindset and opposition to the liberal ministry of Prince Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. The publicist Joseph Edmund Jörg emerged as its intellectual and political leader. Initially, the Patriotic Party was a pure notable party (Honoratiorenpartei), utilizing a broad substructure of Catholic clubs, Christian peasants' associations, and Catholic casinos instead of a formal party apparatus. At the local level, Catholic clergy, nobility, or local notables handled coordination; Landtag candidates were mostly well-known officials from Catholic associations, often members of the clergy or nobility. The Patriots also had a significant number of sympathizers in the First Chamber of the Bavarian Parliament.[1]
Its social base was primarily among the rural farming population, the conservative lower-middle class of provincial towns, the clergy, and the Bavarian nobility. Numerous newspapers contributed to its roots in these strata, including Josef Edmund Jörg's Historisch-politische Blätter and Dr. Johann Baptist Sigl's Das bayerische Vaterland.[1]
The Patriots found their strongest support in Catholic Old Bavaria and Lower Franconia. In contrast, the party struggled to gain a foothold in the cities and the predominantly Protestant parts of the country.[1][2]
Early history
As early as the 1868 Zollparlament election, the Patriotic Party succeeded in winning 30 of the 48 Bavarian mandates. This trend continued in the two state elections of 1869: in May, the party won 79 mandates, and in November, 80 out of 154, achieving an absolute majority both times. This newly created constellation in the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies remained essentially unchanged until 1918; the Patriotic Party managed to continuously provide the strongest faction and stood in sharp opposition to the liberal [Bavarian] Progress Party (Fortschrittspartei) and the liberal ministries appointed by the monarchs.[3]
The founding of the Empire in 1871 clearly revealed the two wings of the Patriotic Party. One group, centered around Joseph Edmund Jörg and later Georg Heim, was characterized by its rural, lower-middle-class, democratic, and patriotic orientation. The other, under the Reichsrat Count Conrad von Preysing and Ludwig von Arco-Zinneberg, was more aristocratic and took a more pro-Empire and conservative stance. The faction in the Landtag was split by both the question of the declaration of war against France (and thus Bavarian entry into the Franco-Prussian War of 1870) and the subsequent question of Bavaria joining the newly emerging German Empire.[3]
Consequently, the divided Patriotic Party received only 19 of the 48 Bavarian mandates and 38% of the vote in the elections for the first German Reichstag. In the Reichstag, the Patriots joined the faction of the Catholic Centre. It was only the Kulturkampf in the 1870s—in Bavaria as in Prussia—that led to renewed solidarity within the Patriotic Party and its resurgence through new electoral successes: in the 1874 Reichstag election, the party received 59.5% of the vote and 32 mandates. At the same time, however, it entered its second major crisis.[3]
Crises and stability
Since its founding, the monarchist-minded party had to find an answer to how it should behave toward a liberal ministry that was ideologically opposed to it, but which the King, based on the monarchical principle, refused to replace with a conservative cabinet (which would have corresponded to the parliamentary majority).[1]
While a radical Catholic group within the faction demanded that the budget be denied to the liberal ministry or that the Landtag be paralyzed by the collective resignation of mandates, a more moderate group around Jörg advocated for a struggle against the ministry within the parliamentary framework. This disagreement led to a split in the faction in 1877 into the Patriotic Party under Jörg and the more radical Catholic People's Party under the leadership of Aloys Rittler and Johann Baptist Sigl. After lengthy negotiations, both groups reunited as a joint faction called the "United Right" (Vereinigte Rechte), while nominally maintaining their independence. In 1881, the National Conservative Party—the Evangelical-Lutheran counterpart to the Patriotic Party from Protestant Middle Franconia under August Emil Luthardt—was also won over to the United Right faction.[1]
In the 1880s, a new leadership generation emerged, including the Freising clergyman Balthasar von Daller and the Erding philologist Georg von Orterer. They first initiated the affiliation with the Reich-wide Centre Party as the "Bavarian Centre Party" in 1887 and then displaced the previously aristocratically dominated party leadership in 1888/1890.[3]
The new "Program of the Bavarian Centre Party" of 1887 succeeded in finally reuniting the diverging groups under the roof of the new party. The program called for the realization of Christian principles in all areas of life and attempted to bind all strata of the population to the party: a commitment to loyalty to the Empire stood alongside the postulate of federalism; a balance was sought between the monarchical stance and demands for expanded parliamentary rights; and the interests of farmers, artisans, and the working class were all considered.[3]
The lessening of pressure from the state's Kulturkampf, but above all the dissatisfaction of Bavarian farmers with the behavior of the Bavarian Centre Party at the Reich level (including approval of Leo von Caprivi's trade agreements, which were unfavorable for Bavarian farmers), led to the founding of the Bavarian Peasants' League in 1893. This league presented itself as radically anti-clerical, particularist, and anti-aristocratic. The Peasants' League immediately won seven mandates in the 1893 Landtag election, breaking the absolute majority of the Bavarian Centre Party.[3]
In this phase, the rural-particularist-democratic wing again gained weight within the party, and the Centre "(re)gained to a high degree the character of a party of social and democratic demands on a Catholic basis" (D. Albrecht). To counter the challenge of the Peasants' League, the Bavarian Centre Party intensified its agitation in the rural milieu, emphasized a particularist view once more, and committed its Reichstag deputies to farmer-friendly voting behavior in the Reichstag. Additionally, they worked in electoral alliances with the rising Social Democrats to drain the voter base of the Peasants' League.[3]
Transition to governing party and end
This, however, led to a renewed sharp conflict in the faction between the group around the "Peasant Doctor" Heim and the more bourgeois-conservative group around Orterer and the Passau clergyman Franz Seraph von Pichler, while faction leader Daller moderated between the parts of the faction.[3]
Supported by the clergy, the Patriots in the First Bavarian Chamber, and parts of the court, Orterer's group increasingly succeeded in presenting itself as a capable alternative to the liberal ministries appointed by the court. Heim temporarily retired from politics in 1911, and in 1912, Prince Regent Luitpold appointed the leader of the Centre faction in the Reichstag, Georg von Hertling, as Chairman of the Bavarian State Ministry. For the first time since the founding of the Patriotic Party in 1869, a representative of the majority faction in the Landtag was entrusted with the government of the state; the Bavarian Centre Party had achieved its goal.[3]
After the end of World War I and the revolutionary upheavals in Bavaria, leading members of the Bavarian Centre Party around Georg Heim and Heinrich Held founded the Bavarian People's Party in Regensburg in November 1918. This party again deliberately distanced itself from the Reich-wide Centre Party, which was under the unitarian influence of Matthias Erzberger.[3]
Political position
The Bavarian Patriotic Party was considered a extreme-right/reactionary political party because it opposed German nationalism, which was considered a means of modernization by its time, and because of its strong presence of Bavarian nationalism based on medieval traditions. However, the party has been moderate since the 1880s and is considered the forerunner of the future centre-right party, the Bavarian Centre Party.[1][3]
References
12345678910Hartmannsgruber, Friedrich (1986). Die Bayerische Patriotenpartei 1868–1887. Munich: Beck. ISBN3-406-10483-5.
↑Benno Hubensteiner: Bayerische Geschichte. 17. Auflage. Rosenheimer Verlagshaus, Rosenheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-475-53756-1, S. 433 (EA München 1950).
1234567891011Albrecht, Dieter (2003). Schmid, Alois (ed.). Handbuch der bayerischen Geschichte, Vol 4: Das neue Bayern. Munich: Beck. pp.336–345. ISBN3-406-50451-5.
Further reading
Dieter Albrecht: Patriotenpartei – Zentrumspartei. In: Alois Schmid (ed.): Handbuch der bayerischen Geschichte, Vol 4: Das neue Bayern. Von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart, Part 1: Staat und Politik. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50451-5, pp. 336–345.
Friedrich Hartmannsgruber: Die Bayerische Patriotenpartei 1868–1887. Beck, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-406-10483-5.
Frank D. Wright: The Bavarian Patriotic Party 1868–1871. UMI, Ann Arbor 1976.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
