Workers Party (Socialist Unity Party)

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Workers Party poster Arbeiter-Partei poster.jpg
Workers Party poster

The Workers Party (Socialist Unity Party) (German : Arbeiter-Partei (Sozialistische Einheitspartei)) was a political party in West Germany. The party was founded in Offenbach in the autumn of 1945. [1] [2] The party sought to profile itself as a third alternative to the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) or the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). [1] Between 1946 and 1947 the party expanded to other towns in Hessen. [1] The party gathered former members of the Communist Party of Germany (Opposition) (KPO) and the Socialist Workers Party (SAP). [1] Heinrich Glam was the chairman of the party, former chair of the KPD branch of Offenbach and former leader of KPO and SAP. [3] Another key leader was Philipp Pless, party secretary and chair of the Frankfurt branch. [3]

The party won 1.5% in the April 1946 Hessen local elections. In the subsequent Hessen regional assembly election, the party fielded candidates in 39 constituencies, obtaining 0.6% of the votes. In Offenbach, it obtained 15.8% of the votes. In Frankfurt, it obtained 0.6%. [3]

The first regional assembly of the party was held on 18 August 1946, with 61 delegates representing 23 towns in Hessen and 4 towns in other parts of the country. The assembly voted to remove "Socialist Unity Party" from the name of the party. [3] In 1946 a Workers Party group was formed in Baden-Württemberg by merging ex-KPO and ex-SAP members, which registered itself as a political party in 1947. On 18 October 1947 the party held its first public meeting in Stuttgart. It obtained 2% of the votes in the Stuttgart local elections of December 1947. [3] A Bremen Workers Party was also formed. [3]

In 1951 a number of local politicians in Offenbach left the party for SPD. The remainder, including Glam, joined SPD in 1954. [3]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Uwe Backes; Eckhard Jesse (1989). Politischer Extremismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Analyse. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik. p. 107. ISBN   9783804686953.
  2. Dirk Berg-Schlosser; Alexander Fack; Thomas Noetzel (1994). Parteien und Wahlen in Hessen 1946-1994. Schüren. p. 209. ISBN   978-3-89472-087-2.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Richard Stöss (13 August 2013). Parteien-Handbuch: Die Parteien der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945–1980. Springer-Verlag. pp. 374, 377, 379–380, 383. ISBN   978-3-663-14349-9.