German Right Party

Last updated
German Right Party
Deutsche Rechtspartei
Founded27 June 1946;77 years ago (27 June 1946)
Dissolved21 January 1950;74 years ago (21 January 1950)
Preceded by DNVP (factions)
Merged into German Reich Party (majority)
German Party (minority)
Ideology National conservatism [1]
Political position Far-right [1]

The German Right Party (German : Deutsche Rechtspartei, DRP) was a far-right political party that emerged in the British zone of Allied-occupied Germany after the Second World War.

Also known as the Deutsche Konservative Partei - Deutsche Rechtspartei (the party used both names, varying the name used between different Länder, but had no direct links to the pre-World War I German Conservative Party), the initially national-conservative party formed in June 1946 through a merger of three smaller groups - the Deutsche Konservative Partei , the Deutsche Aufbaupartei of the Völkisch politician Reinhold Wulle and the Deutsche Bauern- und Landvolk Partei . [2] Its manifesto was in large parts authored by Hans Zehrer (1899-1966).

Originally intended as a continuation of the Weimar-era German National People's Party (DNVP) of 1918-1933, the DRP soon attracted a number of former Nazis [3] and its programme changed towards a more neo-Nazi stance, [4] [ need quotation to verify ] while many moderate members left to join the German Party (DP). Ahead of the 1949 federal elections to the first Bundestag, the party attempted a fusion with DP and the Hessian Nationaldemokratische Partei (not to be confused with the current homonymous party, formed in 1964), but the British administration responded that they would refuse to grant a license to such a party, so the party instead merged with the Gemeinschaft unabhängiger Deutscher (GuD) which members included former Nazis like Fritz Dorls, Gerhard Krüger and Fritz Rössler (alias Dr. Franz Richter), who became notorious for his radical positions. [5] At the federal elections at the time, the 5% hurdle applied only to the states, not nationwide - in Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and NRW the party remained under 2%, but in Lower Saxony, it received 8.1% of the vote, that entitled it to five seats; [2] its deputies were Dorls, Rössler/Richter, Adolf von Thadden, Heinz Frommhold (1906-1979) and Herwart Miessner (1911-2002). The party was the strongest in mid-sized Lower Saxonian cities, like Wilhelmshaven (31.5%), Gifhorn (30.7%), Emden (26.3%), Hameln (25.3%), Salzgitter (23.6%), Helmstedt (20.8%) and Hildesheim (17.3%). [6] The party's strongest direct constituency was Wilhelmshaven – Friesland, where the party's candidate was former Kriegsmarine Sea Captain (Kapitän zur See) Walter Mulsow, the Wilhelmshaven fortress commander in 1945. [7] However, with 23.7% of the vote, he came second after SPD's Johann Cramer (32.6%) and was not elected on the party list. [8]

Despite its electoral success, the DRP was weakened that same year when the Socialist Reich Party (Sozialistische Reichspartei, SRP) formed (2 October 1949) and a number of members who supported Otto Ernst Remer and Gerhard Krüger left to join the more openly neo-Nazi party. [9] Indeed, the group lost two of its deputies - Rössler and Fritz Dorls - to this more extreme party upon its foundation. [10] The DRP did however gain one deputy when the Wirtschaftliche Aufbau-Vereinigung (a group of disparate figures who supported the demagogic Munich lawyer Alfred Loritz) disintegrated in the early 1950s. [11] Within the Bundestag, the DRP began to work closely with a number of minor groups on the far right, such as the National Democrats (a minor group that should not be confused with the later National Democratic Party of Germany). Between 1950 and 1951, the remaining DRP MPs who supported Fritz Rössler sought to merge with these groups in order to form a larger grouping, which resulted in the creation of the Deutsche Reichspartei [12] in January 1950. Rössler had to vacate his party offices due to his contacts with SRP chairmen, he joined the Socialist Reich Party in September 1950.

Although effectively defunct, the DRP became the subject of a report produced by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany in the context of the banning of the SRP in 1952. The report claimed that the DRP had actively tried to organize members of earlier right-wing groups, but no action ensued, as the party had ceased to exist. [13] A few members who had not joined the Deutsche Reichspartei continued as "National Rightists" ( Nationale Rechte ) and finally aligned themselves with the Free Democratic Party in 1954.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socialist Reich Party</span> 1949–1952 political party in West Germany

The Socialist Reich Party was a West German political party founded in the aftermath of World War II in 1949 as an openly neo-Nazi-oriented splinter from the national conservative German Right Party (DKP-DRP). The SRP achieved some electoral success in northwestern Germany, before becoming the first political party to be banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1952. They were allied with the French organization led by René Binet known as the New European Order.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Democratic Party of Germany</span> Far-right political party in Germany

The Homeland, previously known as the National Democratic Party of Germany, is a far-right Neo-Nazi and ultranationalist political party in Germany.

The German Conservative Party was a right-wing political party of the German Empire founded in 1876. It largely represented the wealthy landowning German nobility and the Prussian Junker class.

The Free Conservative Party was a liberal-conservative political party in Prussia and the German Empire which emerged from the Prussian Conservative Party in the Prussian Landtag in 1866. In the federal elections to the Reichstag parliament from 1871, it ran as the German Reich Party. DRP was classified as centrist or centre-right by political standards at the time, and it also put forward the slogan "conservative progress".

In the fourteen years the Weimar Republic was in existence, some forty parties were represented in the Reichstag. This fragmentation of political power was in part due to the use of a peculiar proportional representation electoral system that encouraged regional or small special interest parties and in part due to the many challenges facing the nascent German democracy in this period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deutsche Reichspartei</span> Far-right political party in West Germany

The Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP), also known as the German Empire Party or German Imperial Party, was a nationalist, far-right, and later neo-Nazi political party in West Germany. It was founded in 1950 from the German Right Party, which had been set up in Lower Saxony in 1946 and had five members in the first Bundestag, and from which it took the name. Its biggest success and only major breakthrough came in the 1959 Rhineland-Palatinate regional election, when it sent a deputy to the assembly.

DKP can refer to:

Europe a Nation was a policy developed by the British fascist politician Oswald Mosley as the cornerstone of his Union Movement. It called for the integration of Europe into a single political entity. Although the idea failed to gain widespread support for the Union Movement, it proved highly influential on European far-right thought.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolf von Thadden</span> German politician (1921–1996)

Adolf von Thadden was a German far-right politician. Born into a leading Pomeranian landowning family, he was the half-brother of Elisabeth von Thadden, a prominent critic of the Nazis who was executed by the Nazi government in September 1944.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian-National Peasants' and Farmers' Party</span> Political party in Germany

The Christian-National Peasants' and Farmers' Party was an agrarian political party of Weimar Germany. It developed from the German National People's Party (DNVP) in 1928.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reich Party of the German Middle Class</span> Political party in Weimar Germany

The Reich Party of the German Middle Class, known from 1920 to 1925 as the Economic Party of the German Middle Classes, was a conservative German political party during the Weimar Republic. It was commonly known as the Wirtschaftspartei or WP.

Fritz Rössler was a low-level official in the Nazi Party who went on to become a leading figure in German neo-Nazi politics. In his later life he was more commonly known as Dr. Franz Richter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinhold Wulle</span> German politician and publicist

Reinhold Wulle was a German Völkisch politician and publicist active during the Weimar Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1959 Rhineland-Palatinate state election</span>

The 1959 Rhineland-Palatinate state election was conducted on 19 April 1959 to elect members to the Landtag, the state legislature of Rhineland-Palatinate, West Germany.

Wilhelm Henning was a German military officer and right-wing politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Party (1947)</span> Political party in Germany

The German Party was a national-conservative political party in West Germany active during the post-war years. The party's ideology appealed to sentiments of German nationalism and nostalgia for the German Empire.

Alfred Loritz was a German lawyer and politician who briefly rose to prominence in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

August Haußleiter was a German politician and journalist. After his exclusion from the Bavarian Christian Social Union in 1949 he spent three decades as a right-wing political activist, on many occasions positioned beyond the frontiers of West Germany's consensual political mainstream. During the 1980s he remained politically active, but now as a somewhat unconventional member of the German Green party. He is also the mentor of the Finnish Greens (@vihreat)

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Dorls</span> German politician (1910-1995)

Fritz Dorls was a far-right German politician and former Nazi Party member. He was chairman of the Nazi-oriented Socialist Reich Party, which was banned by the German Federal Constitutional Court in 1952.

Georg Joel was a German Nazi Party politician. He was the long-serving Deputy Gauleiter of Gau Weser-Ems and also Minister-president of the Free State of Oldenburg throughout the Nazi regime. After the Second World War, he joined Neo-Nazi parties and served in the Landtag of Lower Saxony.

References

  1. 1 2 Stone, Jon (24 September 2017). "German elections: Far-right wins MPs for first time in half a century". The Independent. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  2. 1 2 D. Childs, 'The Far-Right in Germany since 1945', L. Cheles, R. Ferguson & M. Vaughan, Neo-Fascism in Europe, Harlow: Longman, 1992, p. 70
  3. Compare: Eatwell, Roger (1995). Fascism: A History (2 ed.). London: Chatto & Windus. p. 220. ISBN   9780701161880 . Retrieved 14 May 2023. Initially based on part of Alfred Hugenberg's old authoritarian-conservative German People's Nationalist Party (DNVP), it had quickly attracted many former Nazis.
  4. R. Eatwell, Fascism: A History, London: Pimlico, 2003, p. 277
  5. Kellerhoff, Sven Felix (20 February 2012). "Als ein NS-Funktionär Bundestagsabgeordneter wurde" [When a Nazi functionary became a member of the Bundestag]. Kultur. Welt. Retrieved 14 May 2023. [...] am 20. Juli 1951 wurde er wegen der Beleidigung von vier Ministern der niedersächsischen Landesregierung zu vier Monaten Gefängnis verurteilt. [...] Mitte November 1951 hielt 'Richter' dann die erste antisemitische Rede, die im Bundestag geschwungen wurde. Parlamentspräsident Hermann Ehlers beendete die Philippika gegen das erste deutsch-israelische Abkommen mit einem Ordnungsruf.
  6. Hirsch, Kurt (1979). Die heimatlose Rechte. Goldmann Taschenbuch (in German) (1st ed.). Munich: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag. p. 172. ISBN   978-3442112647.
  7. "Soldatenleben hinter mir". Der Spiegel (in German). 1949-12-28. ISSN   2195-1349 . Retrieved 2024-01-28.
  8. "Bundestag election 1949 - The Federal Returning Officer". www.bundeswahlleiterin.de. Retrieved 2024-01-28.
  9. Childs, 'The Far-Right in Germany', p. 71
  10. Alfred Grosser, Germany in Our Time, Penguin Books, 1971, p. 212
  11. Alfred Grosser, Germany in Our Time, pp. 252-253
  12. Eatwell, Fascism: A History, p. 279
  13. Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, Harmondworth: Penguin, 1973, p. 579