Berlin Program (FDP)

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Brochure: Berlin Program

The Berlin program , actually the Berlin program of the Free Democratic Party, was the first basic program of the Free Democratic Party . It was on 26 January 1957 the national convention of the FDP in Berlin adopted. It followed the Heppenheim proclamation of 1948.

The basic program contained, among other things, a commitment to the social market economy and declared reunification and integration with the West to be its primary goal. It was mainly shaped by the experiences in the coalition with the Union and the Cold War . The party tried to establish itself as a “third force” against absolute majorities of the two popular parties CDU / CSU and SPD.

background

Liberalism is the oldest of the modern political movements. It comes from the Enlightenment . The Free Democratic Party (FDP) stands in the tradition of classical liberalism , but it is a political re-establishment of the post-war period in the three western zones of occupation .

Due to the different political controversies of the state parties, the Federal FDP was only able to agree on a basic program in 1957. In the south-west and in the Hanseatic cities there were more liberal-democratic strongholds, while in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia national and right-wing liberal state associations were founded. Therefore, in its Heppenheim founding proclamation of December 12, 1948, which united both liberal-democratic and national- liberal currents , the FDP refrained from formulating programmatic goals and merely referred to the "idea of ​​freedom and personal rights" that was fundamental to it.

In the second parliamentary term of the Bundestag, liberal democratic forces gained influence in the party. With Thomas Dehler , a representative of a liberal-democratic course took over the chairmanship of the party and parliamentary group. In early 1956, the FDP left the coalition with the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia. As a result, a total of 16 members of the Bundestag, including the four federal ministers, resigned from the FDP and founded the Free People's Party , which was then involved in the federal government in place of the FDP until the end of the legislative period and later became the right-wing German party .

content

At the " 8th Ordinary Party Congress on January 26, 1957 in the Reich capital", at which Reinhold Maier Dehler succeeded as federal chairman of the FDP, a joint party program was decided for the first time. Since the FDP as an opposition party had lost its previous image as a coalition and majority procuring party due to the failure of the coalition, the Berlin program was intended to legitimize the FDP as a “third force”.

The FDP committed itself to the social market economy . She distanced herself from " Marxism and socialist experiments" and advocated property formation for everyone. There are calls for measures to maintain the middle class and support for the creation of new independent livelihoods. For the party, the image of the independent industrial citizen who used his capital to secure his livelihood was decisive. Citizens should be able to take precautions themselves for economic emergencies.

In its policy on Germany , the FDP strived for "peaceful reunification in a German empire with central Germany and the eastern regions in a free order". Under point eight of the Berlin program there is a commitment to ties to the West, whereby, in contrast to the CDU, “the contractual NATO contingent, ie an operational force under supranational command” should be. In foreign policy she distinguished herself from the positions of the CDU. For example, a European security alliance "including Russia and the United States" as well as expanding the European idea "to the idea of ​​a greater Europe" was called for.

literature

  • Peter Juling : Programmatic development of the FDP 1946 to 1969. Introduction and documents. Anton Hain Verlag, Meisenheim 1977.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Matthias Kortmann: The FDP program , dossier of the Federal Agency for Political Education .
  2. ^ Berlin program of the Free Democratic Party (.pdf).
  3. ↑ Heppenheim Proclamation of the Free Democratic Party (.pdf).
  4. ↑ a b c d Jürgen Dittberner : The FDP. History, people, organization, perspectives. An introduction , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, p. 290, online on Google books .
  5. ^ Gert-Joachim Glaeßner: Politics in Germany , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 457, online on Google books .
  6. ↑ See Berlin Bibliography. 1961–1966 , Historical Commission in Berlin , De Gruyter / Saur, Berlin 1973, p. 233, online on Google books .
  7. ↑ Michael Schmidt: The FDP and the German question 1949–1990 , Lit, Hamburg 1995, p. 76, online on Google books .

Web links

Wiktionary: Manifesto  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations