Christian Social Reich Party
The Christian Social Reich Party (CSRP) was a left-wing Catholic party of the Weimar Republic , which called itself the Christian Social Party from 1920 to around 1925 , and then from 1931 to 1933 as the Workers and Peasants Party of Germany (ABPD).
Christian Social Party in Bavaria
After the November Revolution of 1918, the Catholic Center Party tried to adapt to the current political situation. The working class wing and the left forces in the party gained ground. This met with rejection in Bavaria, so that the Bavarian regional association of the center broke away from the parent party under the name Bayerische Volkspartei (BVP). This in turn rejected Bavarian left-wing Catholics. Vitus Heller from Würzburg , who worked there as a secretary in the Volksverein for Catholic Germany , campaigned for Christian socialism and founded the Christian Social Party, limited to Bavaria, on September 5, 1920 in Treuchtlingen with like-minded people . From 1921 it was known as the "Bavarian Center". Heller, with whose person the history of this party is closely connected, and the new party received a certain amount of financial support from center politicians such as Heinrich Brauns , the long-time leader of the People's Association for Catholic Germany, the Christian union leader Adam Stegerwald and the representative of the left wing of the center, Matthias Erzberger . In 1921 Vitus Heller was elected party leader who propagated his political stance in his newspaper Das neue Volk .
However, the new party could hardly make itself heard nationwide and always remained in the shadow of the overpowering BVP. In the state elections in 1924, the Christian Social Party won only one mandate for the left Catholic writer Leo Weismantel , who was popular with the youth and who formally did not belong to the party. This joined the faction of the Free Association.
Christian Social Reich Party
Due to the center's support for the Luther cabinet and the party's attitude to customs and tax policy, the Christian Social Party broke away from the center in 1925 and expanded to include the entire Reich. At the first party rally in August 1926 in Würzburg, Vitus Heller, Carl Kreuzer and Adam Ulrich were elected to the party leadership. The expansion to the entire territory of the Reich was reflected in the new name of the party, Christian Social Reich Party.
In the Catholic milieu, the CSRP drew attention to itself with its massive agitation for the referendum in favor of the expropriation of the prince , which was rejected by the episcopate. This also applied to their propaganda against the construction of a new type of armored cruiser. In many regions of the empire there was close cooperation between the CSRP and the KPD . The CSRP was able to find many sympathizers and supporters, especially among Catholic youth leaders, such as Nikolaus Ehlen. In the Peace Association of German Catholics there was also approval for the left-wing Catholic party, whose 2nd chairman Father Franziskus Stratmann propagated the election of the CSRP.
The new party received a significant boost when, in November 1926, the Christian Social People's Community, supported by left-wing Catholic workers and small farmers, under the leadership of Franz Hüskes, joined it. The union of both parties came into effect in January 1927. The Christian Social Volksgemeinschaft (CSVG) won many votes in the Reichstag elections in May 1924 as a left-wing split from the center in the Rhineland , Westphalia and Emsland , but did not receive a Reichstag mandate.
However, no known representative of the left center wing joined the CSRP, so that it lacked well-known draft horses. The CSRP now primarily fought the Center Party and its politics and increasingly came closer to the KPD, which repelled many former members of the CSVG. For example, Franz Hüskes returned to the center and opposed the new course of the CSRP.
Vitus Heller hoped for votes from center voters in the Catholic workforce. The top candidate in the Reichstag election in 1928 was the "settler father", pacifist and youth leader Nikolaus Ehlen from Velbert. Although the center lost eight mandates, only a small part of the losses, for example in the Aachen area, benefited the CSRP. The party's appearance cost the center one or two seats, but the main beneficiaries of the losses were the SPD and the KPD. The expectations of the CSRP leadership were disappointed; the party did not get the 60,000 votes required for a basic mandate in any constituency or constituency association. Many then left the party. For the 1930 Reichstag election , she concluded an electoral agreement with the Reich Party for People's Law and Appreciation (People's Law Party). As a result, the number of votes in the CSRP increased significantly, but again, the required number of basic votes was not achieved in any constituency. The CSRP was only able to win a number of mandates in the Saarland state elections (under the name of the Christian Social Party of the Saar Region ) in 1928 and in local elections in Catholic communities, for example in Wiesdorf , where together with the KPD it temporarily held a majority in the local council.
Workers and Peasants Party of Germany
From 1930 onwards, the CSRP became radicalized and came closer and closer to the KPD, which was documented not least in its propaganda, which took up more and more communist slogans. Logically, at the end of January 1931, it was renamed the Workers and Peasants Party of Germany (Christian Radical Popular Front) (ABPD). The party under the leadership of the old chairman Vitus Heller wanted to overthrow the existing class state, end the capitalist system and sought an alliance with the Soviet Union and the KPD. The only significant difference to the KPD was the fact that all of this should be done on a Christian basis and with respect for religious beliefs. In the Reichstag election in July 1932 , however, only just under 14,000 votes were cast for the party.
After the NSDAP came to power at the end of March 1933, the party newspaper Das neue Volk was banned, the ABPD was formally banned on July 15, 1933. Several well-known CSRP activists, such as Vitus Heller, Theo Hespers or Rupert Huber and Karl Zimmet , the two of them Founders of the Munich resistance group, the Anti-Nazi German Popular Front , joined the resistance during the Nazi era. Heller himself was one of the founders of the CSU in 1945 .
Chairperson
1921–1933: Vitus Heller
Members
approx. 5000 (1927)
Party press
- Das Neue Volk (weekly, since the early 1930s with the regular supplement Schaffender Bauer )
Subsidiary organizations
- Christian-Social Youth in Germany (Organ: Die Junge Tat )
Election results
Parliament
- Reichstag election 1928 110,704 votes (= 0.4%)
- Reichstag election 1930 271,291 votes (= 0.8%) together with the Reich Party for People's Law and Appreciation
- Reichstag election July 1932 13,950 votes (= 0.04%) in connection with the KPD
Regional Councilor of the Saar region
- Election to the third regional council (1928) - 9,321 votes / 1 mandate (= 3.35%)
- Election to the fourth regional council (1932) - 6,491 votes / 0 mandates (= 1.79%)
literature
- Werner Fritsch: Christian Social Reich Party (CSRP) 1920–1933 (1920–1925 / 26: Christian Social Party, from 1921 with the additional designation Bavarian Center; 1931: Workers and Peasants Party of Germany [Christian Radical Popular Front] [ABPD]) . In: Dieter Fricke , Werner Fritsch, Herbert Gottwald , Siegfried Schmidt , Manfred Weißbecker (eds.): Lexicon on the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789–1945). Volume 1: Pan-German Association - German League for Human Rights. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1983, ISBN 3-7609-0782-2 , pp. 455-463.
- Franz Hüskes: A political party? The essence of the “Christian Social Reich Party” (Heller Movement). Fredebeul & Koenen, Essen undated (1927).
- Franz Hüskes: The Lighter Movement. (Christian Social Reich Party). Zeit- und Streitschriften-Verlag, Essen undated (1928).
- Günther Plum: Social Structure and Political Consciousness in a Catholic Region. 1928-1933. Investigation using the example of the administrative district of Aachen (= studies on contemporary history. Series of publications by the German Institute for Contemporary History Berlin. ). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-421-01586-4 (At the same time: Tübingen, University, dissertation, 1972).
- Anton Retzbach: The Christian Social Reich Party. Leohaus, Munich 1929.
- Dieter Riesenberger : The Catholic Peace Movement in the Weimar Republic. Droste, Düsseldorf 1976, ISBN 3-7700-0426-4 .
- Michael Rudloff: Christian anti-fascists of the "first hour" in the resistance. In: Scientific journal of the Karl Marx University Leipzig. Social science series. Vol. 38, 1989, ISSN 0043-6879 , pp. 297-307.
- Michael Rudloff: Weltanschauung organizations within the labor movement of the Weimar Republic (= European university publications. Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences. Vol. 499). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1991, ISBN 3-631-44231-9 (At the same time: Leipzig, University, dissertation, 1991).