Christian Social People's Service

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The Christian Social People's Service (CSVD, 1929–1933) was a Protestant - conservative party in the Weimar Republic .

Emergence

Large parts of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party of Adolf Stoecker joined the new German National People's Party (DNVP) in 1918 under the leadership of his son-in-law Reinhard Mumm . However, more and more Christian Socialists felt uncomfortable in the party, and quite a few resigned. At the local level, these forces gathered in various organizations, some of which also took part in local elections, such as the Christian People's Service formed in Nuremberg in 1924 or the Christian-social communities, which were primarily able to rely on free churches such as the Korntal Brethren in southwest Germany. The Christian People's Service expanded and took part in the state elections in Württemberg in 1928 , winning three seats with 43,440 votes .

The new movement received an enormous boost when, in Alfred Hugenberg, the DNVP received a party leader who took an unconditionally anti-republic and anti-democratic course and soon sought partnership with the NSDAP . In addition, the important media entrepreneur clearly took the side of capital and spoke out against employee and trade union interests. The DNVP then split. Well-known representatives of the workers' wing founded the Christian-Social Reich Association in 1928, including members of the Reichstag such as Gustav Hülser , Walther Lambach , leader of the German National Trade Aid Association (DHV), a non-left white-collar union that has been at the core of the anti-Semitic movement from the beginning, or Emil Hartwig , chairman of the German National Workers' Union and as such a member of the DNVP board.

Subsequently, numerous DNVP members of the Reichstag resigned from the party, including well-known Christian socialists such as Reinhard Mumm, Franz Behrens and Gustav Hülser. The Christian People's Service and the Christian Social Reich Association merged at the end of 1928 and formed the new Christian Social People's Service party. Because of the defections of former DNVP MPs, she was immediately represented in the Reichstag .

The Christian Social People's Service from 1930

In the Reichstag elections of 1930 , the emphatically evangelical party won a particularly large number of votes in regions that were characterized by a strong pietistic or free church tradition, such as in rural parts of East Prussia , in East Westphalia , Württemberg , Baden , Hesse-Nassau , in Siegerland and Wittgenstein , where the anti-Semitic orientation was still part of the essence of the party appearing here as "Evangelischer Volksdienst" (EVD), in the county of Bentheim and in western East Friesland as well as around Düsseldorf . She was represented by 14 deputies in the Reichstag, the generally center - Chancellor Heinrich Brüning supported. The CSVD was attacked and attacked by the National Socialists and German Nationalists as an appendage of the center because it was in the company of the SPD while supporting Brüning . The CSVD supported the popular initiative initiated by the emphatically right-wing parties, including the NSDAP and the DNVP, to overthrow the Prussian government in 1931 . With the growing success of the NSDAP, the party moved further to the right. In the Reichstag elections in July and November 1932, the CSVD's share of the vote was halved. Many voters switched to the NSDAP. Prominent party leaders, including significant leaders of the “Christian-social communities” such as the Protestant pastor Hermann Teutsch , former CSVD member of the Reichstag, joined the NSDAP and served to agitate the National Socialists among the Protestant population. On March 22, 1932, Reich Chairman Wilhelm Simpfendörfer and the critic of the Hugenberg course Gustav Hülser had a meeting with Hitler. They assured him that they had always worked to keep the Nazis open to government. Simpfendörfer explained that the CSVD sees more opportunities for cooperation with the NSDAP than with the DNVP.

The end of the Christian Social People's Service

For the 1933 Reichstag election , the CSVD signed an election agreement in February with the German People's Party (DVP) and the German Peasant Party (DBP) under the name “Christian National Bloc” , which finally secured four seats in the Reichstag. But already on March 23, 1933 Simpfendörfer declared the support of the CSVD for the domestic and foreign policy goals of the Hitler cabinet consisting of the NSDAP, DNVP and Stahlhelm . The MPs joined the NSDAP as interns, the party disbanded. However, a number of members went on a course of confrontation with the new government. In exceptional cases, they actively turned against the Nazi regime, according to Pastor Albert Schmidt , who died as a result of his imprisonment in November 1945.

After 1945, most of the CSVD members were active in the CDU or the CSU , such as Paul Bausch or Gustav Heinemann (left the party in 1952), others such as Friedrich Justus Heinrich Middendorff were active in the peace movement and from 1952 in the one founded by Gustav Heinemann and others, Christian neutralist All-German People's Party .

Party leader

Reichstag election results

Prominent party members

literature

  • Lutz Fahlbusch, Werner Methfessel: Christian Social People's Service (CSVD) 1929–1933. 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. 464-470.
  • Helmut Lensing: The Christian Social People's Service in the Grafschaft Bentheim and in Emsland - The regional history of a strictly Protestant party in the final phase of the Weimar Republic. In: Emsland history. Volume 9, 2001, ISSN  0947-8582 , pp. 63-133.
  • Günther Opitz: The Christian Social People's Service. Attempt by a Protestant party in the Weimar Republic (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 37, ISSN  0522-6643 ). Droste, Düsseldorf 1969, (at the same time: Münster, University, dissertation, 1965).
  • Hein Retter: Protestant milieus before and after 1933 - The Christian Social People's Service and the German Protestant School Community Association. In: Michael Wermke (Ed.): Transformation and religious education. Continuities and breaks in religious education 1933 and 1945 (= work on historical religious education. Volume 9). IKS Garamond, Jena 2011, ISBN 978-3-941854-37-6 , pp. 243-280.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See e.g. B .: Wolfgang Benz , What is anti-Semitism? Munich 2004, p. 93ff.
  2. ↑ The Christian Social People's Service (1929–1933). Retrieved January 25, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Hans Speier, The Employees Before National Socialism: A Contribution to Understanding the German Social Structure 1918–1933, Göttingen 2011, p. 116.
  4. ^ Günther Opitz: The Christian Social People's Service. Attempt by a Protestant party in the Weimar Republic (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 37, ISSN  0522-6643 ). Droste, Düsseldorf 1969, (at the same time: Münster, Universität, Dissertation, 1965, p. 142).
  5. ↑ a b Fahlbusch, Methfessel: Christlich-Sozialer Volksdienst (CSVD) 1929-1933. In: Fricke et al. (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. Volume 1. 1983, pp. 464-470, here: p. 469.
  6. ^ Fahlbusch, Methfessel: Christian Social People's Service (CSVD) 1929–1933. In: Fricke et al. (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. Volume 1. 1983, pp. 464-470, here: p. 464.