Christian Social Party (German Empire)

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The Christian Social Party (CSP) was a Christian conservative and anti-Semitic party in the German Empire .

history

The CSP was founded on January 5, 1878, two days after the events in the ice cellar assembly , by Adolf Stoecker in Berlin as the Christian Social Workers' Party (CSAP) in a small circle of supporters in camera. According to Stoecker's founding goals, it "should become the great political and socio-political alternative to social democracy" (Brakelmann). After the election failure on July 30, 1878 (a total of 2310 votes, 1422 of them from Berlin), the party drew the necessary conclusions and turned to the conservative petty bourgeoisie from 1881 onwards, calling itself the “Christian Social Party”.

At the beginning of 1878, Stoecker succeeded in attracting public attention by vigorously opposing the social democratic agitators in their meetings. Encouraged by diverse applause, he decided to found a “Christian-social” workers' party. She mainly represented Christian-national and anti-socialist as well as anti-capitalist theses.

The party's program:

  • Establishment of compulsory specialist cooperatives
  • Regulation of the apprenticeship system
  • Commercial arbitration courts
  • Compulsory widows and orphans, disability and old age pension funds
  • Normal working day
  • Factory laws
  • Restoration of the usury laws
  • Progressive income and inheritance taxes

This program aroused resistance from conservative social politicians and the immediate success on social democracy remained very little.

Christian-social writing on the Xanten ritual murder charge , 1892

The party realigned itself to the lower middle classes and joined the anti-Semitic movement. The unifying element of the contradictory mix of programs was now their anti-Semitism: Left-wing liberals and socialists described them as "Jewish", just as their antipode, the owners of large capitals, were "Jewish". An "international Judaism" acting in a world-conspiratorial manner plans the annihilation of the "German people" (to which the Christian Socialists did not count the Jewish Germans). The CSP initially joined the German Conservative Party (DKP). At its “Tivoli Party Congress” in 1892, the anti-Semites in the DKP, under Christian social leadership, succeeded in anchoring anti-Semitism in the party program. The Christian Socials took part in the anti-Semitic campaigns of the 1880s and 1890s with great commitment. Favorite topics included ritual murder charges against the Jewish minority, which they disseminated extensively in their party newspapers and other writings.

After the forced separation from the DKP brought about by the scandals of their leader Adolf Stoecker in 1896, the Christian Socials - now again as CSP - entered into alliances with other anti-Semitic associations such as the Federation of Farmers and the German Social Party .

The contrast that had formed within the party, which had meanwhile expanded to include all of Germany, itself between the stoecker tendency and a younger pastor Friedrich Naumann and Paul Göhre , who emphasized socialism more sharply , led to a division into two at the party congress in Eisenach (1895) Groups, but no fundamental divorce. In contrast, the conservative party leadership at the end of 1895 pushed the Naumannsche, grouped around the sheet " Die Hilfe ", decidedly from itself, whereupon they founded the National Social Association .

Most of the members of the CSP, including the Reichstag MP Reinhard Mumm , who had taken over his constituency after Stoecker's death, joined the newly founded German National People's Party in 1918 , but left it again around 1929 because of Alfred Hugenberg's anti-social policies and joined the Christian People's social service .

Presidents or chairmen

Electoral successes

CSP politicians won the following constituencies in the Reichstag elections :

literature

  • Christian Social Party (CSP). In: Dieter Fricke (Ed.): The bourgeois parties in Germany. Handbook of the history of the bourgeois parties and other bourgeois interest organizations from Vormärz to 1945. Volume 2: Fraktion Augsburger Hof - Center. VEB Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig 1970, pp. 245–255.
  • Günter Brakelmann : Adolf Stoecker and the social democracy. Foundation of the Christian Social Workers' Party. In: Günter Brakelmann, Martin Greschat , Werner Jochmann : Protestantism and politics. Work and effect of Adolf Stoecker (= Hamburg contributions to social and contemporary history. Vol. 17). Hans Christians, Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-7672-0725-7 , pp. 113-116.
  • Michael Imhof: "We won't find anyone better than Stöcker". Discourse-analytical studies on Christian-social agitation in the German Empire (= Oldenburg writings on historical science. H. 3). Library and information system of the University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg 1996, ISBN 3-8142-0560-X , pp. 48–61.

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