Democrat (19th century)

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In the 19th century, the essential direction on the left of the political spectrum was referred to as democrats or, in short , democracy . It was named after the dispute during the revolution of 1848 about the desired form of government. The Democrats advocated a republican form of government modeled on the USA or Switzerland, while their opponents, the "constitutional" ones, advocated a constitutional monarchy based on the model of Great Britain.

The political positions of the Democrats, however, were not limited to this one position, which for pragmatic reasons could also play a rather subordinate role. Typical democratic demands were also, for example, the advocacy of comprehensive personal freedom (freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, association, religious freedom), the rule of law on the basis of a constitution or the addition and even replacement of standing armies by people's armaments and a militia system.

From the democratic spectrum, the three main tendencies of the left in the empire developed, which differed mainly in their economic-political positions: the German Progressive Party (later the German Liberal Party ), the German People's Party , which was mainly represented in southern Germany, and the Social Democrats . Later in the Weimar Republic the German Democratic Party and in the Federal Republic of Germany the Democratic Party of Germany referred to this tradition.

Positions

Benedikt Waldeck described the demands of the Democrats with the words:

"We Democrats want the right to vote, self-government, equality of taxation and equal rights before the law."

The original meaning of the term as advocacy of a republic later receded (abbreviation D. = democracy in the lexicon article from 1906):

“There is usually a wrong idea about the nature of the D. as a political party organization. One imagines the democratic party par excellence with the ultimate goal of a republic, etuer D. as a form of government, while in the last few decades quite a few politicians have called themselves democrats who clung to the monarchical idea. Also now [631] call themselves z. B. the members of the South German People's Party Democrats, without wanting to call the elimination of the monarchy their goal. In Prussia, too, liberals have taken up the party designation of the D. (Philipps, Lenzmann et al.) Without wanting to abolish the monarchy, as the leader of the Prussian democrats, Benedikt Waldeck, described the constitutional monarchy as his goal in 1848. "

Differentiation

In the revolutionary period of 1848/1849, questions of economic policy played a subordinate role in the delimitation of political groups. Accordingly, the views within the democratic spectrum diverged widely from Manchester liberal to socialist positions. Manchester-liberal demands for free trade, freedom of trade, freedom of movement and freedom of association can be seen as a logical continuation of the demand for personal freedom. Socialist demands could refer to the opposition to the previously ruling classes, whereby these were not only understood as the powerful (nobility, church), but also as the rich. This led to socialist or, depending on the case, anti-Semitic positions (e.g. Richard Wagner , Wilhelm Marr ). During the reaction time in the 1850s, under the impression of the repressive state, many turned away from their previously socialist-influenced positions and turned to the Manchester-liberal view that society must be strengthened vis-à-vis the state. Examples of this were Rudolf Virchow , Ludwig Bamberger or the father of the German cooperative system, Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch .

In Prussia, former democrats and constitutional members met in 1861 in the German Progressive Party , which became the dominant force during the Prussian constitutional conflict. The democrats' demand for a republican form of government was postponed in favor of a small German solution to the German question under Prussian leadership. The democrats in southern Germany (e.g. Leopold Sonnemann in Frankfurt) did not follow this orientation, rather harbored greater German sympathies and were skeptical of a strong position in Prussia. However, in the interests of popular sovereignty, they contradicted the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871, the majority of the population of which wanted to belong to France, and advocated the restoration of a Polish state, while the "small German" Progress Party took the opposite position.

In 1863 the General German Workers' Association , founded by Ferdinand Lassalle , came on the scene, which, like the Progress Party, advocated a small German solution under the leadership of Prussia, but wanted to combine this with the demand for a socialist transformation of the economic system. From the point of view of contemporaries, however, the socialists mostly appeared as pseudo-democrats who only subscribed to democratic demands for tactical reasons. A supporter of the government, who wrote anonymously, assessed the situation similarly to the representatives of the Progress Party:

"If the teachers of socialism in Prussia and Germany took part in the agitations of the political, especially the chamber parties, and in doing so took the side of the radical faction everywhere, this was by no means because of sympathy or the similarity of goals, but only because socialism is only here in childhood, requires the influx of manifold forces for its growth and can only be found in the ranks and in the spheres of power of democracy. For years the Progressive Party has known how to treat and win over the working class, especially in the cities, to its own ends, that until recently it has only been attracted by a democratic flagship. In order to gain entry into this world, socialism had to adopt a democratic mask. Internally he is aware of a far sharper opposition to democracy than to the government and, since he has not been able to develop an independent power, would rather have taken the side of the government in recent political struggles if he was not with one of them such steps would have had a great apostasy to fear among his more short-sighted followers. "

In the following period, the three directions in the democratic spectrum developed further apart, the main difference being in the area of ​​economic policy. The Progress Party advocated comprehensive economic freedom to complement personal and political freedom. The South German Democrats and the "Democratic Party", which unsuccessfully sought to establish itself from the mid-1880s to the 1890s under Julius Lenzmann and Adolph Phillips , strove to maintain the economic system with extensive economic freedom, but also advocated an active social policy, while the Social Democrats demanded a transformation of the economic system towards a state-controlled planned economy.

Democratic politician

Web links

literature

  • [Without naming]: The Berlin daily press in the summer of 1866, by a Prussian patriot. Commission publisher by Oskar Leiner, Leipzig 1866.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See keyword "Democracy." In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 4. Leipzig 1906, pp. 630-631.
  2. ↑ See keyword "Democracy." In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 4. Leipzig 1906, pp. 630-631.
  3. ^ From: The daily press of Berlin in the summer of 1866, by a Prussian patriot. Commission publisher by Oskar Leiner, Leipzig 1866. Pages 69–70. For the position of the Progressive Party, see for example: Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch: Chapter on a German workers' catechism. Leipzig 1866.