Democratic Peasant Party of Germany

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Democratic Peasant Party of Germany
Party flag of the DBD
Party leader Ernst Goldenbaum (1948–1982)
Ernst Mecklenburg (1982–1987)
Günther Maleuda (1987–1990, 1989/90)
Ulrich Junghanns (1990)
founding April 29, 1948
Place of foundation Schwerin , SBZ
fusion June 25, 1990
(incorporated in: CDU )
Headquarters Berlin
Alignment Agrarianism
socialism
Colours) green
Number of members 103,000 (1987)
Minimum age 18 years
Democratic Peasant Party of Germany, District Executive Committee Schwerin (1990)

The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany ( DBD ) was a bloc party in the GDR . It was founded on the instructions of the Soviet military administration in order to weaken the Eastern CDU and the LDPD as bourgeois parties. Its membership increased from 30,000 in 1948 to 114,000 in 1987.

history

After the SED had done badly in the local elections in 1946 and the relationship with the Eastern CDU and the LDPD in the "Block Committee" was marked by constant tension, the SED decided to found two new parties on instructions and in coordination with the SMAD to weaken the bourgeois bloc parties. Since it was not possible to involve the farmers in the SED policy through the union of mutual peasant aid , the DBD was founded. The first board members were appointed by the SMAD and the SED without this being announced. Immediately after its founding, the new party received seats in the People's Council on August 3, 1948 , in the Central Block on August 5, 1948, and in the German Economic Commission on January 1, 1949 .

Mecklenburg was the founding center. On April 29, 1948, the founding conference of the Mecklenburg Farmers' Party took place in the state capital Schwerin . SED member Ernst Goldenbaum , who became its 1st chairman and remained until 1982, was commissioned to establish the company . The aim was to win the farmers over to the "building of socialism". It was one of the four bloc parties in the GDR and propagated the SED line in essential points. She saw herself as a representative of the interests of the peasantry of small and medium-sized farms, but in the 1950s she participated in the implementation of collectivization in agriculture in the GDR against the will of most farmers .

With the farmer's response , the DBD had its own daily newspaper . Supported by the SED, the party developed rapidly until 1951. The number of members grew to around 85,000 within three years. Due to the passive resistance of large parts of the rural population to collectivization, the number of members stagnated well into the 1970s. In the 1980s the party - like the other bloc parties - regained its organizational strength. In 1984 it had almost 108,000 members, in 1987 it was 103,000 members.

After the turning point and the peaceful revolution in 1989/90, the party tried to re-establish itself as an "ecological peasant party" , but received only 2.2% of the votes and thus nine seats in the People's Chamber in the first free Volkskammer election on March 18, 1990. The strongholds of the DBD were in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania : It reached 6.3% in the Neubrandenburg district, 4.4% in the Rostock district and 4.0% in the Schwerin district .

In June 1990, 46 out of 58 members of the party executive committee decided to merge with the CDU. Most of the members did not exchange their party books. By merging with the CDU , DBD functionaries took on leadership positions at federal, state and local level: Ulrich Junghanns became Minister of Economic Affairs and temporarily chairman of the CDU in Brandenburg, and Volker Sklenar was Minister of Agriculture of Thuringia from 1990 to 2009.

The whereabouts of the party's assets is explained in the article Assets of parties and associations of the GDR .

Central party school

The party ran a central party school " Thomas Münzer " in Borkheide . This facility was headed by Hans Rietz from 1949 to 1951 , Alois Melz from 1951 to 1968 , Eberhard Mack from 1968 to 1975 and Wilfried Schimmank from 1975 to its liquidation in 1990 .

Party congresses / party conferences

  • 1st party conference in July 1948 in Schwerin
  • 1st party congress in July 1949 in Mühlhausen
  • 2nd party congress in July 1951 in Eisenach
  • 3rd party congress in September 1953 in Güstrow
  • 4th party congress in August / September 1955 in Schwerin
  • 5th party congress in July 1957 in Leipzig
  • 6th party congress in May 1960 in Güstrow
  • 7th party congress in Schwerin in May 1963
  • 8th party congress in May 1968 in Magdeburg
  • 9th party congress in May 1972 in Schwerin
  • 10th party congress in May 1977 in Schwerin
  • 11th party congress in May 1982 in Suhl
  • 12th party congress in April 1987 in Rostock
  • AO. Party congress on 27./28. January 1990 in Berlin
  • ZDK on September 15, 1990 in Borkheide

people

Party leader

Chairwoman of the regional associations 1948–1952

Chair of the district associations

Chairwoman of the regional associations in 1990

literature

  • Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from Above. The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948–1963 (=  Studies on Contemporary History. Vol. 64). Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56703-9 .
  • Andreas Herbst (eds.), Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked. Volume 1: Lexicon of organizations and institutions, departmental union management , League for Friendship between Nations (= rororo-Handbuch. Vol. 6348). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-16348-9 , pp. 182-186.
  • Wolfgang Jäger , Michael Walter: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany (DBD) in the transformation process 1989/90. In: Historical-Political Messages. Vol. 4, 1997, pp. 141-168 ( PDF; 2.7 MB ).
  • Konrad Kühne: The beginnings of the DBD. In: Jürgen Frölich (Ed.): “Bourgeois” parties in the Soviet Zone / GDR. On the history of CDU, LDP (D), DBD and NDPD 1945 to 1953. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-8046-8813-6 , pp. 89-102.
  • Peter Joachim Lapp : Sale. The end of the bloc parties. Edition Ost, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-932180-58-5 .
  • Peter Joachim Lapp: The "friendly parties" of the SED. GDR block parties today. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-8046-8699-0 .
  • Christel Nehrig: Role, Significance and Effectiveness of the Block Parties - The DBD. In: German Bundestag (Hrsg.): Materials of the Enquete Commission "Processing the history and consequences of the SED dictatorship in Germany". Vol. II / 4. Nomos, Baden-Baden, ISBN 3-7890-4034-7 , pp. 2375-2398.
  • Christoph Wunnicke: The block parties of the GDR. Continuities and Transformation 1945–1990 (=  series of publications by the Berlin State Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR. Vol. 34). LStU Berlin, Berlin 2014, pp. 95–111 ( PDF; 434 kB ).

Web links

Commons : Democratic Peasant Party of Germany  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from above: The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany 1948–1963, Oldenbourg Verlag, 2009, p. 11 [1]
  2. ↑ a b Klaus Schroeder : Der SED-Staat , Böhlau Verlag, 2013, p. 46 ISBN 978-3-412-21109-7
  3. ↑ Stefan Wolle : The ideal world of dictatorship , p. 111
  4. ↑ Uwe Müller , Grit Hartmann: Forward and forget! Cadres, informers and accomplices: The dangerous legacy of the SED dictatorship , Rowohlt Berlin, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3-871-346233 , pp. 113–115