Democratic Party of Austria

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The Democratic Party of Austria ( DPÖ ) was an Austrian party during the Second Republic , which mainly worked in Carinthia .

history

The roots of the party go back to the legitimist resistance against National Socialism . The "Democratic Party of Austria" was founded in 1945 and was recognized by the British occupying forces on July 14, 1945 . Alongside the SPÖ , KPÖ and ÖVP, it was the only party that was allowed to run for candidacy by the Allies in the year the Second Republic was founded. The DPÖ saw itself as a liberal party and was mainly aimed at small civil servants, white-collar workers, farmers and traders. Monarchists were also recognizable as a target group. The Nazi ideology was rejected. The party operated almost exclusively from Carinthia, its headquarters were in Klagenfurt.

In the year it was founded, the party took part in the regional elections in Carinthia and in the National Council election. While the DPÖ won 3.3% and one mandate in the state elections with 5953 votes, it was not enough to win a mandate in the National Council election with 5972 votes and 0.18%. The Carinthian state parliament mandate went to the noble landowner and party chairman Franz Knapitsch .

With the election of Knapitsch there was also the rapid decline of the DPÖ. While some members came from the anti-fascist resistance, this was not the case with Knapitsch. Knapitsch was arrested in January 1946 because Nazi material as well as sliding goods were stored on his farm. In addition, he had not registered as a former member of the NSDAP , which he must have been a member since 1938. The state parliament then approved Knapitsch's extradition and declared his mandate to have expired. In addition, the DPÖ was temporarily banned from operating by the British military government. At the national level, they allied themselves with the Democratic Union (DU) before the cooperation was ended again in 1948. A legal battle for several years over the lost mandate followed. In 1948 the Constitutional Court finally granted the mandate to the new DPÖ chairman Josef Ostertschnig .

When the regional elections in Carinthia and the National Council election were held again in 1949, the DPÖ withdrew from the election in favor of the ÖVP four days before the election date. Since the party lists could no longer be changed at short notice, the party received 5 votes each. This marked the political end of the DPÖ. Former functionaries partly switched to the Association of Independents (VdU) , and occasionally to the Democratic Union (DU) . The majority no longer appeared in party politics.

The party organs were the Carinthian weekly papers Der Demokratie and Mondays-Kurier.

literature

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