German-Baltic Democratic Party

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The German-Baltic Democratic Party ( DbDP ) was a party of the German minority in Latvia between 1917 and 1934.

The DbDP was founded on April 23, 1917 as the Democratic Party of Russian citizens of German nationality . It was founded during the First World War . At that time the Baltic States still belonged to the Russian Empire . With the February Revolution of 1917 , the tsarist rule came to an end and the newly come to power Kerensky bourgeois government planned the election of a constituent assembly . This did not happen, however, as the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Riga had already been captured by German armies in the battle for Riga in early September 1917. Under German rule, the party initially ceased its activities, but reactivated it again from November 1918 at the end of the war when the independent Republic of Latvia was proclaimed. On December 8, 1918, the name was changed to German-Baltic Democratic Party . The chairman was Johannes von Eckardt from April 23, 1917 to August 20, 1919 and Paul Schiemann from August 20, 1919 .

The party, which represented bourgeois positions in the center, appeared in elections to the Saeima as part of the committee of the Baltic German parties . It provided a total of three MPs: Paul Schiemann, Karl Keller and Walter Sadowsky .

After the coup d'état on May 15, 1934 , the parties, including the German-Baltic Democratic Party, were banned by Kārlis Ulmanis and the Saeima dissolved.

literature

  • Mads Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest - Statistical-Biographical Handbook of the Parliamentarians of the German Minorities in East Central and Southeastern Europe 1919-1945, Volume 1, 2nd Edition . Copenhagen 1991, ISBN 87-983829-3-4 , pp. 136 .