German Liberal Party

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Liberal Group in the Reichstag , 1889

The German Radical Party (also German-liberal party , DFP) was a Liberal party during the German Empire . It existed from 1884 to 1893.

Founded in 1884

The German Liberal Party was created on March 5, 1884 through the merger of the Liberal Association with the German Progressive Party . The union was approved by both parties at party conferences on March 15 and 16, 1884. The merger had already been negotiated and initiated in January 1884, a few days after the death of Eduard Lasker , between Eugen Richter (German Progressive Party) and Franz von Stauffenberg (Liberal Association). Its aim was to create a strong parliamentary group under Stauffenberg's leadership.

The Liberal Association had 46 seats ahead of the Association and the German Progressive Party 59 seats . The new party formed a central committee, which was essentially responsible for convening the party congress and for electing the members of the executive committee. Stauffenberg was elected chairman of the central committee, his deputies were Albert Hänel and Rudolf Virchow . The actual political leadership and organizational body, however, was the seven-member Select Committee, headed by Richter. His deputy was initially Heinrich Rickert and from 1890 Karl Schrader . They also included Hugo Hermes , Ludolf Parisius , Robert cell and Theodor Barth the Restricted to committee.

purpose

The more radical left-liberal judge (German Progressive Party) and the moderately left-liberal Stauffenberg (Liberal Association) mistakenly believed that the change of the throne of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm , who later became Emperor Friedrich III., Would take place in 1884 because of the poor health of the ultra-conservative , aged Emperor Wilhelm I. Imminent. With the merger to form the DFP, they wanted to create a sufficiently strong parliamentary platform for a left-liberal government of the future emperor, who was regarded as liberal. The British William Ewart Gladstone provided the model for their strategy . The liberal reform course ( parliamentarism ), from which Otto von Bismarck's government had turned away, was to be resumed.

Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm sent DFP member Ludwig Bamberger a congratulatory telegram on the founding of the new party. Leading members of the German Liberal Party - Schrader, Virchow, Stauffenberg and others - believed that the Crown Prince would support the liberal DFP on its anti-Bismarck course and entrust them with the government after his accession to the throne. The DFP was therefore initially called by some the "Crown Prince Party".

Election results

From March 6, 1884, both parties formed the second largest parliamentary group in the Reichstag after the German Center Party with 100 members . The strategists of the DFP had hoped to win additional seats in the elections in October 1884 . This calculation didn't work out. The majority of the voters were not ready to vote for a left-wing liberal party against Reich Chancellor Bismarck. A few months after it was founded, the new DFP lost a third of its mandates in the Reichstag elections on October 28, 1884. She received 17.6% of the vote and only 65 seats. In the Reichstag elections in 1887 , the number of seats was halved again to 32, only to become apparent in the Reichstag elections in 1890 , after the death of Emperor Friedrich III. and after Bismarck's resignation, more than doubling again to 66 mandates.

program

The DFP represented a left-liberal program (as understood at the time) of the unrestricted implementation of the constitutional guarantees, the parliamentarization of the constitutional monarchy , the safeguarding of freedom of the press , assembly and association , the separation of church and state and finally the equality of all religious communities (including the Jewish ).

In addition, she advocated massive tax cuts , the abolition of Bismarck's protective tariff policy and the strengthening of workers' self-help associations. It vehemently rejected Bismarck's and the socialists ' proposed social laws because, in Richter's opinion, they weakened the workers' initiative to help themselves.

"Crown Prince Party" until 1888

Although the liberal Anglo-Saxon understanding of Crown Princess Victoria stood by its declared intention to help the DFP to the government, supported Crown Prince Frederick the left-liberal DFP de facto not. Unlike Stauffenberg, with whom he exchanged views, he was more like Georg von Siemens only to a limited extent liberal. Under the influence of his wife, he had abandoned the ultra-conservative views of his youth and developed some liberal insights. In contrast to the practice of Bismarck and the convictions of the conservatives, for example, he was in favor of compliance with the imperial constitution , for an improvement in popular education and for the right to freedom of expression (freedom of the press), but he was opposed to any left-liberal course that would rule out the power of parliament on the English model sought to increase at the expense of the influence of the crown.

When Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm was seriously ill as Emperor Friedrich III in 1888. ascended the throne for 99 days, he dismissed the conservative Prussian interior minister Robert von Puttkamer , Bismarck's brother-in-law . Otherwise he did nothing against the Reich Chancellor or for the liberals. His son, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was completely averse to liberalism. The death of Friedrich III. on June 15, 1888, all political hopes of the Liberals ended. In August 1888, the free-spirited MP Schrader wrote to Stauffenberg that the popular Emperor Friedrich III. kept alive in the minds of the people as a fighter for a better future emanating from the people. This is how the so-called "Kaiser-Friedrich-Legende", also actively supported by Empress Victoria, arose: Friedrich III. I wanted liberal freedoms for the German people all my life, contrary to his father's ideas and the actions of Bismarck, and therefore actively supported liberal politics. Had he lived longer, he would have made Germany as free and prosperous as England . Historians doubt the view that Friedrich III. would have supported a development “that emanates from the people”, that is, a development controlled by the Reichstag and not by God's grace , that is, by the emperor.

Split of the liberal in 1893

Despite the relative success in the Reichstag election in 1890, internal party tensions between the left wing of the former progressives and the right wing of the former secessionists continued to grow. Stauffenberg, who always had a balancing effect on Richter, withdrew from politics in 1892 to one of his country seats in Württemberg . On May 6, 1893, the smoldering conflict finally surfaced when Reichstag members Max Broemel , Hugo Hinze , August Maager , Alexander Meyer , Hugo Schroeder and Georg von Siemens no longer wanted to follow the course prescribed by Richter and for an army bill from the Chancellor Leo von Caprivi voted. As a reason for their voting behavior, they cited that the joint party program of 1884 required a decision in favor of this proposal. Immediately after the clash of votes, Richter demanded the exclusion of the six dissenters from the parliamentary group, which the parliamentary group members approved - albeit with a narrow majority. A few days later, the supporters of the army bill received unexpected support, as other former secessionists such as Theodor Barth, Heinrich Rickert or Karl Schrader as well as a group of old progressives led by Albert Hänel declared their departure from the party and then formed the liberal association with the apostates . The remaining left wing of the party around Richter, meanwhile, constituted itself as the Liberal People's Party .

The real reasons for the split, however, lay deeper. The two previous parties - the Progressive Party and the Liberal Association - never really grew together in terms of content and organization and after their merger they formed a left and right wing respectively. The tension between the two wings had almost always been unbearable. With the death of Emperor Friedrich III. the last hopes of an assignment to form a government had evaporated, and Bismarck's resignation meant the loss of a common enemy. Furthermore, after Stauffenberg's withdrawal there was no one left to moderate the radical left-liberal judge. Thus in 1893 there was again a split in party political left-wing liberalism. It was not until 1910 that the two parties found their way back together when, as a result of repeated electoral defeats, they merged with the German People's Party to form the Progressive People's Party , which was finally merged into the German Democratic Party in 1918 .

Known members

Party documents

  • Parliamentary correspondence. From the Liberal Party. Organ of the party for communications from the Central Committee and the executive committee for election correspondence . Berlin 1876–1888
  • Club calendar of the German Liberal Party . Isaac, Berlin 1884-1892
  • Eugen Richter: The Reich Chancellor and the German Liberal Party. The speeches of Prince Bismarck and the answer of the deputy Eugen Richter in the session of the Reichstag on May 9, 1884 . "Progress", Berlin 1884.
  • Party congress for Southwest Germany. German Liberal Party on May 31, 1891 in the premises of the Zoological Garden in Frankfurt a. Main. Compilation of the speeches held in the general meeting and at the banquet according to the instructions of the Association of the Progressive Party in Frankfurt a. Main recorded stenographic reports . Baumbach, Frankfurt a. Main 1891.

literature

  • Wolther von Kieseritzky : Liberalism and the welfare state. Liberal politics in Germany between the power state and the labor movement (1878-1893) , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Vienna 2002 (= Industrial World , Vol. 62), ISBN 3-412-07601-5 .
  • Heinz Edgar Matthes: The split in the National Liberal Party and the development of left-wing liberalism up to the dissolution of the German Liberal Party (1878-1893). A contribution to the history of the crisis in German political liberalism. Diss. Phil., Kiel 1953 (Ms.), DNB 480410763 .
  • Urs Müller-Plantenberg : Freedom after Bismarck's fall. An attempt on the difficulties of the liberal bourgeoisie in attaining power and political influence in Wilhelmine Germany. Diss. Phil., FU Berlin 1971 (Ms.), DNB 720365201 .
  • Hermann Robolsky : The German Radicals. Eugen Richter, Heinrich Rickert, Professor Hänel, Professor Virchow, Max von Forckenbeck, Freiherr Schenk von Stauffenberg, Ludwig Bamberger, Ludwig Löwe, Professor Mommsen. (= The German Reichstag. Volume 1). Renger, Leipzig 1884.
  • Adolf Rubinstein: The German Liberal Party until it broke up (1884-1893). Lichtwitz, Berlin 1935, DNB 571117724 .
  • Gustav Seeber: German Liberal Party (1884-1893). In: Dieter Fricke et al. (Ed.): Lexicon for the history of parties. Vol. 1. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1983, DNB 850223156 , pp. 657-666.
  • Gustav Seeber : Between Bebel and Bismarck. On the history of left liberalism in Germany, 1871–1893. Academy, Berlin (East) 1965, DNB 454631855 .
  • Ursula Steinbrecher: Liberal party organization with special consideration of left-wing liberalism 1871-1893. A contribution to German party history. Kleikamp, ​​Cologne 1960, DNB 480975337 .

Web links

Commons : German Freedom Party  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ No. 1.1876 (November 8th) to 25.1877 (February 6th) Vol. 1.1877.1 (February 27th) - 8.1884, 3 (March 7th) ?; New episode No. 1.1884 (April 10th) to 10.1888 (April 5th)?