German Democratic Party of the Saar region

The German Democratic Party of the Saar was a party in the 1920 to 1935 by the German Reich separated Saar . It was the sister party of the German Democratic Party and represented left-liberal positions.

On the Saar, the center party of the Saar area (78% of the population were Catholic) and the Social Democratic Party of the Saar area were the leading parties. The liberal and bourgeois forces were aware of this when the parties were formed for the election to the Weimar National Assembly on January 19, 1919.

The DDP, in which the left-wing liberals had gathered, and the national liberals therefore agreed to form a liberal-democratic working group. In this working group, the DDP was the stronger group. On the one hand, this was due to the fact that the largest newspaper in the Saar region, the Saarbrücker Zeitung , was close to the DDP. Second, the number of left-wing liberals was simply greater. The aim was to form a "solid front" against the "red tide" of the socialists.

In the election for the German National Assembly, the working group in Saarbrücken received 30% of the votes, in the Saarbrücken district it was around 15%. Even in the city council elections in June 1920, the action group stood together.

In 1922, the first elections to the Saar Regional Council took place. Here the National Liberals, renamed the Liberal People's Party in 1920 , and the DDP appeared separately. Now the strengths of the liberal parties in the Saar area became apparent. The DDP received 3.9% of the vote and one mandate, the Liberal People's Party 12.8% and four seats. The only member of the DDP was Oskar Scheuer .

Again, based on this election result, a merger of the liberal parties was discussed. In 1924, the Liberal People's Party merged with the DDP to form the German-Saarland People's Party .

literature

• Maria Zenner: Parties and politics in the Saar area under the League of Nations regime 1920–1935. Diss., Saarbrücken 1966, pp. 170-173