German Progressive Party (Austria)

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The German Progressive Party was a German freedom party during the last two decades of the Habsburg Monarchy .

history

The German Progressive Party was founded between May and November 1896. The background to the founding of the party was the Germans' fear that the Badeni government would threaten them with a worse position on the language issue. As a kind of preventive measure, attempts were made to create a new, more powerful political organization in the camp of the liberal Germans, who had previously rallied politically in the United German Left . On June 29, 1896, a German Progressive Party was founded for the Crown Land of Bohemia , and a week later in Moravia and Lower Austria , others followed. The German Progressive Party should initially limit itself to the Crown Lands , the members of the Reichsrat still belonging to the United German Left. In November 1896, the Progress Party broke with the United German Left in the Reichsrat.

In the 1897 elections, the German Progressive Party won 27 seats, mainly in Bohemia. The faction grew to 35 members as a result of the dissolving United German Left. The Progress Party reacted to the Baden language ordinances - like other German parties - by obstructing the Reichsrat and the Bohemian Landtag . The elections of 1901 resulted in a decrease in the number of seats for the German Progressive Party in the Reichsrat from 36 to 32. In Bohemia, their home country, the party suffered a heavy defeat in favor of the Pan-Germans . In the Reichsrat elected for the first time in 1907 according to universal suffrage , the faction of the Progressive Party was halved to only 15 seats. In December 1908, the faction of the German Progressive Party merged with the German National Association and the German Radicals to form the German National Association. Initially, the individual fractions still existed. In February 1910, however, the sub-associations were dissolved, so that the former German progressives were finally absorbed in the German National Association.

literature

  • Lothar Höbelt : Cornflower and Imperial Eagle. The German freedom parties of Old Austria 1882–1918. Munich 1993.