German National Party (Czechoslovakia)
The German National Party (DNP) was founded on September 21, 1919 in Olomouc . In it, German-nationally minded citizens of the newly formed Czechoslovakia united . It was mainly in the tradition, partly also in the personal continuity of the German Radical Party in Austria-Hungary .
As a result of the Peace Treaty of Saint-Germain , the approx. 3.5 million Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia were prevented from integrating the areas they inhabited into German Austria or the German Empire . Since its foundation, the German National Party has fought against this decision by refusing to cooperate constructively in the political affairs of Czechoslovakia ( negativism ).
At first it saw itself as a collecting tank for all residents of the new state of German descent, but was never able to realize this claim and was chosen mainly by the urban bourgeoisie.
The first party chairman was the Komotau mayor Ernst Storch , followed in 1921 by Gustav Doberauer .
A formative personality and from 1922 also party chairman was Rudolf Lodgman von Auen . He was initially able to commit a large part of the Sudeten German population and members of other German parties to the negativist policy. In the 1920 elections, the DNP received 328,735 votes (5.3% of the vote) and 12 of 300 seats in the House of Representatives and six senators . Together with the German National Socialist Workers' Party (DNSAP), which received 5 mandates (and 2 senators), Lodgman founded the “German Electoral Community” in the Prague parliament, which repeatedly demanded the separation of the German-speaking areas from the state association or at least extensive autonomy.
With the consolidation of the Czechoslovak Republic in the 1920s, the influence of the DNP and the Lodgmans waned. He tried to form a Sudeten German "united front" on the basis of negativism before the parliamentary elections in 1925, but failed.
In these elections, the DNP's share of the vote fell to 3.4%, which corresponded to 10 seats (and 5 senators). Lodgman saw this as a rejection of his policy and withdrew from parliamentary events and from the party chairmanship. This was taken over by Heinrich Brunar .
In this parliamentary term in which the activist parties - i. H. Those who resigned themselves to the existence of Czechoslovakia in its given form and tried to improve the situation of the Sudeten Germans through government participation - found themselves on the upswing, the importance of the DNP continued to decline.
From 1926 to 1929 Wilhelm Pleyer was Gau managing director of the German National Party.
In the parliamentary elections of 1929 the party still achieved 2.5% of the votes and 7 seats (6 from the DNP and 1 from the SdLB, with which a common list had been agreed) but no senator, whereupon Brunar also withdrew from the party leadership. which passed to the mayor of Aussig , Karl Schöppe .
In the course of the electoral successes of the NSDAP in the German Reich, the existence of German nationalist parties such as the DNP and the DNSAP became threatening for the Czechoslovak Republic. After Adolf Hitler's " seizure of power " in Germany on January 30, 1933, the Czechoslovak government planned to ban both parties. The DNP and the DNSAP anticipated this ban on October 3, 1933 by dissolving themselves.
The DNP was re-admitted in 1935 and ran under Otto Horpynka and Ernst Schollich in the parliamentary elections that took place in the same year, but could no longer win a mandate. The reason for this was the massive strengthening of the Sudeten German home front founded by Konrad Henlein in 1933 . Until the fall of Czechoslovakia as a state in 1938/39, the DNP no longer played an essential role.
As party organs, the DNP published the Nordböhmisches Tagblatt (Teschen, since 1921), the Volksruf (weekly newspaper, since 1923) and the Brüxer Volkszeitung .
people
| Electoral term | MP | chamber | annotation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1920-1925 | Alois Baeran | House of Representatives | Mandate revocation on June 23, 1923 (successor: Alois Stenzl (DGWP)) |
| 1920-1925 | Heinrich Brunar | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Edwin Feyerfeil | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Othmar Kallina | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Josef Keibel | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Vincent Kraus | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Wenzel Lehnert | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Rudolf Lodgman | House of Representatives | Group leader |
| 1920-1925 | Franz Matzner | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Wilhelm Medinger | House of Representatives | January 11, 1923: Leaving the parliamentary group |
| 1920-1925 | Emmerich Radda | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Ernst Schollich | House of Representatives | |
| 1920-1925 | Karl Friedrich | senate | |
| 1920-1925 | Hans Hartl | senate | |
| 1920-1925 | Emma Herzig | senate | |
| 1920-1925 | Robert Meissner | senate | |
| 1920-1925 | August Naegle | senate | Group leader |
| 1920-1925 | Gustav Oberleithner | senate | |
| 1920-1925 | Carl Eugen Schmidt | senate | elected via CSLP, intern in the DNP |
| 1925-1929 | Otto Horpynka | House of Representatives | |
| 1925-1929 | Othmar Kallina | House of Representatives | |
| 1925-1929 | Josef Keibel | House of Representatives | Group leader until 1927 and from 1928 |
| 1925-1929 | August Koberg | House of Representatives | |
| 1925-1929 | Vincent Kraus | House of Representatives | Died March 25, 1926 (successor: Alfred Rosche) |
| 1925-1929 | Wenzel Lehnert | House of Representatives | |
| 1925-1929 | Franz Matzner | House of Representatives | |
| 1925-1929 | Ernst Schollich | House of Representatives | |
| 1925-1929 | Jerome Seal | House of Representatives | |
| 1925-1929 | Josefine Weber | House of Representatives | |
| 1925-1929 | Alfred Rosche | House of Representatives | from May 6, 1926 for Vinzenz Kraus / resignation from mandate on July 10, 1928 (successor: Rudolf Schneider) / parliamentary group chairman 1927–1928 |
| 1925-1929 | Rudolf Schneider | House of Representatives | from September 13, 1928 for Alfred Rosche |
| 1925-1929 | Heinrich Brunar | senate | Group leader |
| 1925-1929 | Karl Friedrich | senate | |
| 1925-1929 | Hans Hartl | senate | |
| 1925-1929 | Robert Huettner | senate | |
| 1925-1929 | Gustav Oberleithner | senate | |
| 1929-1935 | Georg Hanreich | House of Representatives | SdLB, left the parliamentary group on October 6, 1933 |
| 1929-1935 | Friedrich Hassold | House of Representatives | |
| 1929-1935 | Otto Horpynka | House of Representatives | |
| 1929-1935 | Othmar Kallina | House of Representatives | |
| 1929-1935 | Josef Keibl | House of Representatives | Resigned from the parliamentary group on October 10, 1933 |
| 1929-1935 | Franz Matzner | House of Representatives | |
| 1929-1935 | Ernst Schollich | House of Representatives | Group leader |
From November 5, 1933, the five remaining MPs formed the Club of German Nationalist MPs .
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 87-983829-1-8 , pp. 261-263.
Individual evidence
- ^ Norbert Linz: The internal structure of the German parties in the first decade of the ČSR . In: Karl Bosl (ed.): The democratic-parliamentary structure of the First Czechoslovak Republic . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich - Vienna 1975, pp. 201–223, here p. 220.
- ^ Norbert Linz: The internal structure of the German parties in the first decade of the ČSR . In: Karl Bosl (ed.): The democratic-parliamentary structure of the First Czechoslovak Republic . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich - Vienna 1975, pp. 201–223, here p. 221.