German Reich Party (1950)

This article deals with the German Reich Party of the Federal Republic of Germany. For the German Reich Party as a parliamentary group in the Reichstag of the German Empire, see Deutsche Reichspartei (from 1871) .

The German Reich Party (DRP) , its own spelling German Reich Party , was a West German right-wing extremist party that existed between 1950 and 1965. In terms of party programs, the DRP was primarily oriented towards the extreme, nationalist wing of Weimar conservatism , represented by the German National People's Party , for example , and was at times represented in state parliaments (Lower Saxony, Bremen, Rhineland-Palatinate).

history

The German Nazi Party came in early 1950 from a merger of Lower Saxony, the German right-wing party, a regional association of the German Conservative Party - German right-wing party (DKP-DRP), with the only in Hessen active National Democratic Party (NDP) out. The union of both groups took place in Kassel. The DRP was represented in the Bundestag until 1953, as part of the members of the German right-wing party had joined it, including the later DRP and NPD chairman Adolf von Thadden .

In 1951 and 1955 the DRP was elected to the Lower Saxony state parliament.

In 1953 there was at times the intention of a party ban proceedings, which, however, were not initiated. In contrast, the more radical Socialist Reich Party (SRP) was banned in 1952. In the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1959 , the DRP managed to jump over the 5 percent threshold (5.1%). She sent only one member to the state parliament. The two DRP members Arnold Strunk and Paul Schönen smeared anti-Semitic slogans on the recently inaugurated synagogue in Cologne on Christmas Eve 1959 . The act found numerous imitators in the federal territory and fueled demands for prohibition. The DRP regional association Rhineland-Palatinate was banned in 1960 as the successor organization to the SRP. In elections, the DRP was unsuccessful and lost in importance during the period of its existence. In November 1964 she formed the NPD together with parts of the All-German Party (GDP), the DNVP founded by Heinrich Fassbender in 1962 and the DP Bremen in Hanover . When the NPD proved to be more successful than the DRP in elections in 1965, the DRP dissolved.

Leaders

Party flag of the DRP

The establishment was largely driven by Alexander Andrae , Oskar Lutz , Hans-Bernhard von Grünberg , Wilhelm Meinberg , Otto Hess , Hans Schikora , Heinrich Kunstmann and Adolf von Thadden . Many of the founders had been members of the NSDAP before 1933 . Other well-known members of the party were the former SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Kernmayr , the National Socialist lawyer Friedrich Grimm , the writer Hans Grimm (people without space) , the Luftwaffe colonel a. D. Hans-Ulrich Rudel , who ran for the party in the federal election campaign in 1953 as a top candidate, and the publisher Karl Waldemar Schütz . The DRP saw itself as a gathering movement for former NSDAP members and representing the interests of former members of the Wehrmacht .

Program

According to its name, the DRP demanded the restoration of the German Empire founded by Otto von Bismarck in 1867/1871 . A division of Germany rejected it. According to the DRP, a reunified Germany should include not only the four zones of occupation or the Federal Republic, SBZ / GDR and Berlin, but also the former German eastern territories and be free from “foreign occupation”. The restoration of the German Reich within the minimum limits of 1937 was the most important item on the DRP's agenda.

In addition, the DRP campaigned strongly for the interests of German agriculture, in which a large part of the DRP voters were employed. In Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate in particular, the DRP had its focus on rural Protestant areas. In addition to the fixation on the fallen Reich, anti-communism was also important to the DRP . In addition, one campaigned against coming to terms with the Nazi past .

Furthermore, a “closed blood and fate community of the Germans” and the creation of a “nationally homogeneous” empire were propagated and talked about of the “ Auschwitz lie ”. Even anti-Semitic attitudes were common among the members.

The DRP saw the task of women in the mother role and not only rejected full equality for women, but wanted z. B. know that women's employment is limited to emergencies only.

Party newspapers

The journalistic organ (member newspaper) of the DRP was the Reichsruf .

Election results

• Bundestag elections

Bundestag election 1953 : 295,739 votes (second vote), 1.1%

The DRP took part in only 6 out of 9 federal states.

Bundestag election 1957 : 308,564 votes (second vote), 1.0% (−0.1)

Bundestag election 1961 : 262,977 votes (second vote), 0.8% (−0.2)

• State elections

Bavaria

1958: 56,864 votes, 0.6%

Bremen

1959: 14,689 votes, 3.8%

1963: List connection with the German Party (DP), 5.1% (4 seats)

Hamburg

1953: 7,466 votes, 0.7%

1957: 4,109 votes, 0.4% (−0.3)

1961: 9,045 votes, 0.9% (+0.5)

Hesse

1950: 1,989 votes, 0.1%

1958: 16,178 votes, 0.6%

Lower Saxony (see DRP Lower Saxony )

1951: 74,017 votes, 2.2% (3 seats)

1955: 126,692 votes, 3.8% (+1.6) (6 seats)

1959: 122,062 votes, 3.6% (−0.2)

1963: 52,785 votes, 1.5% (−2.1)

North Rhine-Westphalia

1950: 107,104 votes, 1.7%

1958: 43,299 votes, 0.5%

Rhineland-Palatinate (see DRP Rhineland-Palatinate )

1951: 7,185 votes, 0.5%

1959: 87,349 votes, 5.1% (1 seat)

1963: 56,155 votes, 3.2% (−1.9)

Saarland

1960: 3,325 votes, 0.6%

Schleswig-Holstein

1950: 37,115 votes, 2.8%

1954: 17,318 votes, 1.5% (−1.3)

1958: 12,950 votes, 1.1% (−0.4)

In Baden-Württemberg and West Berlin , the DRP did not run for state elections.

literature

• Kurt P. Tauber: Beyond the eagle and swastika. German nationalism since 1945 , 2 volumes. Middletown, Conn. 1967.
• Peter Dudek, Hans-Gerd Jaschke: Origin and development of right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic , 2 volumes. Opladen 1984.
• Kurt Hirsch: Right from the Union. 1989, ISBN 3-926901-22-5 .
• Oliver Sowinski: The German Reich Party 1950-1965. Organization and ideology of a right-wing radical party. Frankfurt am Main 1998.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Swastikas in the Federal Republic - Hour of the Greasy Finches , Peter Maxwill, December 9, 2014, Spiegel Online
2. ↑ "Deutsche Reichspartei." In: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus . Hostility to Jews in the past and present. Volume 5: Organizations, Institutions, Movements. de Gruyter, Berlin 2012, p. 160 ff.
3. ↑ Kurt Hirsch: Right from the Union ; 1989, p. 50.