German Liberal Party

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The German Liberal Party , and Constitution Party or German Liberal Constitutional Party called, was a bourgeois political party in Austro-Hungarian Empire . Their outstanding personalities were involved in or shaped by the revolution of 1848 .

background

The policy of the German liberals was shaped by opposition to the Catholic clergy ( Kulturkampf ) and due to their demand to consolidate the German-speaking population as part of the German nation in a German state ( Greater German Solution ), based on a conflict with the Slavs, which was particularly caused by disputes was shaped by the acquis. The German liberals received the greatest support from the urban intelligentsia, who feared a preponderance of the Slavic peoples in the monarchy.

The German Liberal Party played a key role in the termination of the Concordat in 1855 and in the adoption of the December constitution on December 21, 1867, which, with the Austro-Hungarian compromise, made the Austrian multi-ethnic state the " dual monarchy " Austria-Hungary . The party then had the majority in the House of Representatives from 1867 to 1879 and dominated several governments, in particular the mayor ministries under Karl von Auersperg , Eduard Taaffe , Ignaz von Plener and Leopold Hasner von Artha .

The ongoing struggle against political Catholicism and the Slavic nationalities of the monarchy, together with the economic crisis of 1873, led to the decline of the party and the loss of government power. The party was split up into several parts, which resulted in several German-freedom and German-national parties. From 1879 the party was no longer involved in government under Eduard Taaffe . Taaffe was more willing to make concessions to the Slavic nationalities, which led to the strengthening of the German National Movement . The remaining supporters of the German Liberal Party were later called "Old Liberals". The constitutional party merged in 1881 with the Progress Club on the " United Left ", which, however, split again in 1885 into the German-Austrian and German Club , only to merge again in 1888 to form the United German Left .

Known members

literature

  • Leopold Kammerhofer (ed.): Studies on German liberalism in Zisleithanien 1873-79. Vienna 1992.
  • Diethild Harrington-Müller: The Progress Club in the House of Representatives of the Austrian Reichsrat 1873-1910 . (= Studies on the History of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy , 11). Vienna 1972.
  • Georg Franz-Willing: Liberalism. The German Liberal Movement in the Habsburg Monarchy. Munich 1955.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German Liberal Party , in the Österreich-Lexikon , accessed on December 9, 2015
  2. ↑ Michaela Scharf: The rise and fall of liberalism. In: Die Welt der Habsburg , accessed December 9, 2015.
  3. ↑ Bruno Schimetschek: The Austrian official. History and tradition. Oldenbourg, Munich 1984, p. 183.