Alsatian Progressive Party

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The Alsatian Progressive Party had been the national organization of the Progressive People's Party in the realm of Alsace-Lorraine since 1912 .

prehistory

The liberals in the realm of Alsace-Lorraine were deeply divided after the Franco-German War . The population of the realm of Alsace-Lorraine was almost 3/4 Catholic. Catholic politicians therefore determined regional politics. The denomination of the population was also the main reason for the critical attitude of the population towards the empire and its Protestant emperor. Some of the liberals, such as Edouard Teutsch , Ernest Lauth and Jacques Kablé, represented autonomist positions as "protesters" and sought to close ranks with the Catholic politicians.

Another liberal movement around Carl August Schneegans was positive about the politics of the empire and positioned itself strictly anti-clerical.

First liberal electoral associations

The wings approached slowly at first. After the Reichstag election in 1890 , most of the liberal members of the Reichstag joined the faction of the National Liberal Party .

The association law of Alsace-Lorraine , adopted by France, provided for the formation of electoral associations only at constituency level. From the beginning of the 1890s, such associations were formed in various places. On July 28, 1895, Daniel Blumenthal founded the Alsace-Lorraine People's Party in Colmar , initially the most important of the early liberal parties in the Reichsland. For legal reasons, it was initially limited to the constituency of Colmar. In 1892, Oskar Jerschke founded the Alsace-Lorraine Citizens' Association in Strasbourg. After the legal restrictions fell, this party expanded nationwide. On October 11, 1903, 11 liberal constituency associations merged to form the Liberal State Party on the initiative of the citizens' association . Gustav Adolf Götz became the first chairman, Georg Wolf deputy , who was to serve as chairman from 1907. In 1907 the liberal state party had 24 affiliated associations and 9,000 members.

Alsace-Lorraine People's Party expanded from January 1904 to the whole of the Reich.

Merger to form the Alsatian Progressive Party

On May 12, 1912, the Alsace-Lorraine People's Party and the Liberal State Party merged to form the Alsatian Progressive Party. The Strasbourg judicial councilor Gustav-Adolph Riff became the first chairman . In 1914 the party had about 56 local chapters and about 9,000 members.

The Alsatian Progressive Party was limited to Alsace. In the district of Lorraine , the formed Lothringische Progressive Party .

Eleven members of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary group joined the parliament of the Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine , which was elected in 1911 .

After the end of the Reichsland

With the French occupation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1918, the history of the Alsatian Progressive Party also ended.

literature

  • Hermann Hiery : Reichstag elections in the Reichsland. A contribution to the regional history of Alsace-Lorraine and the electoral history of the German Empire 1871–1918 (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties. 80). Droste, Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-7700-5132-7 , pp. 97-100, (also: Freiburg (Breisgau), University, dissertation, 1984).