Free Democratic Party of the GDR

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Free Democratic Party of the GDR
Party leader Bruno Menzel
founding 4th February 1990
fusion August 11, 1990
(incorporated in: FDP )
Alignment liberalism

The Free Democratic Party of the GDR ( FDP ) was a liberal party that emerged in the course of the political change in the GDR .

history

The call for founding was made on November 25, 1989 in Berlin by the engineer Ralf Koch , which he had previously discussed with Wolfgang Mlecskowski , member of the FDP in West Berlin . This had 5,000 founding appeals printed, which Koch distributed in East Berlin . In the business premises of the BSG Einheit Friesen sports club on Marie-Curie-Allee in Lichtenberg, after the appeal was published in October 1989, regular meetings of interested citizens who wanted to help found the FDP took place. From December 20, 1989, Koch designed a party program for the FDP together with Werner Wiemann , also to prepare a founding party congress. An application to register and found the party was submitted in writing by Koch on December 28, 1989 to the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR. On January 5, 1990, the Bild newspaper as well as the Berliner Tagesspiegel reported on Koch and the party he was to found.

On January 18, 1990, Koch sent out invitations to the central founding party conference on February 4 in the HO-Restaurant Kreiskulturhaus "Peter Edel" (large conference room, Klement-Gottwald-Allee 125, 1120 Berlin / Weißensee). On January 27th, Koch invited to a preparatory meeting in the teacher's house in Berlin-Mitte. Opponents of Koch used this meeting to discredit him, although there were no indications of a possible Stasi activity, and to elect the LDPD member Bruno Menzel from Dessau as provisional chairman. Koch was later elected regional chairman of East Berlin.

On February 4, 1990, the GDR's FDP was officially founded; Bruno Menzel became chairman. However, the number of members of the party was very small. Own structures could hardly be established. Even the West German FDP paid more attention to the former block party LDPD with its over 100,000 members. On 12 February 1990, the FDP of the GDR came ahead of the first free parliamentary elections in 1990 the electoral coalition Alliance of Free Democrats (BFD) at. The BFD achieved 5.3% and 21 seats in the People's Chamber.

The parties of the BFD then took part in the last GDR government under Lothar de Maizière . On August 11, 1990, at an Extraordinary FDP federal party convention, the FDP, the German Forum Party and the Bund Free Democrats party (created through the merger of the LDPD and NDPD ) with the West German FDP to form the all-German FDP .

Web links

literature

  • Reiner Marcowitz: The difficult path to unity. The Union of German Liberals 1989/90. Wilhelm Külz Foundation, Dresden 2002, ISBN 3-9808018-0-2 .
  • Michael Walter: "It is spring and we are (so) free". LDP (D), NDPD, FDP and FDP of the GDR 1989/90. Ergon, Würzburg 1998, ISBN 3-932004-91-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Notes. In: Berliner Zeitung . January 27, 1990, p. 11.
  2. ↑ See letter from the BStU v. March 26, 2009, copy in the archive of liberalism, Gummersbach ÜP 3/2020 Ralf Koch.
  3. ↑ See FDP association with new contact addresses. In: Berliner Zeitung . February 14, 1990, p. 8.
  4. ^ Liberal deadline: The founding of the GDR FDP. In: Liberal deadlines. Archives of Liberalism , February 4, 2020, accessed February 5, 2020 .