All-German party

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Advertising poster of the DP / GDP / BHE

The All-German Party (short name: GDP ) came into being on April 15, 1961 from the merger of the All-German Bloc / Federation of Expellees and Disenfranchised (GB / BHE) and the German Party (DP) . After the lost federal election in 1961 (2.8%), the merger was effectively over, as the majority of the DP supporters withdrew and some even revived the DP. In fact, the GDP from the beginning of 1962 was just a GB / BHE under a new name. From 1965 it operated under the name All-German Party of Germany (GPD).

From 1965 to 1969, the GPD was represented in the German Bundestag by four members who had obtained their mandate through electoral alliances with other parties: Hermann Ahrens , Heinz Kreutzmann (both as guests of the SPD parliamentary group), Walter Becher and Herbert Prochazka (both as guests of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group). In the 1969 Bundestag election , the GPD ran independently again, but only achieved 0.1 percent - a sign of how much the expellees had meanwhile been integrated into West German society and no longer supported their own interest representation in party form (the expellees' associations continued to have considerable influence) deemed necessary.

Development in individual federal states

Lower Saxony

The previous DP state chairman Richard Langeheine became Lower Saxony state chairman of the GDP after the merger of DP and GB / BHE in 1961. He campaigned for a continuation of the cooperation with the CDU at the state level. The former GB / BHE members within the GDP wanted, however, to continue the coalition with the SPD and FDP . This led to considerable differences within the GDP. At the meeting of the state committee from October 29 to 31, 1961, the party decided with a narrow majority to respect the coalition agreement concluded by the GB / BHE in 1959. Langeheine then joined the CDU with his supporters (18 of the 20 MdL ) by March 29, 1962. Other members under the leadership of Wilhelm-Ernst Freiherr von Cramm revived the DP and, like the GDP, ran for the state election on June 19, 1963 . Both parties failed.

Hesse

The only electoral success of the GDP in a state election was the six seats that were obtained in the elections in Hesse in 1962 . As a result, despite the absolute majority of the SPD, the GDP was involved in the Zinn IV cabinet with Agriculture Minister Gustav Hacker .

Party leader

• 1961–1962 Frank Seiboth and Herbert Schneider (equal rights)
• 1962–1975 Hermann Ahrens
• 1975–1978 Rudibert Schneider
• 1978–1981 Gerhard Schuchart