History of the Ecological Democratic Party

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Current logo of the ÖDP

The history of the Ecological Democratic Party ( ÖDP for short , from 1997 to 2010 ödp ) has its origins in the CDU Bundestag member Herbert Gruhl . On July 12, 1978, after irreconcilable differences in environmental policy, he had turned his back on his party in order to found the Green Action Future (GAZ) one day later . This was the first party nationwide to focus on ecology and at the same time the nucleus of the ÖDP. At the beginning of 1980, the GAZ initially participated in the founding of the Greens , but broke away from them again in 1980/1981 in order to found the ÖDP with other environmental groups at the beginning of 1982.

Herbert Gruhl became the party's first federal chairman and was its dominant personality during this time. After an increasing alienation between him and the party base had already set in from the mid-1980s and the party had drawn up a resolution to delimit right-wing parties and positions against his will at the Saarbrücken party congress in 1989, he resigned from his office. The 1990s were marked by several turmoil within the party, with federal chairmen changing very quickly. In the new millennium there was a consolidation. Southern Germany, especially Bavaria, developed as the stronghold of the party. In the latter, it succeeded in establishing itself in some places at the municipal level.

prehistory

The CDU member of the Bundestag Herbert Gruhl

Main article: Herbert Gruhl

Herbert Gruhl (1921–1993) entered the Bundestag in 1969 for the CDU , which he joined in 1954. In 1971, Gruhl was the first member of the Bundestag to draw attention to the dying forest.

Herbert Gruhl

Within the parliamentary group, Gruhl was one of the few critics of nuclear energy. In 1975 his best known book A Planet is Plundered - The Horror Balance of Our Politics was published , which became a bestseller and received a lot of public attention. In November 1975 he also became chairman of the Federation for Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) , which had been founded a few months earlier ; he held this office until 1977.

At about the same time, he and the party began to become increasingly estranged. In autumn 1977, he told the journalist Franz Alt , the then moderator of the SDR telecast report , was with the CDU was no longer his political home. He judged Helmut Kohl , the chairman of the party and parliamentary group at the time:

“Cabbage is ecologically ignorant and insensitive. Party and parliamentary group are unilaterally believing in industry. "

- Herbert Gruhl in the autumn of 1977 to Franz Alt

However, Gruhl turned down Alt's suggestion to mediate between him and Kohl. The differences between Gruhl and the party led him to leave the party and the parliamentary group on July 12, 1978. At the same time he read an open letter to Kohl in Report , in which he accused Kohl of lacking sensitivity in ecological issues and in this context justified his resignation from the party.

Foundation of the Green Action Future (GAZ)

Main article: Green Action Future
The green manifesto , GAZ program

On July 13, 1978, just one day after leaving the CDU, Gruhl founded the Green Action Future (GAZ) ; this was the first nationwide party to focus on the environment . In addition to Gruhl, the party included several people who would later hold important offices in the ÖDP, including Michael Arends (* 1939), Edgar Guhde (1936–2017), Maria Opitz-Döllinger (1917–2007) and Bernhard Suttner ( * 1949). Other noteworthy members were Professor Heinz Kaminski (1921–2002), who became Deputy Federal Chairman, and Trude Unruh (* 1925), who later founded the party Die Grauen - Graue Panther .

The party manifesto was called The Green Manifesto . The headquarters of the federal office was Bonn. Through Gruhl, the GAZ was represented by one member in the Bundestag until 1980 . At the end of March 1979 the party had 1,800 members. The founding of the GAZ was received in two ways within the environmental protection movement; While Gruhl tried to counteract the fragmentation of the movement, other representatives considered the founding of the party, which had taken place without consultation with other environmental organizations and without the existence of local associations, to be a violation of grassroots democratic principles.

The GAZ achieved 0.9% in the state elections in Hesse in 1978 , and 1.8% in Bavaria together with the Action Group of Independent Germans (AUD) and citizens' initiatives under the code (short name) Die Grünen . Since the election results of other ecological groups were reflected in the same order of magnitude, the efforts to get them to unite intensified. On the occasion of the European elections in 1979, the GAZ was involved in the founding of the party alliance Other Political Association Die Grünen , which received 3.2% of the vote; Together with Petra Kelly (1947–1992), Gruhl was the top candidate.

GAZ participation in the founding of the Greens and detachment (1980/1981)

The GAZ participated in the founding of the Greens at the beginning of 1980, but still formally retained its independence. In the run-up to the founding of the party, Gruhl, together with August Haußleiter from the Action Group for Independent Germans (AUD) and Helmut Neddermeyer from the GLU, which is active in Lower Saxony , had been elected as one of the three speakers by the other political association . Their mandate was initially extended at the founding party conference in Karlsruhe.

As a conservative wing of the party, however, the GAZ soon fell behind with its positions and complained that the influence of political forces on the far left had become too strong, which, according to them, was mainly reflected in the program adopted at the Green Party Congress in Saarbrücken in March 1980 . In their opinion, too little space was given to the subject of the environment. In addition, Gruhl was not elected to the program commission: Although he had the majority of votes behind him in the battle vote against Otto Schily and Dieter Burgmann in the first ballot, he was defeated in the runoff because Schily withdrew his candidacy and made a recommendation for Burgmann . In March, the GAZ, together with the Schleswig-Holstein Green List and the Bremen Green List, formed the Working Group on Ecological Policy for the Greens (AGÖP) , which was supposed to form a kind of internal party opposition.

When at the party convention in Dortmund on 21./22. June 1980 finally revealed the left dominance of the Greens, the GAZ withdrew from the party. She then formed the Green Federation with the said environmental groups, which the Greens also felt to be too left, on July 16 of the same year , which was a loose association with the aim of founding a party and was later renamed the Ecological Federation . Some time later, the Hamburg Green List joined this "federation". In 1980 and 1981, the participants gradually left the Greens. On October 10th and 11th, 1981, a so-called “representatives' meeting” took place in Frankfurt am Main . On this it was determined that the requirements for the formation of a new party had been met.

The Gruhl era (1982–1989)

Party logo from 1982 to 1997

Party formation

On January 23 and 24, 1982 the Ecological Federation in Wiesbaden finally founded the Ecological Democratic Party , abbreviated as ÖDP (today ÖDP ), at a non-public federal party conference . The party name had been suggested by Maria Opitz-Döllinger , who was to hold important party offices in the following years. In addition, the party adopted its basic program. The first regional associations were founded in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in October 1981 . At the time of its founding, the ÖDP had around 1750 members.

At their first public federal party conference, which took place on March 6th and 7th of the same year in Bad Honnef , Gruhl was able to prevail against Heidrun Hamatschek, the Lower Saxony state chairman of the ÖDP, in a vote with 101 to 32 votes in the election of the federal chairman. In his inaugural speech, which was used as a promotional tool for years, Gruhl uses an ethic of renunciation to differentiate the position of the new party from the “revealing promises” of the Greens, but also from the parties that call themselves Christian or conservative:

“If so-called Christian politicians had read the Bible , they would have come across the sentence in Matthew 6, verse 24:“ You cannot serve God and Mammon ”. For us I draw the conclusion: Let us not call ourselves Christian, but rather act Christian! On the other hand, we shouldn't be afraid to call ourselves conservative. Because being conservative means wanting to preserve. We want to preserve our environment, nature and thus our mother earth. To be conservative means to give preference to the living over the mechanical. "

- Herbert Gruhl

Gruhl was to hold the office of ÖDP federal chairman until 1989. Organic farmer Baldur Springmann from Geschendorf and Heidrun Hamatschek were elected Gruhl's deputies .

Building the party and voter turnout (1982–1988)

In October 1982 the first participation in a state election took place in Bavaria, where it was not yet present across the board and achieved 0.4%. That was only enough for speculation as to whether their first appearance was the decisive factor in the fact that the Greens narrowly missed the entry into the state parliament with 4.6%.

In 1983, the deputy federal chairman, Springmann, resigned from the party after being criticized internally for his “sectarian” views. In the same year, Ewald Gaul , then an assessor on the national board, independently published three issues of a paper called Ecology and Politics , which appeared as the official party newspaper from the following year and always contained an introductory article by Gruhl. In 1990, the Journal was in ecology policy renamed.

In 1984 the ÖDP took part in the European elections , which made it financially "on the verge of existence". In October 1986, participation in the state elections in Bavaria succeeded in gaining votes, but at 0.7% the result remained below the threshold for reimbursement of election campaign costs , which means that the financial situation remained precarious. Participation in the 1987 Bundestag election brought a wave of entries into the ÖDP of 200 members per month, but the reimbursement of election campaign costs again failed to materialize. In the same year, ten students in Bonn founded the Ecological-Democratic Students ( ÖDS ) , which formed the party's student organization and formed as an umbrella organization at the Saarbrücken party congress in 1989. In 2005 the association was dissolved.

In the state elections in Baden-Württemberg in 1988, the party achieved 1.4% of the vote, which was the first time it received state support. As a result, there were disputes that began with the question of who could claim this success for themselves. There was a dispute between Maria Opitz-Döllinger and Herbert Gruhl about the newly won funds. While the former wanted to receive a third of the money for their Baden-Württemberg regional association, Gruhl was of the opinion that previous agreements between the federal and regional associations would not be kept.

In addition, this respectable success caused increased public attention; In this context, the political left in particular often mentioned the ÖDP in the same breath as the REP and NPD . This, as well as the fact that Gruhl was increasingly accused from the mid-1980s of approaching more and more right-wing positions, gradually brought the party the accusation of " eco-fascism ". Corresponding criticism also came from the ranks of the Greens, especially from Jutta Ditfurth . While Gruhl tried to fend off opponents who were not to be taken seriously as criticism, it should play an increasing role in power struggles within the party.

Increasing internal party quarrels and the Saarbrücken party congress (1988/1989)

The quarrels that broke out were reflected in personnel issues, so that Party Vice-President Konrad Buchwald resigned from his position in 1988 on the grounds that "the situation in the ÖDP is very close to that of the Greens." With that, the ÖDP - a Gruhl affiliate - lost recognized competence in nature and environmental protection. Power struggles also flared up over the ÖDP state chairmanship in Baden-Württemberg, which Herbert Pilch held, who was also considered to be particularly loyal to Gruhl, in which he was only able to assert himself as vice chairman at the state party congress in Plochingen in 1988. The disputes over the direction were also fought in the federal executive committee, especially in papers for federal main committee meetings, in some cases very violently, and resulted in a temporary injunction for the omission of defamatory statements without truthfulness, which Gruhl bathed on February 14, 1989 - shortly before the Saarbrücken party congress - against the two- Wuerttemberg federal board members Maria Opitz-Döllinger and Peter Schröder obtained in court.

The federal party congress in Saarbrücken, which took place on February 18 and 19, 1989, turned out to be an acid test for the ÖDP. Personnel and directional decisions were linked. While Gruhl tried to explain the terms left and right in his party congress speech of October 1988 and to emphasize and consolidate his position as “nature conservative”, at the Saarbrücken party congress with over 90% of the delegates' votes, the “fundamental decision to differentiate the ÖDP from the right-wing parties ”. Gruhl could not share this decision on all points, as he saw the national "right to self-determination for ... all Germans" already asserted in the GAZ program The Green Manifesto in the sense of decreasing efforts to reunify Germany. In terms of content, the central statements of this resolution are, "The ÖDP rejects nationalism ", "Strengthening national consciousness is not the task of the ÖDP". The deselection of Schröder and Opitz-Döllinger failed, which is why Gruhl resigned from his position as federal chairman.

The successors in discussion were Hermann Bentele and Hans-Joachim Ritter , the Rhineland-Palatinate state chairman. The choice fell on Ritter because the delegates trusted him to act as an intermediary between the party base and Gruhl.

Turbulence in the 1990s

Hans-Joachim Ritter , Federal Chairman of the ÖDP from 1989 to 1993
Bernhard Suttner, state chairman in Bavaria since 1991

The Knight Era (1989-1993)

The new federal chairman, Hans-Joachim Ritter, succeeded in consolidating the party after the quarrels at the Saarbrücken party congress. During his tenure, he sought, among other things, a merger with Bündnis 90 and the Greens, but this failed because of the resistance of the latter.

On February 24, 1990, the Ecological Democratic Party of the GDR was founded in Coswig ; participation in the Volkskammer election failed due to unfortunate circumstances. Eight months later, it went into the ÖDP. The election results also increased significantly, although they remained well below the five percent clause . The state elections in Bavaria in 1990 gave the party 1.7%. In the Bundestag election in the same year it reached 0.44%. Since the west and east formed separate electoral areas for this first all-German election and more than 0.5% could be obtained in the west, it was fortunate - for the only time so far - to gain state funding after a federal election. At the end of 1990 Gruhl left the party together with the right wing, as the differences to the Greens remained too marginal for him and the result of the Bundestag election promised too little perspective. The remaining circle around Gruhl was largely involved with the Independent Ecologists of Germany (UÖD).

A few months later, the party achieved 0.9% in the Rhineland-Palatinate state election and thus just missed the hurdle for reimbursement of campaign costs. In 1992 the ÖDP in Baden-Württemberg under the state chairman, the theologian Verena Föttinger, who has been in office since 1991, reached 1.9%. It was the best result in a state election to date and the best outside of Bavaria to this day.

Two important personnel decisions were made in Bavaria in 1991: In April of this year, Urban Mangold from Passau became the full-time head of the regional office. At the state party conference in October, Bernhard Suttner was elected as the successor to Oswald Schönmüller as the new state chairman. Both Suttner and Mangold were to play a key role in the local political anchoring of their party in Bavaria and in the greatest successes in their history that resulted from them.

The Young Ecologists were also founded on September 5, 1992 and have since formed the party's youth organization. Before that, there had already been individual youth associations of the ÖDP at the municipal level, which were then absorbed into this association.

The super election year 1994

The party had great hopes and expectations in the “super election year” of 1994. The good election results in the late 1980s and early 1990s had given the “ecodemocrats” a relatively high financial budget, which they wanted to invest in the upcoming elections for a nationwide breakthrough. For this purpose, the ÖDP printed ten million leaflets, 50,000 posters and 150,000 programs. In addition, on March 11, 1994, it organized a rally against nuclear energy in the Meistersingerhalle in Nuremberg, which was attended by 1200 people.

Erwin Huber , then Secretary General of the CSU, wrote in 1994 that the 22-page pamphlet ÖDP - unreal ideas endanger the upswing, prosperity and social security

On the occasion of the upcoming European elections , she initiated a campaign against genetic engineering . In the course of this, she had printed a poster on which the voting behavior of all German MEPs with regard to the labeling of genetically modified food was shown. The campaign had to be broken off when the Bavarian state chairman Bernhard Suttner, the main participant in this action, was threatened with a fine of 500,000 DM. The European elections brought the party a slight plus of 0.8% compared to 1989 and the best result to date at federal level.

In the run-up to the Bavarian state elections in 1994 , the ÖDP also received considerable media attention; a poll by the Forsa Institute had seen the party at four percent. Accordingly, this attracted the interest of the television stations ZDF and RTL . Other parties also dealt with the goals of the ÖDP in the course of the election campaign. The Bavarian Greens published a brochure entitled The ÖDP in Bavaria - Danger for Alliance 90 // The Greens? - Tips for political and practical use . In this, its state chairman Gerald Häfner analyzed the success of the party in Bavaria. The CSU also paid increased attention to the ÖDP. Erwin Huber , then CSU general secretary, published the pamphlet ÖDP - Unreal ideas jeopardize the boom, prosperity and social security . With 2.1%, the party achieved its best result in state elections to date; nevertheless, it did not meet internal party expectations. In the federal election , which took place a month later , the ÖDP suffered a slight deterioration in the election result from 0.44% to 0.39%.

Changing federal chairperson (1993–1997)

Ritter founded the Foundation for Ecology and Democracy in 1992 and has been its chairman ever since. To avoid conflicts of interest with his new position, he stepped down as federal chairman in 1993. His successor was Bernd Richter from Schramberg , who at the same time was the first to exercise this office partly on a full-time basis. At that time, Edgar Guhde who was close since the GAZ Gruhl, placed in the part of the Federal Executive a special mistrust and Benedict stump as a "watchdog" to the office of the party organ ecology policy set; one of their editions was freshly printed because he and Hans-Joachim Ritter had two appreciative reviews of Jürgen Wüst's specialist book “Conservatism and Ecology Movement. An investigation into the tension between party, movement and ideology using the example of the ÖDP ”.

ödp logo from 1997 to 2007

As a result, the federal chairmanship changed frequently. In the run-up to the 1994 Bundestag election , a program was shown on television that dealt with the small parties running for election - including the ödp. The appearance of the then federal chairman Richter was judged within the party as completely unsupervised and criticized accordingly. Mainly because of this, he was defeated by the doctor Hans Mangold from Kempten (Allgäu) in the federal executive election one year later . Under the latter, the so-called corporate identity process began within the party; From 1997 onwards, the abbreviation was written in lower case. However, this measure was controversial within the party; in the following years there were often discussions about expressing the abbreviation in capital letters again. A new party logo was also introduced; this showed a half ö, which is supposed to represent a rising sun, with the words “Politics, which rises. ödp. "

Now Mangold's management style came under more and more criticism over time, which is why he was defeated in a 1997 battle vote by the Erdinger social worker and farmer Susanne Bachmaier , the first woman in this position. Around the same time, the party began a downward trend in many elections. In 1996, in her strongholds of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, she was unable to maintain her respectable election results of 1991 and 1992, respectively; in Rhineland-Palatinate it fell from 0.9% to 0.5% and in Baden-Württemberg from 1.9% to 1.5%. At the same time, the performance in Baden-Württemberg was the last time that the party received more than one percent - and thus state money - in a state election outside of Bavaria.

Popular initiative "Lean state without a Senate"

Main article: Referendum on the Bavarian Senate

In October 1996, the Bavarian ödp passed a fundamental resolution at its state party congress, according to which a referendum should be started with the aim of abolishing the Bavarian Senate . Although this initially received little attention in the press, the party received a letter from Walter Schmitt-Glaeser , the then President of the Senate, who suggested that it reconsider this project.

After the ödp had worked out a corresponding draft law, it collected the 25,000 signatures required for this in the following months in order to present them to the public on Political Ash Wednesday in February 1997. To achieve this goal, the signature collection was carried out even in extreme temperatures.

After that, the registration period from July 10th to 23rd had to be overcome, during which ten percent of all eligible voters had to register in the town halls. This was the prerequisite for the referendum to be carried out. After 10.5% of all eligible voters had registered on the reporting date, the referendum took place on February 8, 1998, which was successful with 69.2%.

The total of 60 senators then initially sued the Bavarian Constitutional Court against the dissolution of the Senate; However, on September 17, 1999, the latter declared the referendum to be valid.

Election defeats in 1998 and 1999

Not least because of the successful referendum "Lean State without Senate", which had brought the party greater media attention across Bavaria, as well as the fact that it had been able to continuously increase its state election results in Bavaria since it was founded in 1982, the party-internal expectations for the Bavarian election were In 1998 , this was all the more so as in May of that year a survey by the Wahlen research group found the ödp at 3%.

ödp poster from 1999

Accordingly, the decline in votes from 2.1% to 1.8% caused considerable confusion among the party base, although the party still achieved a better result than the FDP for the first - and so far only - time in a national election . In the 1998 Bundestag election two weeks later, the share of the vote was halved from 0.4% to 0.2%. Despite these two electoral defeats, the number of members reached its highest level in September 1998 at just under 7200.

The “super election year 1999” also resulted in unsatisfactory election results for the party. In the European elections it fell from 0.8% to 0.4%, which meant that it was no longer able to acquire government funds at the federal level. The local elections in Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg were accompanied by a significant loss of the number of seats. Only in the state elections in Saarland could the trend be counteracted at a low level: the ödp improved from 0.1% to 0.3%.

In the same year, the ödp in North Rhine-Westphalia successfully sued the state constitutional court against the five percent threshold clause in the local election law. This was then deleted without replacement. In the local elections, which took place shortly afterwards, the party should benefit significantly from this, as it succeeded in significantly increasing the number of MPs there. The most outstanding result at the level of the districts and independent cities were the 6.4% in Bottrop , which made them the third strongest member of the local city council.

From 2000

The Dolata Era (2000-2003)

Due to the lack of electoral success during her term of office - especially the performance of the party in the Bavarian state election of 1998 - Susanne Bachmaier resigned at the federal party conference on November 25, 2000 in Mainz . The new federal chairman was the author and economic criminal Uwe Dolata from Würzburg , who had made a name for himself above all as an anti-corruption expert.

Although Dolata had extensive media presence in the period that followed, especially in connection with the CDU donation affair and the ensuing discussion about reforming party financing, this could not be translated into electoral successes. In Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, votes were again lost. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the party deteriorated to 0.3%; in Baden-Württemberg the result halved from 1.5% to 0.7%. In the latter, it missed the hurdle for state party funding for the first time. In the same year, through its mobilization in its stronghold of Lower Bavaria - mainly in the form of citizens' petitions - the ödp caused E.ON to terminate the supply contracts with the nuclear power plant in Temelín in the Czech Republic . In the early election of the Berlin House of Representatives on October 21, 2001 , Dolata was the top candidate of the party, which received only 0.2% there.

In the federal election in 2002 , Dolata was also the top candidate. Despite the fact that the journalist Franz Alt, who is close to ödp, had certified the party as having the “most consistent environmental protection program”, the result of the ödp was halved again and was only 0.1%. The decline in the votes of the ödp and many other splinter parties in this election was mainly due to the escalation of the Schröder - Stoiber duel in the media .

The party congress in Coburg and subsequent period (2003/2004)

Klaus Buchner Federal Chairman from 2003 to 2010

Since the electoral successes also failed to materialize during his tenure, Dolata pleaded for party work to be concentrated on Bavaria. He received opposition from his deputy, the Munich university professor and physicist Klaus Buchner , who continued to represent the party's nationwide claim. After extensive consultation with one another, they agreed to stand against each other for the federal chairmanship at the federal party congress in Coburg on March 8th and 9th, 2003. Buchner won the match vote with 120: 68 votes. Dolata was then deputy federal chairman for a year and a half.

Both in the Bavarian state elections in 2003 and in the European elections in 2004 , the party managed to consolidate. In Bavaria it increased its result to 2.0% and in the European elections from 0.4% to 0.6%, which meant that it could again claim state funds. In the European elections, the doctor a. D. Reinhard Erös from Mintraching, a well-known personality outside the party, is running on the top list places.

On November 29, 2003, the party alliance World Ecological Parties (WEP) was founded in Mainz on the initiative of the ödp , in which the ödp and its partner parties from other countries have been a member since then.

Against the law on party financing passed by the Bundestag in 2002 , which stipulated that only parties that received more than one percent of the votes in at least three federal states would receive election financing and which would have come into force on January 1, 2005 the ödp initiated an organ dispute before the Federal Constitutional Court . The GRAY joined this lawsuit as well. The constitutional lawyer and party critic Hans Herbert von Arnim represented the party in this legal dispute as a lawyer. With the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on October 26, 2004, the ödp's application was deemed well founded and the law was declared unconstitutional.

Cooperation with the Family Party of Germany (2004-2006)

Already in the context of the European elections in 2004 there were first talks with the Ödp federal chairman Klaus Buchner and Franz-Josef Breyer , the then federal chairman of the German Family Party (FAMILY). Both found great similarities in their party's programs. The first election agreement took place in the same year: In the Saarland state elections in September 2004, the ödp decided not to run independently. The family party - traditionally very strong in Saarland - had Ödp members running on their lists in return. The former achieved the best election result in its history with 3.0%. In 2005 the cooperation was deepened: Mutual competition in elections was to be avoided, and both parties decided to merge for 2007. For the early federal elections in 2005 , the ödp again let the family party go first. This came to 0.4%.

Members of the ödp in Karlsruhe in early 2006 during the election campaign for the state elections in Baden-Württemberg

For the state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate in 2006, the procedure was reversed. The ödp competed in both places and in return allowed members of the family party to run for themselves. But despite this cooperation, the election results in both federal states fell again: In Rhineland-Palatinate they achieved 0.2% and in Baden-Württemberg 0.5%. The decline in votes in Baden-Württemberg was due to the fact that - unlike in 1992, 1996 and 2001, for example - it had not managed to put up candidates in all constituencies, which is a prerequisite in this state in order to be elected nationwide. In the three previous state elections in Baden-Württemberg, of all parties not represented in the Bundestag, only the Republicans received more votes, it also landed in fifth place among the “others” after WASG , NPD and PBC .

In Saxony-Anhalt , the ödp, together with the animal protection party , the GRAUEN and some groups of voters, participated in the electoral alliance “Justice, Environment, Animal Welfare (GUT)”, which came to 0.8%. At the end of 2006 the family party elected a new federal board and at the same time withdrew the resolutions for a merger with the ödp. Cooperation at the federal level is thus ended, but it should still be possible at the state level.

Bavarian municipal and state elections of 2008

Main articles: Local elections in Bavaria in 2008 and state elections in Bavaria in 2008

The Bavarian municipal elections in 2008 brought a further increase in the number of seats in the party's “home country”. In 2002 there were 245 seats, in 2008 it won 324 members of parliament across Bavaria. The “front runner” at the level of the districts and urban districts was Passau , where the party achieved 15.2% and became the third-strongest party behind the CSU and SPD. Urban Mangold initially achieved 12.7% in the local mayor election. In May 2008, at the suggestion of the new Lord Mayor Jürgen Dupper (SPD), he was elected the second mayor of Passau by the city council. As a district administrator, Klemens Albert received 14.8% of the votes in the Hassberge district and the Lower Franconian district chairman Steffen Scholz received 10.3% of the votes in the Miltenberg district.

In the mayoral election in Ansbach , in whose city council the ödp is also represented in parliamentary groups, she supported the non-party candidate Carda Seidel together with two constituencies . This was able to unite the majority of the votes behind them in the first ballot, although the incumbent Mayor Ralf Felber (SPD) had received support from the local CSU. The runoff election, which took place two weeks later, Carda Seidel won with a two-thirds majority of the votes.

In the municipalities of Burkardroth , Emskirchen and Pfreimd , members of the party were able to win mayoral elections for the first time. In Burkardroth, Waldemar Bug, the only opponent from Emil Müller (CSU), emerged victorious by 45 votes. Two weeks later, Arnold Kimmerl, who was already ahead in the first ballot, succeeded in doing the same; with 64.5% he was able to prevail against the CSU candidate. At the same time, Harald Kempe won the race in Emskirchen and won the election with 52.6%, after two weeks before he had been around 15% behind the incumbent Dieter Schmidt (CSU).

For the Bavarian state elections on September 28, 2008 , the ödp stood for the first time under the name Ecological Democratic Party / Alliance for Families and achieved 2.0% of the votes. By interim order , the ödp had the Bayerischer Jugendring forbidden from activating the Wahl-O-Mat for the state election because the ödp wanted to be taken into account. The Bavarian Youth Ring only provided for parties that were already represented in the state parliament or that had reached more than 3% in the last Sunday questions . Since the reasons given by the Munich Administrative Court suggested that seven other small and very small parties could have forced consideration, the Bavarian Youth Ring decided not to publish the Wahl-O-Mats.

Super election year 2009, referendum "For real non-smoker protection!" And Frankenberger's election (2009/2010)

Sebastian Frankenberger , initiator of the popular initiative “For real non-smoker protection” and since November 2010 federal chairman

In the super election year of 2009, the party managed to stabilize its 2004 election results. In the European elections , despite a slight loss of votes, it took 0.5% of the hurdle to state party funding. In the Bundestag election in the same year , she achieved 0.3%, her best result since 1994 .

Meanwhile launched the Bavarian ODP on the initiative of Passau city council Sebastian Frankenberger , the popular initiative "For real Non smoking protection" . This aimed to reverse the relaxation of the smoking bans in restaurants initiated by the state government made up of the CSU and FDP in Bavaria since 2008. It was also supported by the SPD, GRÜNEN and other organizations. After more than ten percent of those eligible to vote had registered in November and December, a referendum was held on July 4, 2010. 61.0% of those eligible to vote voted for a strict smoking ban, which came into force on August 1st of the same year. Frankenberger himself thus became the object of numerous hostility from smokers; This went so far that he received death threats, and he was defamed as a Nazi in emails. In addition, when visiting restaurants and pubs, he was greeted by hosts and guests alike.

At the federal party congress in Regensburg in autumn 2010, Buchner announced that he would no longer run for federal chairman in order to initiate a generation change. Frankenberger was elected as his successor and was able to prevail against two competitors with a clear majority.

Renewal and entry into the European Parliament (2010-2014)

The federal executive under Sebastian Frankenberger renewed the corporate design of the party, whose abbreviation has been capitalized again since 2010.

In Baden-Württemberg, the ÖDP was able to improve its result in the state elections in 2011 to 0.9%.

In 2012, the ÖDP filed a complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court against what it saw as the hidden funding of the Bundestag parties via grants to parliamentary groups, members of parliament staff and global grants to political foundations. The lawsuit was dismissed as inadmissible in 2015. On the other hand, the action brought by the ÖDP and other parties and organizations against the three percent hurdle in the European elections was successful.

In 2013 the federal party congress passed the new basic program.

In the state elections in Bavaria in 2013 , Frankenberger cycled through all 90 constituencies of the Free State for 90 days. Despite an increase in the number of votes, the ÖDP achieved 2.0%, as in 2008. In the local elections a year later, she was able to increase the number of her municipal mandates in Bavaria to 380.

Due to the elimination of the threshold clause, the ÖDP was able to move into the European Parliament with 0.6% and is represented there by former federal chairman Klaus Buchner. Buchner joined the Greens / EFA group.

In November 2014 in Erlangen, Sebastian Frankenberger lost a vote against Gabriela Schimmer-Göresz , who then succeeded him in office.

In the 2013 Bundestag election, the party achieved the same percentage result as in the previous election (0.3%) with a slight gain in votes.

2015-2019

Frankenberger announced his resignation in spring 2015 because of internal party quarrels and attacks; in the following period three more members of the former federal executive left the party.

In the 2017 federal election, 0.3% was achieved again. At the end of 2017, Gabriela Schimmer-Göresz resigned from her position as party leader for health reasons.

In the Bavarian state election in 2018, the ÖDP suffered a serious setback in its stronghold. Their share of the vote fell from 2.0 to 1.6%. In the 2019 European elections, the ÖDP achieved its best result to date at federal level with 1.0% and one mandate.

literature

  • Jürgen Wüst: Conservatism and the ecological movement. An investigation into the tension between party, movement and ideology using the example of the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP) . IKO - Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-88939-275-X .
  • Raphael Mankau (Ed.): 20 years of ödp - beginnings, present and perspectives of ecological-democratic politics . dolata verlag, Rimpar 1999, ISBN 3-344-70790-6 .
  • Volker Kempf (Ed.): Herbert Gruhl - Among the caravans of the blind. Key texts, interviews and speeches (1976–1993) . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, ISBN 3-631-54618-1 .
  • Volker Kempf: Herbert Gruhl - pioneer of environmental sociology. In the field of tension between scientific knowledge and political reality . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2008, ISBN 978-3-902475-47-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g Franz Alt: Herbert Gruhl - thought leader and lateral thinker . In: Mankau, pp. 9–12, here p. 9
  2. a b c d Edgar Guhde : From the GAZ to the ÖDP, in: Mankau, pp. 17–23, here p. 17
  3. Mankau, pp. 231-235
  4. a b c Edgar Guhde, in: Mankau, p. 18
  5. Jaspar von Oertzen : Memories of the early years, in: Mankau, p. 29–42, here p. 30
  6. Jaspar von Oertzen, in: Mankau, p. 31
  7. a b Edgar Guhde, in: Mankau, SS 18 f.
  8. Edgar Guhde, in: Mankau, p. 18
  9. a b Edgar Guhde, in: Mankau, p. 19
  10. Jaspar von Oertzen, in: Mankau, p. 37
  11. a b c d Edgar Guhde, in: Mankau, p. 23
  12. ^ Maria Opitz-Döllinger : Prehistory, finding a name and the first ÖDP party congresses . In: Mankau, pp. 43–62, here p. 49
  13. ^ Maria Opitz-Döllinger, in: Mankau, p. 53
  14. Jaspar von Oertzen, in: Mankau, p. 38
  15. ^ Wüst, p. 115
  16. Edgar Guhde, in: Mankau, p. 23
  17. ^ Maria Opitz-Döllinger, in: Mankau, p. 56
  18. ^ Maria-Opitz-Döllinger, in: Mankau, pp. 43–63, here p. 60
  19. Herbert Gruhl's inaugural speech ( memento of the original from June 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oedp.de
  20. Mankau, p. 59
  21. Kempf 2005, p. 171
  22. ^ Maria Opitz-Döllinger, in: Mankau, p. 60f
  23. Michael Arends : The state elections in October 1982 - new beginning in Bavaria . In: Mankau, pp. 63–70, here p. 64
  24. Michael Arends, in: Mankau, p. 69
  25. Jaspar von Oertzen, in: Mankau, p. 39
  26. ^ A b Florence von Bodisco: Interview with Edgar Guhde - 100 issues of Ecology Policy . In: Ecology Policy . January 2001 ( oedp.de ( memento of April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on August 14, 2008]). Interview with Edgar Guhde - 100 issues of Ecology Policy ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oedp.de
  27. Herbert Gruhl: Survival is everything. Memories. Munich / Berlin: Herbig, 1987, p. 232
  28. ^ Wüst, p. 147
  29. Kempf 2008, pp. 187ff
  30. Alt, p. 10
  31. ^ Wüst, p. 5
  32. Christoph Becker: Fähnlein im Wind - Five political heads who stand for change of direction - from left to right, from right to left. Sometimes likeable, sometimes despicable, always amazing. In: at home . October − December, 2007 ( daheim-magazin.de [PDF; accessed on September 2, 2008]). daheim-magazin.de ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.daheim-magazin.de
  33. Herbert Gruhl: Between left and right and zero point . In: Kempf 2005, pp. 199–201
  34. Konrad Buchwald, quoted in after Heinz-Siegfried Strelow: Konrad Buchwald - Farewell . In: Conservative today. Yearbook of the Herbert Gruhl Society 2004 , Essen 2004, pp. 74–77, here p. 76; There reference to Ökologie + Politik, no. 30 from December 1988.
  35. ^ Regional Court Munich I. 12th Civil Chamber. Business number: 12 0 2812/89.
  36. Herbert Gruhl: Speech at the ÖDP federal party conference in Hanover (1988), in: Kempf 2005, pp. 193–199, here p. 194
  37. The GAZ Green Manifesto . In: Kempf 2005, pp. 139–143, here p. 142 (§ 27)
  38. Kempf 2008, pp. 191f
  39. a b Decision in principle to delimit the ÖDP from the right-wing parties . ( Memento of the original of February 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. zeichen.de  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeichen.de
  40. ^ Thomas Lotz: The Saarbrücker Party Congress of 1989 . In: Mankau, pp. 91–112, here p. 101
  41. a b Interview with Hans-Joachim Ritter - “Reconciliation with the origins” . In: Ecology Policy . March 2002 ( web-demokratie.de [PDF; accessed on August 12, 2008]).
  42. Herbert Gruhl: “Actually we should have been working on an emergency program long ago” (1991), in: Kempf 2005, pp. 227–231, here p. 227
  43. Thomas Prudlo: The super election year 1994 . In: Mankau, pp. 149–162, here p. 155
  44. a b Thomas Prudlo, in: Mankau, p. 156
  45. a b Thomas Prudlo, in: Mankau, p. 160 f.
  46. a b Thomas Prodlo, in: Mankau, p. 162
  47. ^ Wüst, p. 121
  48. Edgar Guhde in an interview . In: Conservative today . Yearbook of the Herbert Gruhl Society 2001, pp. 127–128, here p. 128
  49. a b c Urban Mangold : How the ödp taught the CSU fear . In: Mankau, pp. 185–190, here p. 185
  50. a b c d Urban Mangold, in: Mankau, p. 186
  51. Urban Mangold, in: Mankau, p. 188
  52. Urban Mangold, in: Mankau, p. 189 f.
  53. ^ Survey by the Wahlen research group on May 22, 1998
  54. Susanne Bachmaier: Dear members and interested parties of the ödp . In: Ecology Policy . November 1998.
  55. With a new team into the future - Dolata as “primus inter pares” . In: Ecology Policy . March 2001 ( oedp.de ( memento of April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on August 14, 2008]). With a new team into the future - Dolata as “primus inter pares” ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oedp.de
  56. Dolata as a party summoned to the administrative court - CDU escapes punishment . In: Ecology Policy . March 2001 ( oedp.de ( memento of April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on August 14, 2008]). Dolata as an accessory to the administrative court - CDU escapes punishment ( memento of the original from April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oedp.de
  57. ödp election program available on the Internet !, July 12, 2002
  58. Press release on the judgment
  59. ödp wants to be taken into account in Wahl-O-Mat
  60. Bayerischer Jugendring: Preliminary decision of the administrative court - ödp application prevents de facto Wahl-O-Mat for the Bavarian state election in 2008 - Jugendring is checking further steps  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bjr.de  
  61. Lawsuit for party financing. Retrieved April 19, 2016 .
  62. Dismissal of the action. Retrieved April 19, 2016 .
  63. Lawsuit three percent hurdle. Retrieved April 19, 2016 .
  64. ^ Bundesparteitag Coburg 2013. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 19, 2016 ; Retrieved April 19, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oedp.de
  65. Cycling for Bavaria. Retrieved April 19, 2016 .
  66. ^ Mandate holder ÖDP Bayern. Retrieved April 19, 2016 .
  67. ↑ New election of the federal executive committee. Retrieved April 19, 2016 .
  68. ^ Frankenberger resigns. Retrieved April 19, 2016 .
  69. ^ Resignation of the Frankenberger Süddeutsche. Retrieved April 19, 2016 .
  70. 50th Federal Party Conference Video. Retrieved May 2, 2016 .
  71. ^ ÖDP press releases. ödp.de, accessed on January 9, 2018 .