Conservatism in Germany

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Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach
Friedrich Julius Stahl

The conservatism in Germany has developed since the German Revolution of 1848/1849 first in Prussia by conservative associations , groups and MPs. This included the "Association to protect the interests of property". The specifically German form of conservatism is inextricably linked with Bismarck .

Party formation

A group of politicians and parliamentarians led by the editors of the Neue Preußische Zeitung , above all Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach and Friedrich Julius Stahl , whose draft for a conservative party , drawn up in February / March 1849, became the basis for the first , played a leading role in founding a conservative party Conservative party program . According to this context, the Conservative Party in the two chambers of the Prussian Landtag was also called “Kreuzzeitungspartei” from 1851 onwards, because it used the Iron Cross on the newspaper's title page.

In 1867 the Free Conservative Party was founded. It emerged in 1866 as a split from the Prussian Conservative Party, initially as a free conservative association under the leadership of Count Eduard Georg von Bethusy-Huc .

The Catholic German Center Party , which was founded in 1870, became the second largest parliamentary group and the leading party in the conservative camp in the first Reichstag election in 1871 . In the parliaments of the individual German states (especially in Prussia), and later also in the German Reichstag , there were three conservative parties until 1918: in addition to the German Center Party, the East Elbian-agrarian-oriented German Conservative Party , which emerged in 1879 from the Prussian Conservative Party, and the Free Conservative Party supported by high nobility and industrial circles (from 1871 German Reich Party).

The Bismarck era

Otto von Bismarck

German conservatism was significantly influenced by Otto von Bismarck . His decision of the traditional conflict between church and state (" Kulturkampf ") in favor of the latter also established a conservative idea of ​​the state. During his reign he tried to solve the so-called “social question” - that is, the conflict between the labor movement and economic liberalism - by banning social democracy on the one hand (see socialist laws ) and establishing his own state security system (social legislation) on the other. In addition, in the Kulturkampf he asserted state interests against traditional secular claims to power by the Catholic Church , also at the expense of the same claims of the Evangelical Church, which is closely linked to the conservatives and which, for example, also lost its influence on the school supervision in elementary schools. Both initiatives were only partially successful and ultimately strengthened both the anti-monarchy SPD and the Catholic Center Party . But they expanded the state's power and set a new development in motion with social legislation.

The stabilization and consolidation of the conservative state idea by Bismarck led to a comparatively late inauguration of democratic principles and institutions in Germany. Although the general, equal suffrage had already been introduced for the North German Reichstag in 1867 and adopted for the German Reichstag from 1871, the influence of the Reichstag on legislation and, above all, the occupation of the Reich government remained very small. In states like Prussia , democratic suffrage was not introduced and any change was fiercely opposed by the conservative parties. It was not until 1918 that the parliamentary form of government, in which the Chancellor must have a majority in parliament, was introduced with the October reforms. A conservative people's party like the Tories in Great Britain did not arise in Germany. Political action by parties was not fully accepted in the German Empire.

Weimar Republic, National Socialism

With the decline of the monarchy in Germany, conservatism took a turn. In so far as that which had to be preserved became increasingly obsolete, tradition was replaced by the idea of ​​a creative reorganization based on the spirit of eternal principles. After the First World War in 1918, German conservatism gathered in various parties and in intellectual and intellectual currents that are associated with the term “ conservative revolution ”. A representative of this trend, the writer Arthur Moeller van den Bruck , coined a characteristic formula for the process of reforming German conservatism: Conservative is to create things that are worth preserving.

As chairman of the German National People's Party ( DNVP ), the conservative media entrepreneur Alfred Hugenberg promoted the rise of Hitler from 1929 and in January 1933 concluded a coalition government with the National Socialists. In May and June 1933 the conservative parties in Germany were forced to disband. Some conservative politicians like Franz Seldte converted to the NSDAP , others like Franz von Papen and Konstantin von Neurath worked as non-party members in the Hitler government. Papen's advisor, Edgar Julius Jung , planned to get rid of Hitler and to form a conservative-revolutionary state on a Christian-authoritarian basis. This early conservative opposition was eliminated in 1934 by the National Socialists in the course of the so-called Röhm Putsch . Many a conservative tried to come to terms with National Socialism, some went into exile. Others were in active resistance (especially in the resistance group of July 20, 1944 ).

The young Federal Republic

After 1945, classical conservatism had no perspective. After the experience of the totalitarian dictatorship , he mostly acknowledged the principle of the democratic constitutional state and lost an independent political role in German politics. The small conservative German Party ( DP ) was one of the ruling parties of the Adenauer era from 1949 to 1960 . Above all, the traditional, denominational antagonism between Protestants and Catholics, who came together in the CDU, lost its explosiveness and was gradually overcome in society as well.

The CDU is conservative since the war the most important party, interconfessional and democratic imprint in the Federal Republic of Germany . It broke with the thought tradition of certain sections of the conservative parties of the Weimar Republic , which rejected the democratic constitutional state. She succeeded in integrating large parts of conservatism and integrating them into the democratic opinion-forming process. Members of the German National People's Party (DNVP), the right-wing liberal German People's Party ( DVP ) and the liberal DDP joined it and enabled the creation of a people's party that sees itself as a “Christian-democratic, Christian-social, liberal and conservative party in the center”.

In the young Federal Republic the concept of technocratic conservatism was strengthened. This at Friedrich Georg and disciple Ernst -scale technocratic conservatism reconciled with the obligations of technical civilization without this be described as progress. Representatives of technocratic conservatism such as Hans Freyer and Helmut Schelsky criticized the prevalence of practical constraints, but viewed the rule of independent material processes as less harmful than the rule of ideologues. Within these factual laws of technical civilization, people's room for maneuver is limited. One can and must feed humanity into these processes again and again, but a fundamental change to a completely free society of not alienated people is a dangerous illusion that is only represented by pseudo-religiously motivated ideologues of progress.

Conservatism in Germany today

Today there are politically conservative currents, especially in the popular CDU and CSU parties , although there have also been liberal and social currents from the start. According to its self-image, the CDU has moved from the center-right to the political center since the 20th party congress in 1972. The traditional strands of Christian democracy in Germany include a mixture of the value conservatism of Catholicism (and Catholic social doctrine ), currents of political Protestantism as well as economic, regulatory and national conservatism . However, a characterization of what is actually concretely conservative is not done with it. The term “conservative” is in fact not further specified by the Union parties , although it is not infrequently mentioned as an important political characteristic.

With the dwindling of traditional groups of voters, conservative positions partially disappeared from the parties' programs over time. The parties now called conservative deviate from historical conservatism on important points. So in today is Christian Democracy of technological progress seen mostly positive. There is also an important wing that is economically liberal . In response to the German student movement of the 1960s, the Christian Democrats demanded a strong state , which was incompatible with liberalism, as it questioned state interference in the freedom of the individual. In the CDU there have been efforts since about 2007 to bundle conservative currents in the Berlin district .

The FDP applies since the 1980s due to the storage theory Geissler in Germany often called "natural" coalition partner of the Christian Democrats, although the history of ideas foundations liberal and conservative currents is historically contrary. It was the basic idea of liberalism that finally replaced the conservative government coalition at federal level after the 1969 Bundestag election and led to a social-liberal coalition under Willy Brandt (SPD) as Chancellor and Walter Scheel (FDP) as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor.

In the SPD , the Seeheimer Kreis was assigned a conservative position from 1974 onwards. Only the German Conservative Party , founded in 2009, explicitly places conservatism at the center of its agenda.

Both in the SPD and in Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen there are tendencies that argue explicitly in terms of conservative values. This is partly due to the fact that the term has lost much of its previously existing delimitation function. With the Greens, the conservative stance is to be found above all with ecological issues and refers to the - partly Christian meant - "preservation of creation ". Some new technologies are viewed very critically by the Greens, which repeatedly earned the party the reputation of being “anti-industry”.

In 1982 the Ecological Democratic Party emerged as a conservative split from the Greens party founded in 1980 . However, it could not prevail politically and - with the exception of some state elections, where it has only been able to achieve 1% to 2% of the vote since 1990 - it plays a rather subordinate role.

The prototypical activists of the AfD , founded in 2013, are classified as conservatives or national conservatives. The party is classified as conservative and right-wing populist. A prerequisite for membership is a commitment to the free-democratic basic order and insofar as memberships in extremist associations existed a credible distancing for the party, as an incompatibility list is intended to keep extremism away (§2 Federal Statute of the Alternative for Germany).

literature

  • Ludwig Elm : German Conservatism after Auschwitz. From Adenauer and Strauss to Stoiber and Merkel. Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-89438-353-4 .
  • Klaus Epstein : The Origins of Conservatism in Germany. The starting point: the challenge posed by the French Revolution 1770–1806 . Propylaen-Verlag, Berlin 1973, ISBN 3-550-07288-0 (first in English as: The genesis of German conservatism . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1966).
  • Martin Greiffenhagen : The dilemma of conservatism in Germany. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 1986. (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 634). ISBN 3-518-28234-4
  • Ewald Grothe (Hrsg.): Conservative German politicians in the 19th century. Working - Effect - Perception , Historical Commission for Hesse, Marburg 2010. ISBN 978-3-942225-09-0 .
  • Kurt Lenk : German Conservatism . Frankfurt 1989. ISBN 3-593-34074-7 .
  • Armin Mohler : The Conservative Revolution in Germany. 2 vols. 1989.
  • Armin Pfahl-Traughber : Conservative Revolution and New Right. Leske + Budrich Verlag, Opladen 1998, ISBN 3-8100-1888-0 .
  • Axel Schildt : Conservatism in Germany. From the beginnings in the 18th century to the present. CH Beck, Munich 1998.
  • Sven-Uwe Schmitz: Conservatism. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Association for the protection of the interests of property and for the maintenance of the prosperity of all classes", founded in 1848, cf. also Junker Parliament .
  2. ^ Füßl, Wilhelm: Professor in Politics: Friedrich Julius Stahl. The monarchical principle and its implementation in parliamentary practice , Göttingen 1988, p. 181 ff .: “… deeply involved in the redesign of our public condition, yet at the same time preserving the old unchangeable foundations in belief, custom and institutions for the same… at the same time the policy of preservation and progress ... I. We are committed to the new order in the state, ... the constitution as the legally documented unified order ..., the expansion of individual freedom ... II. ... We are fighting the permanent revolution. ... against the will of the people as before against the will of the prince, ... III. ... we want the king by virtue of his holy right to the throne ... as the highest authority, as the sovereign of the country, ... IV. We want structured relationships in all classes of the people. ... V. ... that the working class will have a materially and morally satisfactory existence, ... without prejudice to the inalienable foundations of human society: property, inheritance law, free personal employment. VI. We want the unity of Germany, ... for the previous parent states, namely Prussia, a sufficient area of ​​political independence, ... VII. We want the same political authorization for those who profess all religions ... for the Christian Church ... the guaranteed protection of the state ... "
  3. ↑ Volker Stalmann: The Conservative Parties (1867-1918). In: Lothar Gall (Ed.): Government, Parliament and the Public in the Age of Bismarck. Changing political styles. Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2003, ISBN 3-506-79223-7 ( Otto von Bismarck Foundation Scientific Series 5), pp. 91–126.
  4. ^ Schubert, Klaus / Martina Klein: Das Politiklexikon. 4th, updated Edition, Bonn: Dietz 2006, online in the political dictionary of the Federal Agency for Civic Education
  5. ↑ Arthur Moeller van den Bruck: The third realm. 3rd ed. By Hans Schwarz. Hamburg 1931. p. 202.
  6. ^ Schmitz: Conservatism , p. 144.
  7. ↑ See Schmitz: Conservativism , p. 143.
  8. ↑ Julia Merlot: Genetic Engineering: When the Greens forego facts. In: Spiegel Online . April 17, 2018, accessed April 26, 2020 .
  9. ↑ https://www.welt.de/newsticker/bloomberg/article167844421/Baden-Wuerttembergs-Gruene-steuern-im-Wahlkampf-auf-den-Bund-zu.html
  10. ↑ Jürgen Wüst: Conservatism and 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 .
  11. ^ Hubert Kleinert : The AfD and its members. An analysis with evaluation of an exemplary member survey of Hessian district associations . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-21715-0 , p. 121
  12. ↑ Frank Decker: The program of the AfD | Parties in Germany. Retrieved March 17, 2020 .
  13. ↑ AfD: AfD Federal Statutes. Retrieved March 24, 2020 .