Radical Democratic Party

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The Radical Democratic Party ( RDP ) was a small German party that existed between 1930 and 1933 in the final phase of the Weimar Republic . In giving its name and in its publications, it was based on the guiding principle of radical democracy .

The RDP was founded on November 30, 1930 in Kassel by former members of the German Democratic Party ( DDP ) who did not want to see its transition to the German State Party . Ludwig Quidde and Hellmut von Gerlach were among the best-known founding members . The pacifists were supported by the left wing of the Young Democrats . The Berlin attorney Willy Braubach was elected party chairman . The party was programmatically left-liberal and pacifist .

In addition to Berlin, the organizational focus was on the Ruhr area and the Nuremberg - Fürth area . The party achieved political importance at the local level at best. Only in 1931 was it temporarily represented with two seats in the Landtag of the People's State of Hesse ( Julius Reiber and Johann Eberle ). These mandates obtained through the conversion of former DDP members to the party could not be defended in the new election (the party only received 0.6% of the votes and no mandate); participation in the Reichstag election in November 1932 (3793 votes) was also unsuccessful.

In 1933 all traces of the party disappeared. Some of its former members, such as Erich Lüth and Paul von Schoenaich , became politically active again after 1945.

literature

  • Werner Fritsch: Radical Democratic Party. In: Dieter Fricke (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789–1945). Volume 3: General Association of German Employees' Unions - Reich and Free Conservative Party. License issue. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-7609-0878-0 , pp. 608-613.
  • Burkhard Gutleben: Radical Democrats in the Hessian Landtag. Parliamentary episode of a splinter party. In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. Vol. 93, 1988, ISSN  0342-3107 , pp. 179-186.
  • Martin Liepach: Radical Democrats in the Middle. The RDP in the Hessian state election in 1931. In: Historical social research. Vol. 22, No. 3/4, 1997, ISSN  0172-6404 , pp. 146-159, online .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the brochure Radical Democracy! Edited by the Radikaldemokratische Party, Reichsstellesstelle, Berlin o. J. or the organ Radikaldemokratische Blätter, which appeared from the end of 1930 to the beginning of 1933 . ZDB ID 1421553-6 .
  2. ↑ On the history of the RDP see in addition to the publications mentioned under literature Burkhard Gutleben: Radikaldemokratischespartei - upright left-wing liberals without success. In: Liberal, Vol. 28, H. 1, 1986, ISSN  0459-1992 , pp. 65-72.