Remstalpolitik
The term Remstalpolitik (named after the Remstal east of Stuttgart) was coined for the first time in 1952 in the controversy over Germany's policy at the time. The arisen of journalistic side designation was meant critically: She was referring to speeches of Waiblingen Bundestag deputy Karl Georg Pfleiderer ( DVP / FDP ) against Germany contract and the EDC Treaty , which should be evaluated as provincial. Pfleiderer and Reinhold Maier, on the other hand, used the term positively. Pfleiderer used it, among other things, for his foreign policy, which was critical of Adenauer, and which, in the interests of Germany, advocated rapid reunification and a Europe-wide, reconciling peace policy. Pfleiderer wanted to avoid Germany becoming too closely linked to the West and thus consistently pursue the path of rapprochement between East and West, right up to the unification of Germany. This happened in accordance with Stresemann 's foreign policy. Shortly after Pfleiderer's death in 1957, the term was reinterpreted as communal and used to describe state politics (cf. Brehmer / Moersch, 2007, 51).
content
The Rems Valley politics is a specific expression of political liberalism in southwest Germany and stands in contrast to hierarchically structured conservatism and egalitarian socialism . It comprises a civil, a social and a liberal component.
Bourgeois here means the tradition of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century, which manifested itself in the Württemberg People's Party (founded in 1864) and enforced the individual's rights of defense against the authoritarian state. The Hambach Festival in 1832 and the National Assembly in Frankfurt in 1848/49 played a decisive role in their formulation . It is therefore not the state that grants its citizens their freedoms, it is the citizens who grant the state regular rights in certain areas.
Social in the sense of Remstalpolitik means the principle of the co-operative self-organization of individual interests and for the common benefit of all in sharp contrast to the state or union dimension, in which the individual no longer plays a role. Examples of this are the wine-growing cooperatives and Raiffeisen banks, which are strongly represented in the Remstal. Remstalpolitik aims at the self-responsible creation of equity, personal responsibility and a self-determined life for all involved.
The aspect of the Rems Valley policy, which demands the will of all political actors, is considered to be free. Faction discipline and peer pressure are frowned upon. In addition, it is always a concern of the Rems Valley policy to restrict the general state responsibility to essential policy areas and to always question them critically. They are democratic forces as people's forces. Therefore, the southwest German liberalism is also to be understood strictly federally from the bottom up. The community is the best haven of democracy.
The Rems Valley policy, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, was strongly influenced by southern German Protestantism and its moral concepts. This differentiated itself from the Rhenish Catholicism of Konrad Adenauer. Most recently, the Bundestag member Hartfrid Wolff , Baden-Württemberg's former Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister of Justice, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Goll and the district administrator of the Rems-Murr-Kreis Johannes Fuchs placed in the tradition of the Rems valley politics (cf. Brehmer / Moersch, 2007, 3ff).
literature
- Reinhold Maier: MEPs send au people! Stories from our homeland. 1960; Reprint: Reinhold Maier Foundation, Stuttgart 2005
- Jörg Brehmer: What will happen to Germany? On the life and thinking of the liberal District Administrator Karl Georg Pfleiderer. Reinhold Maier Foundation, Stuttgart 2003
- Jörg Brehmer & Karl Moersch: Remstalpolitik. Reinhold Maier Foundation, Stuttgart 2007