People's National Reich Association

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The Volksnationale Reichsvereinigung (VNR, also VNRV and VR) was a political party in the Weimar Republic , which was closely connected to the Young German Order (Jungdo). She was on 5./6. Founded April 1930 in Berlin and dissolved again in 1932.

history

prehistory

The People's National Reich Association came into being against the background of the reorganization of the bourgeois parties towards the end of the Weimar Republic. Both the establishment of the Volksnationalen Reichsvereinigung and the German State Party , which came into being with its brief participation, were attempts at a gathering movement of the forces in the political center in the face of increasing radicalization. Younger people in particular should be addressed. The Jungdo leader Artur Mahraun had already made corresponding considerations since the summer of 1928, which finally resulted in an enactment of “guidelines for the preparation of a people's national action” of the high chapter of the Jungdo, in which one called for the creation of a “people's union with parliamentary will to power”. On March 29, 1929, the first demonstration took place in the Saalbau Friedrichshain in Berlin as an advertising event for the “People's National Action”. Further rallies followed in Dortmund, Danzig and Dresden. This development also attracted attention outside the Jungdo and led to a rapprochement with representatives of other parties and organizations, such as the chairman of the German Democratic Party (DDP) Erich Koch-Weser , who wanted to bring the liberals together in a new "state party", as well as the bourgeoisie Union officials Friedrich Baltrusch and Ernst Lemmer .

founding

On November 1, 1929, Mahraun published an appeal to found the National People's Association, which 600 people joined over the next few months. At the same time, local and district committees were created in close cooperation with the Jungdo. The actual founding took place on the first Reich Representative Day on 5./6. April 1930 in the Berlin Philharmonic by around 700 representatives of the district committees. Artur Mahraun was elected leader. This was followed by a large number of rallies throughout the Reich, with a focus on Saxony, because there was a state election there on June 22nd, in which the VNR stood for the first time and won two seats.

Formation and failure of the state party

The dissolution of the Reichstag on July 18, 1930 brought new impulses to the desired collection movement of the political center. Above all, discussions with representatives of the DDP were accelerated. After confidential negotiations with the party chairman Koch-Weser and other parties involved, a founding agreement for the formation of the German State Party was decided on July 27, 1930, which was also approved by a majority by the DDP party committee on July 30 after a controversial discussion. A main action committee made up of representatives from both parties and the trade union leaders involved was set up to organize the upcoming election campaign and promote the founding process. In the following weeks there were intense disputes over the preparation of the joint election proposals. In addition to these personal quarrels, it became increasingly clear that the political mentalities of the partners were very different. These differences could not be resolved and ultimately led to the failure of the merger. The VNR insisted on Mahraun as the “extra-parliamentary leader” of the new party and on its role as an independent “army pillar” within the state party. Due to the persistent differences, the VNR announced on October 7, 1930 its resignation from the main action committee. The founding of the state party as a gathering movement had thus failed. The leading bodies of the DDP nevertheless stuck to the conversion of their party and founded the German State Party on November 9, 1930 in Hanover.

elections

Parliament

In the Reichstag election on September 14, 1930 , the election proposals of the German State Party, which consisted of joint lists from the DDP and VNR, achieved 3.8 percent, which corresponded to 20 seats. On September 17, 1930, a joint parliamentary group of all members elected through these election proposals was initially constituted. After the rift between the DDP and the Young German Order, the six MPs who came from the VNR resigned from the parliamentary group on October 9, 1930 and until the end of the electoral term formed their own group that had no parliamentary group status. The remaining MPs only succeeded in forming factions because other parties had converted.

Diets

Saxony

For the state election in Saxony on June 22, 1930, the VNR ran for the only time in its history with its own list. It reached 1.51 percent and thus provided two MPs, including Max Lasse, one of the co-founders of the VNR. Due to the political constellations in this electoral period, Lasse even held office as 2nd deputy president of the state parliament from 1931 to 1932, despite the small number of mandates. In 1930, the VNR, together with the DDP, prevented the appointment of the NSDAP politician Gregor Straßer as Saxon Minister of the Interior in a government headed by the DNVP and aimed at by the bourgeois parties together with the NSDAP . However, there was no solidified cooperation between the VNR members and the three members of the DDP, who had since been renamed the German state party in the state parliament.

Braunschweig

In the election to the Landtag in the Free State of Braunschweig, which, like the election to the 5th Reichstag, took place on September 14, 1930, VNR member Walter Schrader entered parliament on the election proposal of the German State Party. She received 3.01 percent of the vote. Due to the tight majority, Schrader played an important role in the state parliament several times during the electoral term.

Publications

  • People's National Reich Association: The first Reich Representatives Day on April 5 and 6, 1930. Jungdeutscher Verlag, Berlin 1930.

literature

  • Werner Fritsch: People's National Reich Association (VR) 1929–1932 . In: Dieter Fricke (Ed.) Ao: Lexicon on the history of parties, Volume 4 . Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1986, pp. 431-435.
  • Klaus Hornung : The Young German Order (= dissertation; contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 14). Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1958.
  • Werner Stephan : Rise and Decline of Left Liberalism 1918–1933. The history of the German Democratic Party. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973, ISBN 3-525-36162-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Hornung: The Young German Order , p. 90.
  2. ^ Klaus Hornung: Der Jungdeutsche Orden , p. 91.
  3. ↑ Klaus Hornung: The Young German Order , p. 92.
  4. ↑ Klaus Hornung: Der Jungdeutsche Orden , p. 93.
  5. ↑ Klaus Hornung: Der Jungdeutsche Orden , p. 100.
  6. ↑ Werner Stephan: Rise and Decline of Left Liberalism 1918-1933. The history of the German Democratic Party , p. 473f.
  7. ↑ Werner Stephan: Rise and Decline of Left Liberalism 1918-1933. The history of the German Democratic Party , p. 482.
  8. ↑ Klaus Hornung: Der Jungdeutsche Orden , p. 103.
  9. ^ Elections in the Weimar Republic. In: gonschior.de, accessed on October 23, 2016.
  10. ↑ Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann: From dream to nightmare. Saxony in the Weimar Republic. Saxon State Center for Political Education, Dresden 2000, p. 113.
  11. ↑ Ulrich Menzel: The stirrup holder. Annotated chronicle about the naturalization of Hitler in Braunschweig. ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Blue Series No. 114, research reports from the Institute for Social Sciences at the TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig 2014, ISSN  1614-7898 (PDF).