Center Party of the Free City of Gdansk
The Center Party of the Free City of Danzig was a political Catholic party that existed in the Free City of Danzig from 1919 to 1938 , and was a sister party of the German Center Party in the Reich.
history
prehistory
In the German Empire , Danzig belonged to the province of West Prussia . The leading personality of the center in West Prussia was Anton Sawatzki . From 1908 to 1918 he was chairman of the Center Party in the province of West Prussia, a member of the Prussian state assembly and the Prussian state parliament .
Democratic time
Since the establishment of the Free City of Danzig in 1920 the center belonged to the Senate of the Free City of Danzig in a civil coalition together with DNVP and Liberals. After this fell apart in 1925, a center-left coalition was formed, including the SPD Danzig and the center, modeled on the Weimar coalition . From 1931 to 1933 the center was also one of the ruling parties in the bourgeois coalition that formed the Ziehm Senate . The center was the only party to belong to the governing parties during the entire democratic period of the Free City of Danzig.
time of the nationalsocialism
The election for the 5th People's Day on May 28, 1933 resulted in an absolute majority for the National Socialists. On June 20, 1933, a Senate was elected under Hermann Rauschning , to which only National Socialists and two center members belonged. The People's Day decided to adopt the Enabling Act and the Senate could now govern with emergency ordinances without a parliament.
On September 22, 1933, Zentrum Senator Willibald Wiercinski-Keizer joined the NSDAP. In response to this, Anton Sawatzki resigned his mandate, which meant that only National Socialists were represented in the Senate. Wiercinski-Keizer changed his name to Wiers-Keizer and founded a “Working Group of Catholic Danzigers” (AKD) in which he gathered center members who wanted to move away from the center and turn to the new rulers. Numerous members and officials of the center were subsequently victims of harassment, arrests and injuries. The former party chairman Bruno Kurowski was forced to emigrate.
Prohibition
In December 1936, the National Socialists intensified their persecution of the center. The People's Day lifted Stachnik's immunity in order to dismiss him under disciplinary proceedings. On December 16, members of the center were arrested. On December 18, house searches took place at Stachnik, the second chairman of the Bergmann Center and the party secretary Albert Posack . Stachnik was arrested in February, and in May 1937 the DNVP, the penultimate democratic party in Danzig, disbanded itself under pressure from the National Socialists. The center was now the last democratic party in Gdansk.
On October 21, 1937, the Center Party was the last of the democratic parties to be banned. The last party chairman Richard Stachnik wrote resignedly to the High Commissioner of the League of Nations Carl Jacob Burckhardt :
“As of today, the chief of police has dissolved the Center Party of the Free City of Danzig. In view of the current situation, we have waived the right to appeal. "
At the meeting of the People's Day on November 8, 1937, the ban on the establishment of new parties was passed. The synchronization was complete.
Election results
In the People's Day elections , the party achieved the following results:
| choice | Votes (absolute) | Votes (relative) | Mandates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1920 | 21,262 | 13.88% | 17th |
| 1923 | 21,114 | 12.81% | 15th |
| 1927 | 26.096 | 14.27% | 18th |
| 1930 | 30,230 | 15.28% | 11 |
| 1933 | 31,336 | 14.63% | 10 |
| 1935 | 31,522 | 13.41% | 10 |
Press
The daily Danziger Volkszeitung was published by the party . The paper appeared before the war as the “West Prussian Volksblatt” and was then called “Danziger Volksblatt”. Due to the loss of part of the distribution area after the First World War, the circulation fell from 20,000 in 1918 to 8,000 in 1921. In 1925 the name of the newspaper was changed to “Danziger Landeszeitung” and in December 1934 to “Danziger Volkszeitung”. Franz Neubauer was the managing director . In early 1922 the newspaper ran into financial problems. It was solved by a capital increase that the "Konkordia Literarian Society mbH" raised. It was a company that was half owned by the Prussian and the Reich Ministry of Finance and that had the task of promoting Germanism in Danzig. During the election campaign for the People's Day election in Gdansk in 1935 , the paper was temporarily banned.
Hansa Bank
people
Party leader
- Anton Sawatzki 1908–1918
- Bruno Kurowski 1918–1930
- Richard Stachnik 1930-1937
Salaried Senators of the Center Party
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stefan Samerski : The Catholic Church in the Free City of Danzig , 1991, ISBN 3412017914 , pp. 47–52
- ↑ Wolfgang Ramonat: The League of Nations and the Free City of Danzig 1920-1934, 1979, ISBN 3-7648-1115-3 , S. 352, 371
- ↑ Ernst Sodeikat: National Socialism and the Danzig Opposition; In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Volume 12 (1966), Issue 2, 139–174, online
- ↑ printed in: Carl Jacob Burckhardt: Meine Danziger Mission, 2nd edition, 1960, p. 81
- ^ Carl Jacob Burckhardt: Meine Danziger Mission, 2nd edition, 1960, p. 82
- ↑ May 16, 1920, election to the constituent assembly , November 18, 1923, election to the 2nd People's Day , November 13, 1927, election to the 3rd People's Day , November 16, 1930, election to the 4th People's Day , May 28, 1933, election for the 5th People's Day , May 28, 1933 April 7, 1935, election for the 6th People's Day
- ↑ Langkau-Alex, Ursula. Documents on the history of the committee for the preparation of a German Popular Front, chronicles and directories. German Popular Front 1932–1939: between Berlin, Paris, Prague and Moscow / Ursula Langkau-Alex, vol. 3. Berlin: Akad.-Verlag, 2005, p. 331.
- ↑ Marek Anderzejewski: The press in the Free City of Danzig, online
- ↑ Stefan Samerski : The Catholic Church , pp. 198-199