German Centre Party Deutsche Zentrumspartei | |
|---|---|
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| Federal Chairman | Christian Otte |
| Founder | Joseph Görres |
| Founded |
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| Headquarters | Straberger Weg 12 41542, Dormagen, NRW |
| Youth wing | Windthorstbund |
| Paramilitary wing | Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (1924–1930) |
| Membership |  600 (2022 est.) |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| Religion | Catholic Church |
| Colours | Black White Blue |
| Bundestag | 0 / 736 |
| Bundesrat | 0 / 69 |
| State parliaments | 0 / 1,884 |
| European Parliament | 0 / 96 |
| Heads of State Governments | 0 / 16 |
| Website | |
| www | |
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| Christian democracy |
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&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:P_christianity.svg){kind=small} Christianity portal |
The Centre Party (German: Zentrum), officially the German Centre Party (German: Deutsche Zentrumspartei) and also known in English as the Catholic Centre Party, is a Christian democratic political party in Germany. It was most Influential in the German Empire and Weimar Republic. Formed in 1870, it successfully battled the Kulturkampf waged by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck against the Catholic Church. It soon won a quarter of the seats in the Reichstag, and its middle position on most issues allowed it to play a decisive role in the formation of majorities. The party name Zentrum (Centre) originally came from the fact that Catholic representatives would take up the middle section of seats in parliament between the social democrats and the conservatives.[3]
For most of the Weimar Republic, the Centre Party was the third-largest party in the Reichstag and a bulwark of the Republic, participating in all governments until 1932. Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in early 1933, the Centre Party was among the parties who voted for the Enabling Act, which granted legislative powers to Hitler's government. Nevertheless, the party was pressured into dissolving itself on 5 July, as the Nazi Party became the only legally permitted party in the country shortly thereafter.
After World War II, the party was reconstituted, but could not rise again to its former importance, as most of its members joined the new interdenominational Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and, in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The Centre Party continued on as a marginal party and concentrated its efforts on regional politics, mainly based in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The party was unrepresented on the German federal level from 1957 to 2022, when Federal representative Uwe Witt and European representative Jörg Meuthen defected from the AfD and joined the Centre Party.
- ^ Fogarty, Michael P. (1957). Christian Democracy in Western Europe: 1820–1953. Routledge Revivals. ISBN 978-1-351-38672-2.
- ^ Spenkuch, Jorg L.; Tillmann, Philipp (2017). "Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis". American Journal of Political Science. 62 (1). Midwest Political Science Association: 3. doi:10.1111/ajps.12328.
Promoting the political and cultural ideals of Germany's Catholic minority, the Zentrum had been the spearhead of Political Catholicism ever since its founding in the second half of the nineteenth century.
- ^ Blackbourn, David (December 1975). "The Political Alignment of the Centre Party in Wilhelmine Germany: A Study of the Party's Emergence in Nineteenth-Century Württemberg". Historical Journal. 18 (4): 821–850. doi:10.1017/S0018246X00008906. JSTOR 2638516.