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Expropriation of Princely Assets | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Expropriation of the Princes (German: Fürstenenteignung) was the proposed seizure of the dynastic properties of the former ruling houses of the German Empire during the period of the Weimar Republic. The princes had been deposed in the German Revolution of 1918–19. Dispute over the proposed expropriation began in the months of revolution and continued in the following years in the form of negotiations or litigation between individual royal houses and the states (Länder) of the German Reich. The climactic points of the conflict were a successful petition for a referendum in the first half of 1926, followed by the actual referendum for expropriation without compensation, which failed.
The petition was initiated by the German Communist Party (KPD), who were then joined, with some reluctance, by the Social Democrats (SPD). It was not only the KPD and SPD voters who supported expropriation without compensation. Many supporters of the Centre Party and the liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) were also in favour. In some regions voters of conservative national parties also supported expropriation. Associations of the aristocracy, the churches of the two major denominations, large-scale farming and industrial interest groups as well as right-wing parties and associations supported the dynastic houses. Their calls for a boycott finally brought about the failure of the referendum. Expropriation without compensation was replaced by individual compensation agreements, which regulated the distribution of the estates among the states and the former ruling families.
Politicians and historians have differing interpretations of the events. While the official East German version of history stressed the actions of the Communist Party of the time, West German historians pointed to the substantial burdens that the referendum initiatives put on the cooperation between the SPD and the republican parties of the bourgeoisie. Attention is also drawn to the generational conflicts that emerged in this political dispute. The campaign for expropriation without compensation is also sometimes seen as a positive example of direct democracy.