German Democratic Party

Not to be confused with Democratic Party of Germany.
German Democratic Party
Deutsche Demokratische Partei
Founded20 November 1918; 105 years ago (20 November 1918)
DissolvedJuly 1930; 94 years ago (July 1930)
Preceded byProgressive People's Party
Merged intoGerman State Party
Youth wingYoung Democrats
Paramilitary wingReichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (1924–1930)
IdeologyRepublicanism[1][2]
Classical liberalism[3][1]
Social liberalism[4][5]
Progressivism[6]
Political positionCentre[7] to centre-left[6][8]
International affiliationInternational Entente of Radical and Similar Democratic Parties
Colours  Black   Red   Gold (republican colors)[9]

The German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP) was a liberal political party in the Weimar Republic, considered centrist[10] or centre-left.[11] Along with the right-liberal German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei, DVP), it represented political liberalism in Germany between 1918 and 1933. It was formed in 1918 from the Progressive People's Party and the liberal wing of the National Liberal Party, both of which had been active in the German Empire.

After the formation of the first German state to be constituted along pluralist-democratic lines, the DDP took part as a member of varying coalitions in almost all Weimar Republic cabinets from 1919 to 1932. Before the Reichstag elections of 1930, it united with the Volksnationale Reichsvereinigung, which was part of the national liberal Young German Order (Jungdeutscher Orden). From that point on the party called itself the German State Party (Deutsche Staatspartei, DStP) and retained the name even after the Reich Association left the party. Because of the connection to the Reich Association, members of the left wing of the DDP broke away from the party and toward the end of the Republic founded the Radical Democratic Party, which was unsuccessful in parliament. Others joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

After the National Socialists took power, the German State Party was dissolved on 28 June 1933 as part of the process of Gleichschaltung (coordination) by means of which the Nazis established totalitarian control over German society.

  1. ^ a b Kurlander, Eric (2006). The Price of Exclusion: Ethnicity, National Identity, and the Decline of German Liberalism, 1898–1933. Berghahn Books. p. 197. ISBN 1-8454-5069-8.
  2. ^ Maier, Charles S. (1975). Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany and Italy in the Decade after World War I. Princeton University Press. p. 56. ISBN 0-691-05220-4.
  3. ^ Mommsen, Hans (1996). The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. University of North Carolina Press. p. 58. ISBN 0-8078-2249-3.
  4. ^ Van De Grift, Liesbeth (2012). Securing the Communist State: The Reconstruction of Coercive Institutions in the Soviet Zone of Germany and Romania, 1944–48. Lexington Books. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-7391-7178-3.
  5. ^ Lash, Scott; Urry, John (1987). The End of Organized Capitalism. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 27. ISBN 0-7456-0068-9.
  6. ^ a b Sartori, Giovanni (1976). Parties and Party Systems. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 156.
  7. ^ Lee, Stephen J. (1998). The Weimar Republic. Routledge. p. 23. ISBN 0-415-17178-4.
  8. ^ Allinson, Mark (2015). Germany and Austria since 1814 (second ed.). Routledge. p. 58.
  9. ^ Preuss, Hugo (2008). Schwarz-Rot-Gold: Zum Nürnberger Parteitag (1920) [Black-Red-Gold: For the Nuremberg Party Congress (1920)]. Gesammelte Schriften – Vierter Band: Politik und Verfassung in der Weimarer Republik (in German). Mohr Siebeck. p. 155.
  10. ^ Lee, Stephen J. (1998). The Weimar Republic. Library Genesis. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-17178-6.
  11. ^ Orlow, Dietrich (15 December 1986). Weimar Prussia, 1918–1925: The Unlikely Rock of Democracy. University of Pittsburgh Press. p. 329. ISBN 978-0-8229-7640-0.