Economic Party (Germany)
Reich Party of the German Middle Class Economic Party of the German Middle Class Reichspartei des deutschen Mittelstandes (Wirtschaftspartei) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Hermann Drewitz Johann Viktor Bredt |
| Founded | 1920 |
| Dissolved | 1932 |
| Succeeded by | Union Deutscher Mittelstandsparteien (unofficial) Economic Reconstruction Union (unofficial) Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung des Mittelstandes (unofficial) |
| Ideology | Conservatism (German) Anti-communism Middle Class Interests Corporatism Factions: Economic liberalism |
| Political position | Right-wing |
| Colours | Black White |
The Reich Party of the German Middle Class (German: Reichspartei des deutschen Mittelstandes), known from 1920 to 1925 as the Economic Party of the German Middle Classes (German: Wirtschaftspartei des deutschen Mittelstandes), was a conservative[1] Weimar era political party in Germany. It was commonly known as the Economic Party (German: Wirtschaftspartei, WP).
History
[edit]Early History
[edit]Following the establishment of the Weimar Republic, the German National People's Party (DNVP), which emerged as the main conservative party, hoped to include Germany's established bourgeoisie as a natural part of its own support base. This however was not to be the case, as the party quickly became associated with general rural interests as well as those of big business, and as a result the WP was formed in September 1920 by a Berlin baker named Hermann Drewitz to be the party of these middle-class views.
The party brought together a collection of almost entirely urban, often-contradictory, middle-class interests. The party incorporated artisans, property owners, small and medium businessmen, pensioners, professionals, and bureaucrats whose commonality was the degradation of their status caused by inflation. These groups had contradictory views of how the economy should be run. the artisans had a more corporatist mentality and demanded protection against the ‘‘excesses of free competition,’’ while property owners generally called for a restoration of classical laissez-faire economics.[2] In order to reflect the views of this group, the WP called for a reduction in government economic involvement, a freer hand for business and lower taxes.[3] It was particularly opposed to currency revaluation, which it considered an attack on the rights of property owners.[4] The WP did not dominate as the middle class vote, as some went with either the DNVP or one of the two liberal parties (the DVP and the DDP), whilst others preferred more radical right alternatives, but generally the WP emerged as the main group to specifically target the middle classes for its support.[5] The party’s primary policy goals were usually whatever best served the Middle Class at that particular moment, and served as a party for dissatisfied middle class voters among all parties. As a result of the focus on issues purely pertaining to the special interest they represented, the WP often found itself voting with the DNVP, NSDAP, and KPD in the Reichstag.[2]
Rise to Prominence
[edit]The WP quickly attracted the interest of organized housing interests headed by the former DNVP politician Johann Viktor Bredt. Bredt’s allies in the Prussian chapter of the Central Association of Home and Property Owners’ Organization, a lobby for housing interests, threw their full support behind the Party in the 1921 Prussian State Elections and were rewarded when the WP won it first representation in a State Landtag with 4 seats. Because of this, in its early history the WP was often viewed as a puppet of organized housing interests. In 1925, following a recommendation from Bredt — who was the party's best known member — the party changed its name from the Economic Party of the German Middle Classes to the Reich Party of the German Middle Classes. The name change was intended to overcome the WP's perception as a special interest party and to broaden its appeal among Germany’s middle-class voters. Nevertheless, the previous name remained more widely used.[2][5][6]
The party first appeared in the Reichstag in May 1924 election achieving 7 seats.[3]
In the July of 1925 the WP held its first national party congress in Görlitz and during the Congress established their new new party program called the Görlitz Guidelines (German: Görlitzer Richtlinien). The work of Saxon party leader Walther Wilhelm, the Görlitz Guidelines sought to strengthen the party’s ideological profile by incorporating the traditional demands of homeowners, artisans, and small businessmen into a corporatist agenda. With the new party program, the Business Party’s transformation from a party easily stigmatized as an agent for organized housing interests into one that claimed to represent the entire spectrum of the German middle class was finished. All of this, including the choice of Görlitz as the site of the party congress, was part of a conscious effort to give the WP the best possible chances in the upcoming Saxon elections. This proved successful when in the 1926 Saxon Landtag elections provided the WP achieved 10.1 percent of the vote and received a very useful platform for validating themselves as the party of the Middle Class and their discontent.[6]
1928 Elections
[edit]Among the German Right, the campaign for the 1928 Reichstag elections was dominated above all else by electoral attacks of various special interests parties such as CNBLP and the WP. The WP, which had been steadily growing at the expense of the other right wing parties since their founding, continued to campaign for the support of the parts of the middle-class that had not benefited from Germany's economic stabilization in the late 1920's. On 18 March 1928 Drewitz and the leaders of a nonpartisan organization known as the Reich Cartel of the German Middle Class (German: Reichskartell des deutschen Mittelstandes) launched with a series of demonstrations throughout the country under the slogan “Mittelstand in Not.” This initiative reached its high point in Berlin, where several thousand small business owners closed their shops and took to the streets in protest against high taxes, rent controls, and excessive government spending. Though officially nonpartisan, the demonstrations gave the WP an great opportunity for attacking other parties. They focused their attacks on the DNVP, especially for their support of the 1927 work hours law, which put more restrictions on working hours. The party improved their performance and won 23 seats.[7]
In cabinet negotiations following the elections, president Paul von Hindenburg had asked the WP to consider joining the Second Müller Cabinet, however in a meeting between the President and Drewitz, Drewitz had stated that Müller was simply unwilling to assent to the economic demands of the WP, thus pushing them into a position of opposition which they did not desire. The WP had demanded, among other things, the enforcement of laws against cartels, the reduction of taxes on department stores, and abolition of the housing allocation system. The other parties were worried about the continued opposition of a party who had only gained at the expense of them, and thought of the WP as unreliable. Though the DVP still hoped to potentially bring them into the Reich or even Prussian government, the compromises needed to make sure the nominally anti-socialist WP could coalition with the SPD were deemed too much of a risk for the WP to take.[8]
After the collapse of Müller's cabinet in March of 1930, the WP participated in cabinet negotiations to form the First Brüning Cabinet. Due to the necessity of having the support of as many of the parties in-between the SPD and DNVP he could, Brüning was willing to negotiate with them. The WP asked for the Ministry of Justice, thinking it would be the best ministry to advance the cause of the middle class, due to it writing the instructions on how to implement laws. Though Brüning had planned on giving it to the DVP, he accepted their demand. While further conflict arose over the perceived marginalization of conservatives and the domination of the Zentrum in cabinet, the cabinet was successfully formed in the same month, with Johann Victor Bredt — a WP deputy — as Justice minister.[9]
Decline
[edit]After the rise of the Nazis, the Economic party began to decline. After the 1930 Reichstag election, the party didn't lose any seats, but the increase in Reichstag members meant the party's power still declined. After those same elections, the WP executive made the extremely controversial decision to pull out from Brüning's govenment and to not join the Second Brüning cabinet, which led to Bredt losing his role as Justice Minister. This would then led to severe internal strife culminating in a leadership challenge by Deputy Chair Otto Colloser. Colloser would go on to lose this leadership challenge and was expelled from the party, going on to join the DStP, but despite the victory, Drewitz was so weakened by the chaos that Bredt would go on to take over leadership of the party. This crisis marked the true collapse of the party, with it winning only 2 seats in the July 1932 Reichstag election, 1 seat in the November 1932 Reichstag election, and then 0 in the March 1933 Reichstag election before finally dissolving.[10]
Saxony
[edit]Saxony remained economically behind the rest of Germany during the Weimar Republic and never shared in the benefits of Germany’s short-lived “return to normalcy” in the second half of the 1920s. Because of this, special-interest parties like the WP and the Reich Party for People’s Justice performed better in Saxony than in the country as a whole.[6]
The party enjoyed its strongest following in Saxony during the 1920s and when it first contested the Landtag of Saxony elections in 1924 it received 7.9% of the vote in Chemnitz-Zwickau, the only district in which it stood.[11] In 1926 the party co-operated with the German People's Party, DNVP and the Reich Party for Civil Rights and Deflation in a pact against "red parties" in Saxony, arguing that the left was using that state to launch its assault on the Weimar Republic in order to establish communism in Germany.[12] The pact was not a success however as a Social Democratic Party of Germany government took office in the state and before the WP was squabbling with their Reich Party allies over the issue of property revaluation (which WP opposed and the Reich Party supported).[13]
Nonetheless, their support in Saxony was reflected in the 1928 Reichstag election, where the party's 8.5% vote share was by some distance their highest in the country.[14] This fell to 7.3% in 1930 and to as low as 1% in July 1932 by which the WP, which had flirted with anti-parliamentary rhetoric and corporatism, saw its support transfer to the Nazi Party in Saxony as was the case elsewhere.[15]
Election results
[edit]| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/– |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 1924 | 500,820 | 1.71 | 7 / 472 (1%) |
 7 |
| December 1930 | 692,963 | 2.29 | 12 / 493 (2%) |
5 |
| 1928 | 1,387,602 | 4.54 | 23 / 491 (5%) |
11 |
| 1930 | 1,361,762 | 3.95 | 23 / 577 (4%) |
0 |
| July 1932 | 146,876 | 0.40 | 2 / 608 (0.3%) |
 21 |
| November 1932 | 110,309 | 0.31 | 1 / 585 (0.2%) |
1 |
| March 1933 | N/a | 0 / 647 (0%) |
1 | |
References
[edit]- ↑ Stanley G. Payne, Fascism:Comparison and Definition, Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1983, p. 16
- 1 2 3 Vincent, C. Paul. A Historical Dictionary of Germany's Weimar Republic, 1919-1933. pp. 105–106.
- 1 2 William Brustein, The Logic of Evil: The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925–1933, Yale University Press, 1998, p. 221
- ↑ Richard Bessel & E.J. Feuchtwanger, Social Change and Political Development in Weimar Germany, Croom Helm, 1981, ISBN 085664921X, p. 59
- 1 2 Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change After Bismarck, University of Michigan Press, 1991, p. 359
- 1 2 3 The German Right, 1918-1930: Political Parties, Organized Interests, and Patriotic Associations in the Struggle Against Weimar Democracy. pp. 353–354.
- ↑ The German Right, 1918-1930: Political Parties, Organized Interests, and Patriotic Associations in the Struggle Against Weimar Democracy. p. 395.
- ↑ Schumacher, Martin (1972). Mittelstandsfront und Republik 1919-1933 [Middle Class Front and Republic, 1919-1933] (in German). Pressehaus Düsseldorf am Martin-Luther-Platz: Droste Verlag. pp. 123–124.
- ↑ Katz, John Michael, "Johann Victor Bredt and German Party Politics: From Empire to Republic to Dictatorship, 1912 to 1933" (1996). All Master's Theses. 1790. https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd/1790
- ↑ Eugene Jones, Larry (1977). "SAMMLUNG ODER ZERSPLITTERUNG? Die Bestrebungen zur Bildung einer neuen Mittelpartei in der Endphase der Weimarer Republik 1930-1933" (PDF). Vierteljahrshefte Fur Zeitsgeschichte: 272.
- ↑ Benjamin Lapp, Revolution from the Right: Politics, Class, and the Rise of Nazism in Saxony, 1919–1933, BRILL, 1997, p. 134
- ↑ Lapp, Revolution from the Right, p. 186
- ↑ Lapp, Revolution from the Right, p. 187
- ↑ Lapp, Revolution from the Right, p. 163
- ↑ Lapp, Revolution from the Right, p. 166
- ↑ Gonschior, Andreas (2001–2005). "Das Deutsche Reich Reichstagswahlen 1919–1933". gonschior.de. Archived from the original on 2022-10-08. Retrieved 4 June 2026.
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