Deutsche Reichspartei

Deutsche Reichspartei
The Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP), also known as the German Empire Party or German Imperial Party, was a nationalist, far-right, and later neo-Nazi political party in West Germany. It was founded in 1950 from the German Right Party, which had been set up in Lower Saxony in 1946 and had five members in the first Bundestag, and from which it took the name. Its biggest success and only major breakthrough came in the 1959 Rhineland-Palatinate regional election when it sent deputies to the assembly.
Prior to its 1952 turn towards explicit neo-Nazism, the DRP advocated German nationalism, pan-Germanism and support of a new Reich, and pan-European nationalism. An anti-communist, antisemitic, and anti-socialist party, its criticism of capitalism was reflected in economic antisemitic terms rather than socialism, in addition to racial antisemitism. When the openly neo-Nazi-oriented Socialist Reich Party (SRP) was declared unconstitutional and disbanded by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, many of its members joined the DRP. With its lack of success, the party was symbolically liquidated and followed by the establishment of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD).
Formation
The DRP was established in 1950 when the majority of the Deutsche Rechtspartei (German Reich Party) members of the Bundestag decided to establish a more formal party network under the DRP name. The new party absorbed the National Democrats, a splinter group from Hesse. The party took its name from an earlier group of the same name that had existed during the German Empire period. The initial three deputy chairmen, Wilhelm Meinberg, Otto Hess, and Heinrich Kunstmann, had all been members of the Nazi Party. From 1951, the group published its own newspaper, which was titled Reichsruf (Call of the Reich).
Development
The party moved towards explicit neo-Nazism in 1952, when the Socialist Reich Party (SRP) was declared unconstitutional and disbanded by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Much of its membership then joined the DRP. The membership of Hans-Ulrich Rudel in 1953 was seen as marking out the party as the new force of neo-Nazism and he enjoyed close ties to Savitri Devi and Nazi mysticism.
Stability under chancellor Konrad Adenauer of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the growth experienced during the Wirtschaftswunder meant that the DRP struggled for support, averaging around only 1% of the national votes in the federal elections of 1953, 1957, and 1961. The party's only major breakthrough came in 1959 in the regional election for Rhineland-Palatinate, where it won 5.1% of the vote and thus was able to send deputies to the assembly.
In 1962, the party took part in an international conference of far-right groups hosted in Venice by Oswald Mosley and signed up as members of his National Party of Europe. This initiative did not take off as Mosley had hoped, as few of the member parties, including the DRP, were interested in changing their name to National Party of Europe, as he had hoped they would. One of the party's last acts in 1964 saw it sponsor a tour of Germany by controversial American historian David Hoggan.
Dissolution
The lack of national success saw the leaders of the DRP seek to extend their influence further, and they made contact with the leaders of other rightist parties, such as the German Party and its successor (following that organisation's merger with the All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights), the Gesamtdeutsche Partei seeking close ties. It was soon decided that a more formal union with other rightist groups was desirable. They held their final party conference in Bonn in 1964 in which they voted to form a new union of "national democratic forces". The party was symbolically liquidated, with the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany, NPD) established immediately afterwards.
See also
1953 West German federal election
1957 West German federal election
1961
Far-right politics in Germany (1945–present)
References
German nationalist political parties
Defunct political parties in Germany
Political parties established in 1950
Far-right political parties in Germany
Fascist parties in Germany
Political parties disestablished in 1964
1950 establishments in West Germany
Neo-Nazism in Germany
Anti-communist parties