German People's Union
The defunct German Party had continued to exist as an association, it was re-founded as a political party at Kassel in May 1993 and has since worked with other right-wing parties such as the national liberal "Bund freier Bürger" (BFB). The new party was led by Johannes Freiherr von Campenhausen until 2001 when the former FDP and BFB politician Heiner Kappel took his place. Upon the 2003 merger with the "Freiheitliche Deutsche Volkspartei" (FDVP), a far-right splinter group of the German People's Union (DVU) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, it adopted the name affix "Die Freiheitlichen" referring to the Freedom Party of Austria and changed its course towards a more radical stance.