Centre Party (Germany)
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German Centre Party
Deutsche Zentrumspartei |
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Leader
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Gerhard Woitzik
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Founded
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13 December 1870
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Dissolved
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5 July 1933
Re-established: 1945 |
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Headquarters
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Membership (2006)
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600
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European affiliation
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Website
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The German
Centre Party (German: Deutsche Zentrumspartei or just Zentrum) was a Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich
and the Weimar Republic. In English it is often called the
Catholic Centre Party. Formed in 1870, it battled the Kulturkampf
which the Prussian
government launched to reduce the power of the Catholic
Church. It soon won a quarter of the seats in the Reichstag (Imperial Parliament), and its
middle position on most issues allowed it to play a decisive role in the
formation of majorities.[1]
When the Nazis
came to power the party dissolved itself on 5 July 1933 as a condition of the
conclusion of a Concordat between the Holy See and
Germany.
After World War
II, the party was refounded, but could not rise again to its former
importance, as most of its members joined the new Christian Democratic Union
(CDU). The Centre Party was represented in the German parliament until 1957. It
exists as a marginal party, mainly based in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Origins of Political Catholicism[edit]
The Centre
Party belongs to the political spectrum of "Political Catholicism" that, emerging in
the early 19th century after the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, had changed
the political face of Germany. Many Catholics found themselves in Protestant
dominated states.
The first major
conflict between the Roman Catholic Church and a Protestant state
was the "Colonian Church conflict", when the Prussian
government interfered in the question of mixed marriages and the
religious affiliation of children resulting from these. This led to serious
aggressions against the Catholic population of the Rhineland and
Westphalia
and culminated in the arrest of the Archbishop of Cologne[citation needed].
At that time,
one of the founding fathers of Political Catholicism was journalist Joseph
Görres, who called upon Catholics to "stand united" for their
common goals, "religious liberty and political and civil equality of the
denominations"[citation needed]. The conflict
relaxed after 1840, with Frederick William IV's accession to the throne.
The Revolution of 1848 brought new opportunities
for German Catholics. In October, the bishops had their first meeting in 40
years in Würzburg
and the local "Catholic Federations" assembled in Mainz to found the
"Catholic Federation of Germany". In the National Assembly, which was convened to draw
up a German constitution, a "Catholic club" was formed. This was not
yet a comprehensive party, but a loose union aimed at protecting the Church's liberties
in a future Germany, supported by many petitions from the "Pius
federations for religious liberty". The later demise of the National
Assembly proved to be a major setback for Political Catholicism.
Catholic groups in the Prussian Diet[edit]
In Prussia, the
revised constitution of 1850 granted liberties, which in parts even exceeded
those of the Frankfurt draft constitution, yet two years later the minister for
culture, von Raumer, issued decrees directed mainly against the Jesuits.
In reaction this led to a doubling of Catholic representatives in the
subsequent elections and the formation of a Catholic club in the Prussian Diet.
In 1858, when the "New Era" governments of Wilhelm I
adopted more lenient policies, the club renamed itself "Fraction of the
Centre" in order to open itself up to include non-Catholics. This name
stemmed from the fact that in the Prussian Diet the Catholic representatives
were seated in the centre, between the Conservatives on the right and the
Liberals on the left. Faced with military and constitutional issues, where
there was no definite Church position, the group soon disintegrated and
disappeared from parliament after 1867.
The Soest programme and the founding of the "Centre
Party"[edit]
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Growing
anti-Catholic sentiment and policies, including plans for dissolving all
monasteries in Prussia, made it clear that a reorganization of the group was
urgently needed in order to protect Catholic minority rights, enshrined in the
1850 constitution, and to bring them over to the emerging nation state.
In June 1870
Peter Reichersberger called on Catholics to unite and, in October, priests,
representatives of Catholic federations and the Catholic gentry met at Soest
and drew up an election programme. The main points were:
- Preservation
of the Church's autonomy and rights, as accepted by the constitution.
Defense against any attack on the independence of Church bodies, on the
development of religious life and on the practice of Christian charity.
- Effectual
implementation of parity for recognized denominations.
- Rejection
of any attempt to de-Christianize marriage.
- Preservation
or founding of denominational schools.
There were also
more general demands such as for a more federal, decentralized state, a
limitation of state expenditure, a just distribution of taxes, the financial
strengthening of the middle classes and the legal "removal of such evil
states, that threaten the worker with moral or bodily ruin".
With such a
manifesto, the number of Catholic representatives in the Prussian Diet rose
considerably and in December 1870. They formed a new "Centre"
faction, also called the "Constitution Party" to emphasize its
adherence to constitutional liberties.
Three months
later, early in 1871, the Catholic representatives to the new national
parliament, the Reichstag, also formed a "Centre" faction. The
party not only defended the Church's liberties, but also supported
representative government and minority rights in general, in particular those
of German Poles, Alsatians and Hannoverians. The Centre's main leader
was the Hannoverian advocate Ludwig
Windthorst and other major figures included Karl Friedrich von Savigny, Hermann von Mallinckrodt, Burghard Freiherr von
Schorlemer-Alst, the brothers August Reichensperger and Peter Reichensperger, and Georg Count Hertling.
Also in other
German states Catholic parties were formed, cooperating with the Prussian
Centre Party in the Reichstag:
- in
Bavaria, the "Bavarian Patriotic Party", with a
particularistic-conservative bent, since 1887 called the "Bavarian
Centre".
- in Baden,
the "Catholic People's Party", since 1881 formally linked to the
national "Centre Party" and since 1888 adopting the name
"Centre Party".
Kulturkampf[edit]
Main article: Kulturkampf
In the age of
nationalism, Protestant Germans, whether Conservative (like Otto
von Bismarck) or Liberal, accused the Centre of Ultramontanism
or having a greater loyalty towards the Pope than to their own nation. After
the First Vatican Council, Bismarck launched the Kulturkampf
or "cultural struggle" against the Catholic Church. But the Catholics
fought back vigorously and with near-unanimity. The Centre party gained greater
support from the Catholic population. Following Bismarck's 1878 turn from free trade
to protectionism
and from the National Liberal party to the Conservative
parties, he also abandoned the unsuccessful Kulturkampf.[2][3]
The Centre
party remained a party of opposition to Bismarck, but after his resignation in
1890, it frequently supported the following administrations' policies in the Reichstag, particularly in the field of
social security.
"Out of the tower!"[edit]
The Kulturkampf
had reinforced the Catholic character of the Centre Party, but even during it Ludwig
Windthorst had defended the party against Bismarck's accusation of being a
"denominational party" in describing the Centre as "a political
party with a comprehensive political programme and open to anyone, who accepts
it". However, few Protestants took up this offer and the Centre remained -
by the composition of its members, politicians and voters, an essentially
Catholic party.
Loyal to the Pope in church matters,
the Centre party steered a course independent of the Holy See on secular
matters.[citation needed] This became
apparent in the "septennat dispute" of 1886. Since the Centre Party
rejected Bismarck's military budget, the Chancellor negotiated with the Holy
See and promised to abolish some Kulturkampf-related
laws and to support the Pope in the Roman
question, if the Vatican persuaded the Centre Party to accept his bill. Despite
this agreement, the Centre Party rejected the budget and Bismarck called new
elections. He also published the letters with the Vatican, intending to drive a
wedge between Catholic voters loyal to the Pope and the Centre Party with the
slogan: "The Pope against the Centre!" Windhorst managed to avert
this by reaffirming the Party's autonomy, which the Pope had accepted, and by
interpreting the published letters as expressions of papal confidence in the
party.
As the
Kulturkampf declined, debates about the character of the party emerged
culminating in the Centre dispute, in 1906, after Julius Bachem had published
the article "We must get out of the tower!" He called upon Catholic
politicians to fulfill Windthorst's word and get out of their perpetual minority
position by an effort to increase Protestant numbers among their
representatives in parliament. His proposal was met with passionate opposition
by the greater part of Catholic public, especially since it also included the Christian trade unions and other Catholic
organisations. No side could win the upper hand, when the outbreak of World War I
ended the dispute.
After the war, Adam
Stegerwald, leader of the Christian trade unions, made another attempt
at transcending the party's exclusively Catholic character and uniting
Germany's fragmented party spectrum. In 1920 he advocated the formation of a
broad Christian middle-party, that would transcend denominations and social
classes and which could push back the Social Democrats' influence.
In war and revolution[edit]
The party
boldly supported the imperial government in the years prior to World War I
openly declaring Germany's "great political and moral mission"[4]
in the world. With the outbreak of World War I,
the party also used the debates about war bonds
to push for a repeal of the last remnants of anti-Jesuit laws. As the war
continued, many of the leaders of the Centre's left wing, particularly Matthias Erzberger, came to support a negotiated
settlement, and Erzberger was key in the passage of the Reichstag Peace Resolution of 1917.
The same year,
the Centre's Georg Count Hertling,
formerly Ministers-President of Bavaria, was
appointed Chancellor, but he could not overcome the dominance of the military
leadership of Hindenburg and Ludendorff.
When a parliamentary system of government was introduced in October 1918, the
new chancellor Max von Baden appointed representatives
from the Centre party, the Social Democrats and the left-liberals as ministers.
After the fall
of the monarchy, conflict arose between the party and the new Social Democratic
government. Adolf Hofmann, the Prussian minister for culture, attempted to
decree a total separation of church and state, forcing religion out of schools.
This stirred up a wave of protest among the Catholic population, and bishops,
Catholic organisations and the Centre Party itself united to combat the
"red danger". This conflict bridged internal tensions within the
party and secured its continual existence despite the turmoil of the
revolution.
The party
however was weakened by its Bavarian wing splitting off and forming the Bavarian People's Party (BVP), which
emphasized autonomy of the states and also took a more
conservative course.[citation needed]
In the 1919
elections for the National Assembly the Centre Party gained
91 representatives, being the second largest party after the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The Centre's Konstantin Fehrenbach was elected president
of the National Assembly. The party actively cooperated with Social Democrats
and left-liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) in drawing up
the Weimar Constitution, which guaranteed what the
Centre had been fighting for since its founding: equality for Catholics and
autonomy for Roman Catholic Church throughout Germany. The party was less
successful in the school question. Although religious education remained an
ordinary subject in most schools, the comprehensive, inter-denominational
schools became default.[citation needed]
In the Weimar Republic[edit]
The Centre
Party, whose pragmatic principles generally left it open to supporting either a
monarchical or republican form of government, proved one of the mainstays of
the Weimar Republic, continuing the cooperation with
SPD and DDP in the Weimar Coalition. This combination, however, lost
its majority in the 1920 elections.
The party was a
polyglot coalition of Catholic politicians, ranging from leftists like Matthias Erzberger and Joseph
Wirth to right-wingers like Franz
von Papen. As a result of the party's flexibility, it was a member of
nearly every government coalition in the Weimar Republic, both with the left
and right. However, this also damaged the party's prospects because it was
increasingly associated with all of the conflicts, problems, and failures of
the Republic.
The Centre had
a share of the odium attached to the so-called "Weimar Establishment"
which was blamed, especially on the right, for the "stab in the back"
of the German army at the end of the war[citation needed], as well as
for the humiliations of the Versailles Treaty and reparations. Erzberger
himself, who had signed the armistice, was assassinated by right-wing
extremists in 1920.[citation needed]
Although the
parties of the Weimar Coalition remained the base of the Weimar Republic, they
could not agree to resume a formal coalition government, especially because of
disagreements between the Centre Party and the Social Democrats on issues like
religious schools or a nationwide Concordat
with the Holy See. Between 1919 and 1932 the Centre participated in all
administrations, providing mainly the ministers for finance and labour and, on
four occasions, the Chancellor.
After the
break-up of the Weimar Coalition, in June 1920 the Centre's Konstantin Fehrenbach formed a new cabinet
that also included the left-liberal DDP and the national-liberal German People's Party (DVP).
In May 1921 the
Weimar Coalition once again resumed government under the Centre's Joseph
Wirth as Chancellor, but this Coalition collapsed again in November 1922.
After this, the Centre participated in the non-affiliated Wilhelm
Cuno's "government of the economy", together with both liberal
parties and the Bavarian People's Party (BVP).
In August 1923
the DVP's Gustav Stresemann formed a Grand Coalition
administration, comprising the Centre, both Liberal parties and the Social
Democrats, which lasted until November, when the Social Democrats left the
coalition and the Centre's Wilhelm Marx became chancellor of a cabinet of the
remaining parties.
In January 1925
the non-affiliated Hans Luther was appointed chancellor and formed a
coalition between the Centre, both Liberal parties, the BVP and, for the first
time, the right-wing German National People's Party
(DNVP). The Centre, the BVP and the DNVP jointly supported legislation to
expand religious schools.
In the same
year Wilhelm
Marx was the Centre's candidate in the presidential elections. In the
second round, combining the support of the Weimar coalition parties, he gained
45.3% of the vote and finished a close second to the victorious right-wing
candidate Paul von Hindenburg with 48.3%.
In May 1926
Chancellor Luther resigned and Marx again assumed his former office.
In June 1928,
the general elections had resulted in losses for the government parties and in
gains for the Social Democrats and the Communists. The Grand Coalition of 1923
was resumed, this time including the BVP and the Social Democrat Hermann Müller became chancellor.
During the
years of the Weimar Republic debates about the Catholic character of the party,
as described above, persisted. The left wing of the party, led by Erzberger and
Wirth, had close ties to the Christian trade unions led by Adam
Stegerwald. The right wing advocated a move towards the right and a closer
cooperation with the national movements. The middle-ground emphasized their
loyalty to the Church and rejected both extremes. To mediate the tension between
the wings and to strengthen their ties with the Bishops, the party in September
1928 did not elect the two favourites Joseph Joos and Adam
Stegerwald, but rather the cleric Ludwig Kaas
as chairman.
The Brüning administration[edit]
In 1930 the Grand
Coalition fell apart and Heinrich Brüning, from the moderate-conservative
wing of the party, was appointed as Chancellor. Brüning was confronted with
economic crises exacerbated by the Great
Depression and had to tackle the difficult tasks of consolidating both
budget and currency when faced with rising unemployment, and of also
negotiating changes to the war
reparations payments. His course of strict budget discipline, with severe
cuts in public expenditure, and tax increases made him extremely unpopular
among the lower and middle classes as well as among the Prussian Junkers.
In the 1930
elections, the parties of the Grand coalition lost their majority, forcing
Brüning to base his administration not on the support of a party coalition but
on that of the presidential decree ("Notverordnung") of article 48 of the
Constitution. This provided for the circumventing of parliament, and the
informal toleration of this practice by the parties. For this way of government
based on both the President and cooperation of parliament, Brüning coined the
term "authoritative (or authoritarian) democracy".
The Centre
consistently supported Brüning's government and in 1932 vigorously campaigned
for the re-election of Paul von Hindenburg, calling him a
"venerate historical personality" and "the keeper of the
constitution". Hindenburg was re-elected against Adolf
Hitler, but his moving further to the right shortly afterwards resulted in
Brüning's resignation on 30 May 1932.
President
Hindenburg, advised by General Kurt von Schleicher, appointed the Catholic
nobleman Franz von Papen as Chancellor, a member of the Centre's right wing and
former cavalry captain. The intention was to break the connection of the Centre
with the other republican parties or to split the party and integrate it into a
comprehensive conservative movement. However, the Centre refused to support
Papen's government in any way and criticized him for "distorting and
abusing good old ideals of the Centre, acting as the representative of
reactionary circles". Papen forestalled being expelled by leaving the
party.
Between coup d'état and "authoritarian
democracy"[edit]
Following
Brüning's resignation, the Centre Party entered the opposition. Though they
also opposed the National Socialists, their
energies were directed mainly against the renegade Papen. Some Centre
politicians were soothed by Hitler's strategy of legality into downplaying the
Nazi threat. This hampered their ability of being a bulwark of the republic
against the rising National Socialists.
In regard to
the government, the Centre Party rejected a "temporal solution", such
as Papen's presidial cabinets, and rather advocated a "total
solution", i.e., a government according to the rules of the constitution.
Since the Centre considered Papen's administration of being "in a
dangerous way dependent on radical right-wing parties", chairman Ludwig Kaas
advised the President to recognize this connection by basing the government on
a coalition with the rising right-wing parties, the "logical result of
current development". This would force the radicals to "take their
share in responsibility" and "acquainting them with international
politics". The Centre would then act as the party of opposition to this
administration.
As Papen was
faced with almost uniform opposition by the parties, he had the Reichstag dissolved. In the subsequent
elections, the Centre Party campaigned on two fronts, against both the Papen
government and National Socialists and reaffirmed their stance as the
"constitution party" opposed to "any measure contrary to
constitution, justice and law" and "unwilling to yield to
terror". The July elections brought further losses to the mainstream
parties and gains to the extremist parties. The National Socialists supplanted
the Social Democrats as the largest party in parliament.
As Communists and National Socialists
together had won the majority of seats, no government coalition could be formed
without one of them. Papen tried to justify his authoritarian style of
government by pointing out that parliament could no longer function properly.
Countering this reasoning, the Centre and the BVP tried to re-establish a
working parliament by cooperation with the National Socialists, since the three
parties together had attained 53% of the seats. When Papen called upon the
people to "reject the dictatorship of a single party", the Centre
Party agreed "without reservation", but it also stated that
"with the same resolution we reject the dictatorship of the nameless
party, now in power … even if cloaked with the illusion of
non-partisanship".
After Papen's
attempts to attain Hitler's support for his administration had failed, the
Centre began their own negotiations with the National Socialists. They started
in the state of Prussia,
where the Weimar Coalition had lost its majority. An
alternative majority could be not found and the Papen administration had seized
this opportunity to assume control of Germany's largest state in the
"Prussian coup" via presidential decree. Now, the National Socialists
proposed to end this direct rule by forming a coalition with the Centre Party,
promising an equal share in government. Since this went too far for the
Centre's national leadership, the negotiations were transferred to the national
level, where Heinrich Brüning conferred with Gregor
Strasser. During that period the anti-Nazi polemics ceased in order not to
disturb the negotiations. Since the NSDAP was the larger party, the Centre was
willing to accept a Nazi as Chancellor, provided he could gain the trust of the
President, which at that time seemed quite a difficult task.
The
negotiations were bound for failure, since the aims of the two groups were
largely incompatible. The Centre argued that the vote of July had "called
Hitler not to dictatorship but to responsibility, to getting in line with law
and constitution". They hoped to "build a strong government without
touching the substance of the constitution", to create "clear
responsibilities" and to "preclude anti-constitutional
experiments". The Centre advocated a return to Brüning's
"authoritarian democracy", which they considered up to the times and
tested by experience, against Papen's "omnipotent state and independent
leadership", while the Nazis would only accept a coalition that would
serve their purpose of achieving total dominance. Not expecting a successful
conclusion, Hitler used the Centre negotiations in order to put pressure on the
Papen administration.
The
negotiations were also met with criticism from within the Centre Party. Some
rejected them as "currying favour with the National Socialists" and
giving credence to Hitler's strategy of legality. The journalists Fritz
Gerlich and Ingbert Naab dismissed as
"illusionary" the attempt to "uphold the constitution and the
legal order" with a man such as Hitler with his "unconditional
propensity to evil". Instead of "driving out the devil by
Belzebub", the Centre should act as the parliament's conscience. The party
leadership answered their critics by calling it a "duty of
conscience" to try to achieve a constitutional government.
Though Papen
did not expect the negotiations to succeed, he was nonetheless concerned as a
success would have led to a presidential crisis, as Hindenburg was unwilling to
have a coalition parties dictate the administration. In September he ended all
speculations by dissolving the Reichstag again, almost immediately after its
first meeting.
Papen's act did
not end the negotiations between Centre and NSDAP. In fact, it made further
meetings possible, since the Centre Party's leadership blamed the failure not
on the parties' incompatibility but on Papen calling for new elections. Since
the NSDAP vote dropped again in the elections of November 1932, the Centre
Party considered their strategy successful and resumed negotiations, this time
under the slogan of forming a "Notgemeinschaft" ("community of
need"), even though the Centre, BVP, and NSDAP together no longer formed a
majority in parliament.
Chairman Ludwig Kaas
advised President von Hindenburg not to continue Papen's "administration
of conflict"; he advocated "national concentration including the
National Socialists", but did not comment on an alternative Chancellor,
since he considered that the "personal prerogative of President".
Hindenburg's negotiations with Hitler failed, however, as did Kaas' attempt to
form a coalition in parliament. By avoiding a clear statement, Hitler managed
to pin the blame for this failure on the DNVP's Alfred
Hugenberg, who had rejected Kaas' proposals.
In December,
the President appointed General Kurt von Schleicher Chancellor, since the
cabinet had refused to support Papen's planned coup d'état, a permanent
dissolution of the Reichstag. The Centre Party contributed to the failure of
Schleichers "Querfront" policy, since it could not bring itself to
supporting the new administration actively. This pushed the General-Chancellor
further in the direction of Papen's proposed coup d'état, a move the Centre
Party, as well as the other parties, refused to condone. Under these
circumstances, President Hindenburg refused to back the coup and Schleicher
accordingly resigned on 28 January 1933.
The Hitler government and new elections[edit]
Meanwhile von
Papen had formed an intrigue to oust his successor. He conferred with Hugenberg
and industrial
magnates and bankers and after a feverish night, in which the outcome was
unclear to all participants. On 30 January 1933 Hitler was appointed Chancellor
with Franz von Papen as Vice-Chancellor and Hugenberg as minister for
economics. President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic was Hjalmar
Schacht.
Though seeing
their adversaries Papen and Hugenberg join forces with Hitler, the Centre Party
still did not give up building a broad coalition government. Since the new
administration was still lacking a majority in parliament, the Centre was ready
to support it, either by toleration or by coalition. Hitler intended to
minimize non-Nazi participation, but feigned a willingness to cooperate with
the Centre and blamed Papen and Hugenberg for denying cabinet posts to the
Centre. When Kaas requested a broad outline of his government's objectives,
Hitler used his questionnaire to declare the talks a failure and obtain the
President's approval for calling for new elections for the third time in about
half a year.
These elections
in March 1933 were already marred by the SA's
terror, after the Reichstag fire and civil rights had been suspended
by President Hindenburg through the Reichstag Fire Decree. Still the Centre Party
campaigned hard against the Hitler administration and managed to preserve their
former vote of roughly 11%. The government parties NSDAP and DNVP however
jointly won 52% of the vote.
This result
shattered the Centre Party's hopes of being indispensable for obtaining a
majority in parliament. The party was now faced with two alternatives – either
to persist in protesting and suffer reprisals like Communists and Social
Democrats, or to declare their loyal cooperation, in order to protect their
members. As shown by subsequent events, the party, though deeply uncomfortable
with the new government, opted for the latter alternative.
The Enabling Act[edit]
The government
confronted the newly elected Reichstag with the Enabling Act that would have vested the
government with legislative powers for a period of four years. Though such a
bill was not unprecedented, this act was different since it allowed for
deviations from the constitution. As the bill required a two-thirds majority in
order to pass and the coalition parties only controlled 340 of the 647 seats
(52,5%), the government needed the support of other parties.
The Centre
Party, whose vote was going to be decisive, was split on the issue of the
Enabling Act. Chairman Kaas advocated supporting the bill in parliament in
return for government guarantees. These mainly included respecting the Church's
liberty, its involvement in the fields of culture, schools and education, the concordats
signed by German states, and the continued existence of the Centre Party
itself. Via Papen, Hitler responded positively and personally addressed the
issues in his Reichstag speech, but he repeatedly put off signing a written
letter of agreement.
Kaas was aware
of the doubtful nature of such guarantees, but when the Centre Party assembled
on 23 March to decide on their vote, Kaas advised his fellow party members to
support the bill, given the "precarious state of the party". He
described his reasons as follows: "On the one hand we must preserve our
soul, but on the other hand a rejection of the Enabling Act would result in
unpleasant consequences for faction and party. What is left is only to guard us
against the worst. Were a two-thirds majority not obtained, the government's
plans would be carried through by other means. The President has acquiesced in
the Enabling Act. From the DNVP no attempt of relieving the situation is to be
expected."
A considerable
number of parliamentarians however opposed the chairman's course, among these
former Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Joseph
Wirth and former minister Adam
Stegerwald. Brüning called the Act the "most monstrous resolution ever
demanded of a parliament", and was sceptical about Kaas' efforts:
"The party has difficult years ahead, no matter how it would decide.
Sureties for the government fulfilling its promises have not been given.
Without a doubt, the future of the Centre Party is in danger and once it is
destroyed it cannot be revived again."
The opponents
also argued that Catholic social teaching ruled out
participating in acts of revolution. The proponents however argued that a
"national revolution" had already occurred with Hitler's appointment
and the presidential decree suspending civil rights and that the Enabling Act
would contain the revolutionary forces and move the government back to a legal
order. Both groupings were not unaffected by Hitler's self-portrayal as a
moderate seeking cooperation as opposed to the more revolutionary SA led by Ernst
Röhm. Even Brüning thought it would be "decisive which groups of the
NSDAP will be in power in the future. Will Hitler's power increase or will he
fail, that is the question."
In the end the
majority of Centre parliamentarians supported Kaas' proposal. Brüning and his
followers agreed to respect party discipline by also voting in favour of the
bill.
The Reichstag
assembled under turbulent circumstances. SA men served as guards and crowded
outside the building to intimidate any opposition while the Communist and some
Social Democratic members of the Reichstag had all been imprisoned and were
thus prevented from voting. In the end, the Centre voted as planned in favour
of the Enabling Act, as did all the other parties apart from the SPD, which was
also the only party to speak against the act. The support of the Centre party
proved to be decisive, and the act was passed on 23 March 1933.
The end of the Centre Party[edit]
With the
passing of the Enabling Act the Centre Party had in fact acquiesced in its own
demise, as it had played the part Hitler had assigned to it and was no longer
needed. As promised during the negotiations, a working committee chaired by
Hitler and Kaas and supposed to inform about further legislative measures, met
three times (31 March, 2 April and 7 April) without any major impact.
At that time,
the Centre Party was weakened by massive defections by party members, often to
the NSDAP. Loyal party members, in particular civil servants, and other
Catholic organisations were subject to increasing reprisals, despite Hitler's
previous guarantees. The party was also hurt by a declaration of the German
bishops that, while maintaining their opposition to Nazi ideology,
lifted the ban on cooperation with the new authorities.
On 8 April,
Hitler sent Vice-Chancellor Papen to Rome to offer to the Pope negotiations for
a nationwide concordat. Throughout the years of the Weimar Republic, the
National Socialists had always been a staunch opponent of such an agreement,
but now Hitler intended to deal a decisive blow against Political Catholicism.
Shortly before Papen, the Centre Party's chairman Kaas had arrived in Rome and
because of his expertise in Church-state relations, he was authorized by Cardinal
Pacelli to negotiate terms with Papen, but pressure by the German government
forced him withdraw from visibly participating in the negotiations. Though the
Vatican tried to hold back the exclusion of Catholic clergy and organisations
from politics, in the end it had to accept the restriction to the religious and
charitable field, which effectively meant acquiescing to end the Centre Party.
On 14 July 1933 Hitler accepted the Concordat, which was signed a week later.
The issue of
the concordat pro-longed Kaas' stay in Rome, leaving the party without a
chairman, and on 5 May Kaas finally resigned from his post. The party now
elected Heinrich Brüning as chairman. At that time, the
Centre party was subject to increasing pressure in the wake of the process of Gleichschaltung
and after all the other parties had dissolved (or were banned like the SPD),
the Centre Party dissolved itself on 6 July. During the concordat negotiations,
Cardinal
Pacelli had acquiesced into the party's dissolution but he was nonetheless
dismayed that it occurred before the negotiations had been concluded. The day
after government issued a law banning the founding of new political parties,
thus turning the NSDAP into the party of the German state.
Refounding and post-war history[edit]
After the war,
the Centre party was refounded, but it was confronted with the emergence of the
Christian Democratic Union
(CDU), a new party formed as a Christian party comprising both Catholics and
Protestants. As many former Centre party politicians, e.g., Konrad
Adenauer, were founding members or joined the CDU and also Cardinal
Frings of Cologne endorsed the new party, the Centre lost their position as
the party of the Catholic population.
For some time
however, the party managed to hold on to regional strongholds in North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1945 the Centre's
Rudolf
Amelunxen had been the new state's first Ministers-President and the Centre
Party participated in the state government until 1958, when it dropped out of
the state parliament. Until 1959 the Centre was also represented in the state
parliament of Lower Saxony.
On the national
level, the Centre Party in the elections of 1949 won ten seats in the first Bundestag.
However, in 1953,the party (with the aid from the regional CDU) only retained
two seats. In 1957, largely due to the massive CDU landslide that year, the
party dropped out of the Bundestag completely and has never returned.
This demise is
at least partly due to Helene Wessel. In 1949 she was one of the Centre's
representatives in the Bundestag and also was elected chairwoman of the party,
the first woman ever to lead a German party. In 1951 she vocally opposed
Adenauer's policy of German rearmament and joined forces with the CDU's Gustav
Heinemann, the former Minister of the Interior. The two formed the
"Notgemeinschaft zur Rettung des Friedens in Europa" ("Emergency
community for saving peace in Europe"), an initiative intended to prevent
rearmament.
Wessel resigned
from her post and in November 1952 left the party. Immediately afterwards,
Wessel and Heinemann turned the "Notgemeinschaft" into a political
party, the "Gesamtdeutsche Volkspartei" ("Whole-German People's
Party" aka GVP), that failed badly in the elections of 1953. In 1957 the
GVP dissolved and most members joined the SPD.
Meanwhile the
Centre Party tried to forge an alliance of small parties of Christian
persuasion, to offer an alternative to disappointed CDU/CSU voters, but it only
gained the support of the "Bavarian Party". The two parties joined
forces under the name "Federalist Union", first in parliament since
1951, and in 1957 the general elections, but the results were disappointing.
In 1988 the
right wing of the party split off and formed the "Christian Centre Party". In 2003 the
evangelical "Christian Party of Germany" (CPD)
joined the Centre Party.
Since its
demise on the national level, the Centre Party focuses on local politics, while
maintaining the same positions as in the post-war period. The party is
represented in some city councils in North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt.
The chairman of
the party is Gerhard Woitzik, vice-mayor
of the city of Dormagen
in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The party is affiliated with the European Christian Political
Movement.
Despite its
marginal numbers, the Centre party emphasizes continuity to its history by
sometimes referring to itself as the "oldest political party of
Germany". According to its statutes the official name of the party is
"Deutsche Zentrumspartei - Älteste Partei Deutschlands gegründet
1870", which translates as "German Centre Party - Oldest Party in
Germany founded in 1870".[5]
References[edit]
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