The German Democratic Party (, or DDP) was a center-left liberal party in the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
.
Along with the
German People's Party (, or 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
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
.
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 People’s National Reich Association (), which was part of the nationalist and anti-Semitic
Young German Order (). From that point on the party called itself the German State Party (, or 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
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been ...
(SPD).
After the
National Socialists took power, the German State Party was dissolved on 28 June 1933 as part of the process of ''
Gleichschaltung
The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...
'' (coordination) by means of which the Nazis established totalitarian control over German society.
Weimar Republic
Emergence of the DDP
On 16 November 1918, one week after the
November Revolution that brought down the monarchy after Germany’s defeat in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, an appeal for the founding of a new democratic party, written by the editor-in-chief of the ''
Berliner Tageblatt''
Theodor Wolff and signed by 60 well-known people, appeared in the morning edition of the paper under the headline ‘The Great Democratic Party’. An almost identical statement was published at the same time by the ''
Vossische Zeitung
The (''Voss's Newspaper'') was a nationally-known Berlin newspaper that represented the interests of the liberal middle class. It was also generally regarded as Germany's national newspaper of record. In the Berlin press it held a special role d ...
'' (Voss’s Newspaper). Four days later members of the Progressive People's Party, which had participated in the last two governments of the German Empire in 1917/18, and the liberal wing of the National Liberal Party joined with Wolff, sociologist
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...
, economist
Alfred Weber, lawyer
Hugo Preuß and others to found the German Democratic Party (DDP).
In 1910 the left-liberal Progressive People's Party had emerged from the
Free-minded People’s Party (), the
Free-minded Union () and the German People’s Party (, or DtVP) of the German Empire (the latter not to be confused with the German People’s Party (DVP) of the Weimar Republic). It was this new party and the comparatively small left wing of the former National Liberal Party of the Empire that under Wolff and his associates merged to form the new German Democratic Party in 1918. The DDP united those holding democratic and liberal ideals and common positions on national and social issues but distanced itself from the wartime annexation policy of the former National Liberals of the Empire. The main representative of that point of view,
Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as chancellor in 1923 (for 102 days) and as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, during the Weimar Republic.
His most notable achievement was the reconci ...
, who at the time still saw himself as a monarchist, went on to found a party that was somewhat more hostile to the republic, the
German People's Party (DVP).
No other party identified itself as unreservedly with the parliamentary democracy of the Weimar Republic as the DDP; no other party professed individual freedom and social responsibility so unequivocally. The crucial framers of the
Weimar Constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich (german: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (''Weimarer Verfassung''), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era (1919–1933). The c ...
came from the ranks of the DDP.
Hugo Preuß authored the draft version of the constitution that was passed by the
Weimar National Assembly;
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...
served as advisor to the drafting committee; Conrad Haußmann was vice president and chairman of the Constitutional Committee of the National Assembly; and
Friedrich Naumann, a member of the Weimar National Assembly and considered one of the ‘Fathers of the Constitution’, was elected DDP chairman at the First Party Congress in July 1919.
The party strove for a unified federal state and demanded – like almost all other parties – a revision of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...
that had imposed harsh terms on Germany after its defeat in World War I. The DDP supported the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference th ...
as an institution for the peaceful reconciliation of interests between states. In social policy, the party was close to the reform efforts of the Hirsch-Duncker Trade Associations whose aim was to implement social reform through cooperation between employees and employers, following the example of English trade unions. The DDP also sought a balance between the social and economic policy ideas of labor and the middle classes through cooperation with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The DDP supported the principle of private enterprise but also called for the possibility of state intervention. Because of its clear commitment to liberalism and the parliamentary system, the DDP was the target of constant attacks from the ranks of the nationalist and conservative
German National People’s Party (, or DNVP) and the German Ethnic Freedom Party (, or DVFP).
The program of the DDP was a synthesis of liberal and social ideas. In the pre-war period, such a fusion had been attempted by Friedrich Naumann. He was a Protestant theologian and came from the Christian social movement. Supporters and members of the party were recruited primarily from the liberal professions, teachers, and university lecturers, i.e., from the educated middle classes, or ''
Bildungsbürgertum
''Bildungsbürgertum'' () is a social class that emerged in mid-18th-century Germany, as the educated social stratum of the bourgeoisie, men and women who had received an education based upon the metaphysical values of Idealism and Classical ...
''. It was also supported by executives and civil servants, industrialists mainly from the chemical and electrical industries and liberal Jews. More Jews voted for the DDP than for any other party. It was therefore dubbed the "party of Jews and professors".
In addition to Naumann, prominent members of the DDP included Hugo Preuß (the ‘father’ of the Weimar Constitution) and Foreign Minister
Walther Rathenau. The DDP provided a home for politically active women in the Weimar Republic such as
Marie-Elisabeth Lüders who in the 1950s was named ‘’ of the
West German Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Comm ...
, an honorific given to the oldest or longest-serving member. Physicist
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
co-signed the DDP’s founding document but was not an active party member. (See also the 'Notable Members' section below.)
Along with the SPD, the DDP was one of the staunchest supporters of the Weimar Republic. Party strongholds were found in Berlin,
Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of ...
,
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sc ...
,
Württemberg
Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart.
Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...
, the
Weser-Ems
The Regierungsbezirk Weser-Ems was the most westerly of the four administrative regions of Lower Saxony, Germany, bordering on the Dutch provinces of Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel. It was established in 1978 by merging the former regions Osnab ...
area, and especially in Hamburg, where the 1919 to 1924 party leader
Carl Wilhelm Petersen
Carl Wilhelm Petersen (born 1 January 1868 in Hamburg; died 6 November 1933 in Hamburg) was a German lawyer, politician for the German Democratic Party (German abbr.: DDP) and First Mayor of Hamburg (1924 – 29 and 1932 – 33).
Peterse ...
was First Mayor and head of government.
In the first nationwide elections to the National Assembly of the still young republic, the DDP received 18 percent of the vote and in 1919/1920 formed the
Weimar Coalition with the SPD and the Catholic
Centre Party as the first government of the Weimar Republic. While the party counted around 800,000 members one year after its founding, by 1927 its membership had dropped to 117,000. In spite its steadily dwindling size, the DDP played an important political role in the early years of the Republic. For one, its position between the SPD and the Centre Party helped stabilize the Weimar Coalition nationwide and especially in
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
. Wilhelm Abegg, for example, the state secretary in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, reorganized and modernized the Prussian police. In addition, members of the DDP formed an important reservoir of personnel for high positions in public administration. No other party was able to provide to a similar extent civil servants who both possessed the professional training and were loyal to the democratic system of the Weimar Republic, something that was not the case with the mostly monarchist and anti-democratic civil servants inherited from the Empire.
Decline during the 1920s
In 1920 the DDP had already lost votes, in large measure to the German People's Party, German National People’s Party, and to parties focused on single issues. This was due to disagreements within the DDP over how to deal with the Versailles Peace Treaty, of which some deputies approved. The loss of votes was accompanied by a simultaneous loss of members, finances and journalistic support. Important newspapers such as the ''Vossische Zeitung'' and the ''
Frankfurter Zeitung
The ''Frankfurter Zeitung'' () was a German-language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt. In Nazi Germany, it was considered the only mass publication not completely controll ...
'' held views that were close to those of the DDP, but the party was never able to establish an important party paper of its own such as the SPD’s ''
Vorwärts'' or later the Nazi Party’s ''
Völkischer Beobachter''. The prejudice that the DDP was the ‘party of big capital’ held credence among part of the public, a prejudice that was factually false and charged with anti-Semitism. In later years, the Nazi Party exploited this by defaming the DDP as ‘the Jewish party’.
Another reason for the decline was their program of ‘social capitalism’ in which workers and owners mutually recognized "duty, right, performance and profit" and where solidarity was to prevail between employees, workers and owners. This visionary idea was out of touch with the reality of rising unemployment and economic difficulties under the pressure of the Treaty of Versailles.
Renaming to the German State Party
In July 1930 the DDP united with the People’s National Reich Association (VNR) to form the German State Party, initially for the upcoming Reichstag elections. This brought fierce conflicts within the party, as the VNR was the political arm of
Artur Mahraun's conservative and anti-Semitic Young German Order. After the merger many members of the left wing, including
Ludwig Quidde
Ludwig Quidde (; 23 March 1858, Free City of Bremen – 4 March 1941) was a German politician and pacifist who is mainly remembered today for his acerbic criticism of German Emperor Wilhelm II. Quidde's long career spanned four different era ...
and Hellmut von Gerlach, left the party and in 1930 founded the Radical Democratic Party, which was largely unsuccessful politically. The Young German Orden broke away from the DDP immediately after the Reichstag elections, but the DDP nevertheless formally renamed itself the German State Party (DStP) in November 1930.
Until 1932 the DStP participated in the majority of Reich governments, but in the elections of that year it received only about one percent of the vote and sank to insignificance. In the
March 1933 elections, after Adolf Hitler had been named chancellor, the DStP obtained five seats in the Reichstag with the help of a combined list with the SPD. The five DStP deputies, as opposed to the SPD, voted for the Nazi-sponsored
Enabling Act, which effectively disempowered the Reichstag. Their "yes" to the Enabling Act was justified by the deputy
Reinhold Maier. The final sentence of his speech read: "In the interest of the people and the Fatherland and in the expectation of lawful developments, we will put aside our serious misgivings and agree to the Enabling Act."
Development after the Nazi seizure of power
Self-dissolution in 1933
Since the mandates of the DtSP’s Reichstag deputies had been won by means of nominations from the Social Democratic Party, they expired in July 1933 based on a provision of the
Gleichschaltung Law of 31 March 1933. The self-dissolution of the DStP, forced by the National Socialists, took place on 28 June 1933. The law against the formation of new parties enacted on 14 July codified the existence of a single party in the Nazi state, the
NSDAP
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
, and any activity on behalf of other parties was made a punishable offense.
Resistance to National Socialism
Individual members of the DStP participated in the
resistance to National Socialism. The only left-liberal resistance group, the Robinsohn-Strassmann group, consisted mainly of former DDP/DStP members. A middle-class resistance circle with about sixty members was the Sperr Circle in Bavaria. It consisted of the diplomat
Franz Sperr
Franz Sperr (born 12 February 1878 in Karlstadt-sur-le-Main; died 23 January 1945 in Berlin) was a member of German resistance against Nazism.
Biography
Franz Sperr was the son of an engineer from the Royal Bavarian Railways. His family move ...
as well as the former Weimar Reich ministers and DDP members Otto Geßler and Eduard Hamm. Many former members of the DDP and Radical Democratic Party also found themselves forced into exile either because of their stance against the regime or their pacifist attitudes, among them Ludwig Quidde and Wilhelm Abegg. Others were murdered by the National Socialists, including Fritz Elsas.
DDP politicians after World War II
After World War II former members of the DDP were instrumental in founding both the West German
Free Democratic Party (FDP) – for example
Theodor Heuss,
Thomas Dehler
Thomas Dehler (14 December 1897 – 21 July 1967) was a German politician. He was the Federal Republic of Germany's first List of German justice ministers, Minister of Justice (1949–1953) and chairman of Free Democratic Party (Germany), Free De ...
and
Reinhold Maier – and the
East German
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
Liberal Democratic Party (LDPD) – including
Wilhelm Külz
Wilhelm Külz (18 February 1875 – 10 April 1948) was a German liberal politician of the National Liberal Party, the German Democratic Party (DDP) and later the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD). He held public office both in the Germa ...
,
Eugen Schiffer
Eugen Schiffer (14 February 1860 – 5 September 1954) was a German lawyer and liberal politician. He served as Minister of Finance and deputy head of government from February to April 1919. From October 1919 to March 1920, he was again deputy h ...
and
Waldemar Koch – while others such as
Ernst Lemmer, Ferdinand Friedensburg and
August Bach went to the
Christian Democratic Union (CDU), or the Social Democratic Party, including
Erich Lüth
Erich Lüth (born 1 February 1902 in Hamburg, died 1 April 1989) was a German writer and film director.
Career
Lüth began his career in 1923 as an intern in the editorial staff of the Hamburger Ullstein Verlag Berlin his education. Subsequently, ...
.
Otto Nuschke
Otto Nuschke (23 February 1883 – 27 December 1957) was a German politician.
Nuschke was born in Frohburg in the Kingdom of Saxony. In 1910 he was elected General Secretary of the liberal Progressive People's Party (''Fortschrittliche Volk ...
became leader of the
East German CDU.
The youth organization
Young Democrats (), which had been close to the DDP, continued to exist until 2018.
Election results
Party chairmen of the DDP and DStP
Noted members of the DDP and DStP
*
Gertrud Bäumer
Gertrud Bäumer (12 September 1873, Hagen-Hohenlimburg, Westphalia – 25 March 1954, Bielefeld, Bethel) was a German politician who actively participated in the German civil rights feminist movement. She was also a writer, and contributed to ...
(1873–1954), women's rights activist
*
Thomas Dehler
Thomas Dehler (14 December 1897 – 21 July 1967) was a German politician. He was the Federal Republic of Germany's first List of German justice ministers, Minister of Justice (1949–1953) and chairman of Free Democratic Party (Germany), Free De ...
(1897–1967), lawyer
*
Bernhard Dernburg
Bernhard Dernburg (17 July 1865 – 14 October 1937) was a German liberal politician and banker. He served as the secretary for Colonial Affairs and head of the Imperial Colonial Office from May 1907 to 9 June 1910, and as the minister of Finance ...
(1865–1937), banker
*
Hermann Dietrich (1879–1954), Reich Minister of Agriculture and Finance, Vice Chancellor and party chairman
*
Hellmut von Gerlach
Hellmut Georg von Gerlach (2 February 1866 – 1 August 1935) was a German journalist and politician.
Life
Hellmut von Gerlach, the son of landowner Max von Gerlach, was born in Mönchmotschelnitz in Silesia. He studied law at the universiti ...
(1866–1935), publisher
*
Otto Geßler (1875–1955), Reich Minister of Defense
*
Adolf Grimme (1889–1963), cultural politician
*
Willy Hellpach (1877–1955), psychologist
*
Theodor Heuss (1884–1963), journalist and university lecturer
*
Elly Heuss-Knapp (1881–1952), social reformer
*
Harry Graf Kessler
Harry Clemens Ulrich Graf von Kessler (23 May 1868 – 30 November 1937) was an Anglo-German count, diplomat, writer, and patron of modern art. English translations of his diaries "Journey to the Abyss" (2011) and "Berlin in Lights" (1971) rev ...
(1868–1937), art collector and diplomat
*
Erich Koch-Weser (1875–1944), party chairman
*
Wilhelm Külz
Wilhelm Külz (18 February 1875 – 10 April 1948) was a German liberal politician of the National Liberal Party, the German Democratic Party (DDP) and later the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD). He held public office both in the Germa ...
(1875–1948), Reich Minister of the Interior and Lord Mayor of Dresden
*
Helene Lange
Helene Lange (9 April 1848 in Oldenburg – 13 May 1930 in Berlin) was a pedagogue and feminist. She is a symbolic figure of the international and German civil rights feminist movement. In the years from 1919 to 1921 she was a member of the Ham ...
(1848–1930), women's rights activist
*
Ernst Lemmer (1898–1970), trade union leader
*
Marie-Elisabeth Lüders (1878–1966), women's rights activist
*
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
(1875–1955), writer
*
Reinhold Maier (1889–1971), lawyer
*
Friedrich Meinecke
Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian, with national liberal and anti-Semitic views, who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. After World War II, as a representative of an older tradition, he crit ...
(1862–1954), historian
*
Friedrich Naumann (1860–1919), party leader and publisher
*
Otto Nuschke
Otto Nuschke (23 February 1883 – 27 December 1957) was a German politician.
Nuschke was born in Frohburg in the Kingdom of Saxony. In 1910 he was elected General Secretary of the liberal Progressive People's Party (''Fortschrittliche Volk ...
(1883–1957), journalist
*
Friedrich von Payer (1847–1931), parliamentary group chairman
*
Carl Wilhelm Petersen
Carl Wilhelm Petersen (born 1 January 1868 in Hamburg; died 6 November 1933 in Hamburg) was a German lawyer, politician for the German Democratic Party (German abbr.: DDP) and First Mayor of Hamburg (1924 – 29 and 1932 – 33).
Peterse ...
(1868–1933), party chairman
*
Hugo Preuß (1860–1925), constitutional lawyer and Reich Minister of the Interior
*
Ludwig Quidde
Ludwig Quidde (; 23 March 1858, Free City of Bremen – 4 March 1941) was a German politician and pacifist who is mainly remembered today for his acerbic criticism of German Emperor Wilhelm II. Quidde's long career spanned four different era ...
(1858–1941), historian, publisher and pacifist
*
Walther Rathenau (1867–1922), industrialist and Reich Foreign Minister
*
Hjalmar Schacht
Hjalmar Schacht (born Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht; 22 January 1877 – 3 June 1970, ) was a German economist, banker, centre-right politician, and co-founder in 1918 of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner ...
(1877–1970), Reichsbank president
*
Gerhart von Schulze-Gaevernitz Gerhart may refer to:
As a given name
* Gerhart Baum (born 1932), German politician and former Federal Minister of the Interior
* Gerhart Eisler (1897-1968), German communist politician
* Gerhart Friedlander (1916–2009), nuclear chemist who work ...
(1864–1943), national economist
*
Wilhelm Solf (1862–1936), diplomat
*
Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923), theologian
*
Alfred Weber (1868–1958), national economist and sociologist
*
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...
(1864–1920), sociologist and national economist
*
Eberhard Wildermuth (1890–1952), director of the German Construction and Land Bank
*
Theodor Wolff (1868–1943), journalist
Pictures
File:DBP 1974 792 Helene Lange.jpg, Feminist and DDP co-founder Helene Lange
Helene Lange (9 April 1848 in Oldenburg – 13 May 1930 in Berlin) was a pedagogue and feminist. She is a symbolic figure of the international and German civil rights feminist movement. In the years from 1919 to 1921 she was a member of the Ham ...
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-Z1117-502, Berlin, Staatsakt für Walter Rathenau.jpg, Funeral celebration for Walther Rathenau, the murdered DDP minister of foreign affairs, 1922
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-01209, Berlin, Willy Hellpach spricht im Sportpalast.jpg, Psychologist Willy Hellpach, DDP candidate for Reich Presidency in 1925
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00147A, Wilhelm Külz und Otto Karl Geßler.jpg, DDP Ministers Wilhelm Külz
Wilhelm Külz (18 February 1875 – 10 April 1948) was a German liberal politician of the National Liberal Party, the German Democratic Party (DDP) and later the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD). He held public office both in the Germa ...
(left, Interior) and Otto Gessler
Otto Karl Gessler (or Geßler) (6 February 1875 – 24 March 1955) was a liberal German politician during the Weimar Republic. From 1910 until 1914, he was mayor of Regensburg and from 1913 to 1919 mayor of Nuremberg. He served in numerous We ...
(Defense), 1926
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10015, Robert Hermann Dietrich.jpg, One of the political leaders of the party, Hermann Dietrich, 1926
File:DBP - Nobelpreisträger, Ludwig Quidde - 50 Pfennig - 1975 fixed.jpg, Ludwig Quidde
Ludwig Quidde (; 23 March 1858, Free City of Bremen – 4 March 1941) was a German politician and pacifist who is mainly remembered today for his acerbic criticism of German Emperor Wilhelm II. Quidde's long career spanned four different era ...
, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize of 1927
File:DDP-Wahlkampf 1929.jpg, Paper flag from the DDP campaign for the Berlin City Council in 1929.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-12088, Bernhard Dernburg.jpg, Former DDP minister Bernhard Dernburg
Bernhard Dernburg (17 July 1865 – 14 October 1937) was a German liberal politician and banker. He served as the secretary for Colonial Affairs and head of the Imperial Colonial Office from May 1907 to 9 June 1910, and as the minister of Finance ...
in 1931
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1984-040-26, Hjalmar Schacht.jpg, Allied prisoner Hjalmar Schacht
Hjalmar Schacht (born Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht; 22 January 1877 – 3 June 1970, ) was a German economist, banker, centre-right politician, and co-founder in 1918 of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner ...
in 1945
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1983-098-20a, Heuss.jpg, Federal President Theodor Heuss in 1953
See also
*
Liberalism in Germany
*
Democratic Party of Germany
*
Liberalism
Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostilit ...
*
List of liberal parties
*
National League of German Democratic Youth Clubs, youth wing of the party
*
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
References
Further reading
*
{{authority control
1918 establishments in Germany
Centrist parties in Germany
Classical liberal parties
Germany 1918
Defunct political parties in Germany
Liberal parties in Germany
Political parties established in 1918
Political parties disestablished in 1930
Political parties in the Weimar Republic
Progressivism in Germany
Radical parties
Social liberal parties