The Economic Union (german: Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung) was a

parliamentary group A parliamentary group, parliamentary party, or parliamentary caucus is a group consisting of some members of the same political party or electoral fusion of parties in a legislative assembly such as a parliament or a city council. Parliame ...

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 ...

's '' Reichstag'', gathering deputies of several minor antisemitic and agrarian parties. Its component parties were the antisemitic German Social and Christian Social parties as well as the German Agrarian League and the

Bavarian Peasants' League The Bavarian Peasants' League (german: Bayerischer Bauernbund, or BB) was an agrarian political party in Bavaria, Germany, from 1893 to 1933. It has also been known in English as the Bavarian Farmers' League. The BB represented the farming inte ...

. Moreover it included some nonpartisan representatives who were direct members of the Economic Union. The group's initial leader was

Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg (21 August 1848 – 17 November 1911) was a German officer who became noted as an anti-Semitic politician and publisher. He was part of a wider campaign against German Jews that became a central feature of national ...

History

The group first formed after the 1903 federal election, comprising twelve lawmakers. After the national elections in

1907 Events January * January 14 – 1907 Kingston earthquake: A 6.5 Mw earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, kills between 800 and 1,000. February * February 11 – The French warship ''Jean Bart'' sinks off the coast of Morocco ...

reached its peak, returning 19 members of the Reichstag (14 delegates of the component parties in addition to five nonpartisan direct members of the Economic Union). The 1912 elections saw it reduce in strength to eight seats. Following

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, ...

it merged into the

German People's Party The German People's Party (German: , or DVP) was a liberal party during the Weimar Republic that was the successor to the National Liberal Party of the German Empire. A right-liberal, or conservative-liberal political party, it represented politi ...

.Vincent E McHale (1983) ''Political parties of Europe'', Greenwood Press, p417

Ideology

The party represented conservative members of the middle class. It supported agrarian and social legislation.

References

{{Authority control Defunct political parties in Germany Polish minority in Germany Antisemitism in Germany