Weimar Parties --> West German Parties

[mountvernon]

Despite the 16 year gap between multi-party elections in Germany (and many Weimar-era politicians either dead or discredited), the West German party system that developed from 1949 showed a lot of continuity with Weimar.  The SPD continued.  The KPD continued, at a far lower level of support, until it was banned in 1956.  (I'm guessing KPD supporters then either joined the SPD or didn't vote). 

The old Catholic Zentrum formed the base of the CDU, along with some conservative Protestants.  There was an attempt to revive the Zentrum as a sort of Christian Left party, but it didn't amount to much.  (There were a number of attempts to form Christian Left movements in post-WWII Western Europe, but they tended to either fail or just turn into standard center-right Christian Democrats). 

The left-liberal DDP and right-liberal DVP formed the Free Democrats.  (I'm guessing some DVP types drifted into the CDU over time).

The one non-Nazi party that did not form a post-WWII equivalent was the DNVP (German National People's Party), which had been positioned awkwardly between throne-and-altar conservatism and the extreme right, eventually helping the Nazis come to power.  It's not that surprising that the DNVP didn't see a revival:
-- The Allies opposed any conservative-nationalist party, as being too Nazi-like.
-- The DNVP's cooperation with the Nazis had discredited it retrospectively.
-- The DNVP's electoral base had been in agricultural areas in the East, and its leadership had often been drawn from the Junker aristocracy.  So its geographic support was now either in the Soviet Zone or annexed by Poland or the USSR.  Many of its voters were probably dead, given that eastern Germany had suffered terribly in the final months of the war.  Others had fled to the West to build new lives.   Compared to the Socialist and Catholic milleus, the nationalist-Protestant culture that supported the DNVP had been far more devastated by the war.
-- Some religious Protestants (a source of DNVP support) joined the CDU, despite its heavily Catholic flavor, seeing it as the most viable alternative to Marxism.  Eventually, some more left-leaning religious Protestants would join the SPD, but I'm guessing few of them had been DNVP voters.  Anyway, the number of Protestant churchgoers was already in steep decline, and the Protestant churches always regarded electoral politics with suspicion.  I gather some DNVP politicians who founded the CSVD (a more moderate religious-Protestant party) after the Nationalists' turn to the far right did go on to play founding roles in the CDU.

I'm guessing most DNVP voters (who had often switched to the NSDAP late in the Weimar era), if they were living in the West, either backed the CDU, the national-liberal wing of the FDP, or smaller conservative parties like the German Party.  Probably by the late 1950s, most of these folks would have found a home in the CDU.  I would think stereotypical DNVP voters would have been pretty happy with how Adenauer and Erhard ran the Federal Republic in the 1950s, even while grumbling about the lack of progress on reunification.

So does anyone have any insight on the fate of onetime DNVP voters and politicians in the Bundesrepublik?  And is my view of continuity too simplistic?

[The Mikado]

I'd like resident Weimar obsessive Al to post his thoughts here.

My main thought is that the link between Zentrum and the CDU is accurate, but less direct. The CDU is more like a party which saw Zentrum and went "where did those guys/our fathers screw up and what could we do better?" Zentrum was, through and through, a Catholic identity party first and a center-right democratic-ish party second. The CDU could never have been as successful as it ended up if it remained the Catholic Party for Catholics. Even though the CDU always had a strong Catholic element, it was much, much more effective at not being a "Catholic" party and doing well in Protestant areas. The CDU was also much less...democracy-ish and more democratic. Zentrum's politicians were more resistant to the fascists for longer than the rest of the Weimar right and didn't openly question the existence of the Weimar constitution like the entire rest of the right did, but they weren't particularly big believers in the rule of law or the democratic institutions, preferring to rule through emergency decrees through President von Hindenburg. If you wanted to be snarky, you could even date the end of Weimar democracy to 1930 when Brüning just started openly doing an end-run around the Reichstag and just ruling through Hindenburg's decrees rather than passing legislation.

[DC Al Fine]

Despite the 16 year gap between multi-party elections in Germany (and many Weimar-era politicians either dead or discredited), the West German party system that developed from 1949 showed a lot of continuity with Weimar.  The SPD continued.  The KPD continued, at a far lower level of support, until it was banned in 1956.  (I'm guessing KPD supporters then either joined the SPD or didn't vote). 

The old Catholic Zentrum formed the base of the CDU, along with some conservative Protestants.  There was an attempt to revive the Zentrum as a sort of Christian Left party, but it didn't amount to much.  (There were a number of attempts to form Christian Left movements in post-WWII Western Europe, but they tended to either fail or just turn into standard center-right Christian Democrats). 

The left-liberal DDP and right-liberal DVP formed the Free Democrats.  (I'm guessing some DVP types drifted into the CDU over time).

The one non-Nazi party that did not form a post-WWII equivalent was the DNVP (German National People's Party), which had been positioned awkwardly between throne-and-altar conservatism and the extreme right, eventually helping the Nazis come to power.  It's not that surprising that the DNVP didn't see a revival:
-- The Allies opposed any conservative-nationalist party, as being too Nazi-like.
-- The DNVP's cooperation with the Nazis had discredited it retrospectively.
-- The DNVP's electoral base had been in agricultural areas in the East, and its leadership had often been drawn from the Junker aristocracy.  So its geographic support was now either in the Soviet Zone or annexed by Poland or the USSR.  Many of its voters were probably dead, given that eastern Germany had suffered terribly in the final months of the war.  Others had fled to the West to build new lives.   Compared to the Socialist and Catholic milleus, the nationalist-Protestant culture that supported the DNVP had been far more devastated by the war.
-- Some religious Protestants (a source of DNVP support) joined the CDU, despite its heavily Catholic flavor, seeing it as the most viable alternative to Marxism.  Eventually, some more left-leaning religious Protestants would join the SPD, but I'm guessing few of them had been DNVP voters.  Anyway, the number of Protestant churchgoers was already in steep decline, and the Protestant churches always regarded electoral politics with suspicion.  I gather some DNVP politicians who founded the CSVD (a more moderate religious-Protestant party) after the Nationalists' turn to the far right did go on to play founding roles in the CDU.

I'm guessing most DNVP voters (who had often switched to the NSDAP late in the Weimar era), if they were living in the West, either backed the CDU, the national-liberal wing of the FDP, or smaller conservative parties like the German Party.  Probably by the late 1950s, most of these folks would have found a home in the CDU.  I would think stereotypical DNVP voters would have been pretty happy with how Adenauer and Erhard ran the Federal Republic in the 1950s, even while grumbling about the lack of progress on reunification.

So does anyone have any insight on the fate of onetime DNVP voters and politicians in the Bundesrepublik?  And is my view of continuity too simplistic?

Welcome to the forum

In the 1950's there were a few right wing nationalist parties that appealed to expellees from from the east, most notably the "All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights" which managed 6% of the vote in 1953. Many of their voters presumably would have been DNVP voters in the 1920's.

[mountvernon]

Thank you.  I'm guessing many supporters of expellee parties probably later drifted into the CDU/CSU, although those parties eventually evolved into the NPD, and I have seen people claim that far-right parties often do well in areas that where many expellees were resettled.

[Coldstream]

I remember studying this period in first year of uni, I’m not an expert but I remember looking specifically at the DNVP. As I understand by the end of Weimar the DNVP’s support was limited to largely aristocratic or rural voters who felt that the Nazis were too radical and that the SA was an undisciplined rabble.

 I’d also guess that much of the military and police were supporters of the DNVP (Iirc Heydrich noted that Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller was more DNVP than Nazi). Blomberg and Keitel were disliked by members of the army due to their open support for Nazism, Von Schleicher wanted to replace the Nazis with a right wing military dictatorship under his own rule etc, I’d say that the vast majority of the army leadership at least agreed with the DNVP’s anti democratic goals.

Post-1934 the majority of the military and police were supportive of the Nazis (or they didn’t last long in either) so the DNVP were effectively coopted by the Nazi party.

With the military so humiliated/demoralised by WW2 the kind of right wing irredentist nationalism/conservatism based around the military that the DNVP had exemplified didn’t really exist post-1945 so I’d expect many of their former supporters simply gravitated to the CDU as they themselves became less nationalistic/anti-Semitic along with the country.

There were a couple of small National conservative parties in the 40s and 50s, but most of them split up between the mainstream right and those who wanted to rehabilitate former Nazis. Really, there isn’t that much room/need for a party between the Democratic right and the Fascist right. By the 60s it was only really the NDP left. Some ex DNVP voters probably voted NDP but by the 60s I’d guess they were a dwindling number.

[Astatine]

In the first elections to Bundestag, party ideologies were not always consistent and state branches were be "subverted" by right-wingers, what especially happened to the FDP. Former Nazis and Nazi-affiliated (DNVP included) tried to make career in the beginning of 1950s in the FDP, leading to expulsion of several members.

Besides, there were other smaller parties which could be described as ideological successors of the DNVP. The German Conservative Party/German Reich Party (DKP-DRP) made it into the Bundestag in 1949 and had mostly former NSDAP and former DNVP affiliates as members. The radical Nazi wing split and formed the Socialist Reich Party (SRP), which would be the first party to be forbidden by Constitutional Courts later in 1952.

Other DNVP members might found a new home in the CDU/CSU, FDP, the German Party (DP) - a more conservative CDU ally - and the abovementioned expellee party GB/BHE.  

Additionally, in 1950, the Lower Saxony wing of the DKP-DRP split to form the German Reich Party (DRP), without major successes on federal level, albeit entering some regional parliaments. Some branches of DRP were actually forbidden because they were perceived as successors of the forbidden SRP.

In 1962, a new DNVP without great relevance was founded.

In 1964, the GB/BHE successor GDP ("All-German Party"), the DRP and the DP branch in Bremen merged to the NPD.

German party politics 1949-1970 is quite an interesting topic, considering the many splits, mergers and still developing platforms.

[Coldstream]

In the first elections to Bundestag, party ideologies were not always consistent and state branches were be "subverted" by right-wingers, what especially happened to the FDP. Former Nazis and Nazi-affiliated (DNVP included) tried to make career in the beginning of 1950s in the FDP, leading to expulsion of several members.

Besides, there were other smaller parties which could be described as ideological successors of the DNVP. The German Conservative Party/German Reich Party (DKP-DRP) made it into the Bundestag in 1949 and had mostly former NSDAP and former DNVP affiliates as members. The radical Nazi wing split and formed the Socialist Reich Party (SRP), which would be the first party to be forbidden by Constitutional Courts later in 1952.

Other DNVP members might found a new home in the CDU/CSU, FDP, the German Party (DP) - a more conservative CDU ally - and the abovementioned expellee party GB/BHE.  

Additionally, in 1950, the Lower Saxony wing of the DKP-DRP split to form the German Reich Party (DRP), without major successes on federal level, albeit entering some regional parliaments. Some branches of DRP were actually forbidden because they were perceived as successors of the forbidden SRP.

In 1962, a new DNVP without great relevance was founded.

In 1964, the GB/BHE successor GDP ("All-German Party"), the DRP and the DP branch in Bremen merged to the NPD.

German party politics 1949-1970 is quite an interesting topic, considering the many splits, mergers and still developing platforms.

In interesting foreshadowing of the 2010s rise of the far right in Europe, the SRP were in league with the Soviets. I think Otto Strasser also formed a party that went nowhere in the late 50s.

[palandio]

The DNVP and its voter base are often seen as one monolithic anti-republican bloc. But the developments from 1928 on showed that this was not the case at all. From the mid-20's on it had already entered several regional and federal governments, often together with the Center Party.

In the 1928 election the DNVP already lost 6 percentage points, often towards newly founded rural interest parties, in particular the Christian-National Peasants' and Rural People's Party (CNBL). Despite being in some aspects more moderate, the CNBL's voters would usually go on to vote NSDAP.

After the election far-right industrialist and media moghul Alfred Hugenberg took over the DNVP.

This lead to further DNVP politicians and voters leaving the DNVP for the CNBL. Furthermore the semi-independent Württembergian and Thuringian peasants' leagues cut their bounds with the federal DNVP. They were more interested in effectively asserting agricultural protectionism than in Hugenberg's ideological campaigns and anti-republican opposition.

There had been a wing inside the DNVP that tried to promote employees' and workers' rights from a right-wing position. This group founded the Christian-Social People's Service (CSVD). The CSVD would become particularly successful among conservative Protestants.

Finally the electorally least important split-off was the Conservative People's Party (KVP). Insignificant from an electoral perspective, it was far ahead of its time. Its goal was to be the first nucleus of a large center-right party that would include both Catholics and Protestants.

My impression is that many voters that left Hugenberg's DNVP for the CSVD, KVP and rural interest parties were quite compatible with the CDU.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some maps of the final free-and-fair Reichstag election:





To make further sense of these, some demographic information:





All sorts of things can be noticed and commented on here, but with respect to the late stage rump DNVP:

1. While we tend to associate it with the countryside, and in particular with the long lost world of rural East Elbia, the party retained a degree of support even until the last amongst bourgeois voters in the cities and commuter suburbs. In Berlin, for instance, they always polled a solid share in Zehlendorf, larger than in some of their rural strongholds.

2. Which is not say that the association with rural Lutheranism and large estates is inaccurate: observe that they polled best in overwhelmingly Protestant regions with high proportions employed in agriculture and low or average proportions of the workforce graded as 'family workers'. It is just that this association is not the whole story.

3. A high proportion of the families still backing the DNVP at the end were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and a high proportion of those were on the wrong side of the Oder-Neisse line. Refugees ended up all over the place, but those from regions closer to the Baltic were more likely to settle in the north of the new Federal Republic. In particular a lot of East Prussian families settled in Schleswig-Holstein. Of course, once one adjusts for the part of the Hamburg metropolitan area in the latter during the 1920s and 30s, voting patterns in East Prussia and Schleswig-Holstein were actually very similar during the last years of Weimar.

4. It is dubious, anyway, that it is even possible to disentangle DNVP supporters who stayed loyal to their old political party (the minority) and those (the majority) who switched to the Nazis. There's some evidence that age may have been a factor, with the elderly more likely to stay loyal. Which further reduces the number of ex-DNVP voters around by the end of the 1940s. A fundamental issue is that while the DNVP was not part of the Völkisch political tradition, it did incorporate Völkisch  elements (and right from the start) into its appeal and propaganda, meaning that the boundary between the two camps was paper-thin. It, of course, why the party and its political heritage was considered beyond the pale after the War, but it is also one of the main reasons why disentangling everything is impossible.

[Former President tack50]

Speaking of which, what happened to the nazi voters post-Weimar?

Even in the free and fair elections, the NSDAP still got 33% in 1932 and even in 1930 it had 18% of the vote. That is a significant amount of people

[palandio]

Some maps of the final free-and-fair Reichstag election:

[...]

To make further sense of these, some demographic information:

[...]

All sorts of things can be noticed and commented on here, but with respect to the late stage rump DNVP:

1. While we tend to associate it with the countryside, and in particular with the long lost world of rural East Elbia, the party retained a degree of support even until the last amongst bourgeois voters in the cities and commuter suburbs. In Berlin, for instance, they always polled a solid share in Zehlendorf, larger than in some of their rural strongholds.

2. Which is not say that the association with rural Lutheranism and large estates is inaccurate: observe that they polled best in overwhelmingly Protestant regions with high proportions employed in agriculture and low or average proportions of the workforce graded as 'family workers'. It is just that this association is not the whole story.

3. A high proportion of the families still backing the DNVP at the end were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and a high proportion of those were on the wrong side of the Oder-Neisse line. Refugees ended up all over the place, but those from regions closer to the Baltic were more likely to settle in the north of the new Federal Republic. In particular a lot of East Prussian families settled in Schleswig-Holstein. Of course, once one adjusts for the part of the Hamburg metropolitan area in the latter during the 1920s and 30s, voting patterns in East Prussia and Schleswig-Holstein were actually very similar during the last years of Weimar.

4. It is dubious, anyway, that it is even possible to disentangle DNVP supporters who stayed loyal to their old political party (the minority) and those (the majority) who switched to the Nazis. There's some evidence that age may have been a factor, with the elderly more likely to stay loyal. Which further reduces the number of ex-DNVP voters around by the end of the 1940s. A fundamental issue is that while the DNVP was not part of the Völkisch political tradition, it did incorporate Völkisch  elements (and right from the start) into its appeal and propaganda, meaning that the boundary between the two camps was paper-thin. It, of course, why the party and its political heritage was considered beyond the pale after the War, but it is also one of the main reasons why disentangling everything is impossible.

Hugenberg's right-shifted rump DNVP was arguably the vehicle of an elite that always had been rather anti-republican, but which from 1928 on wanted to finally put an end to the republic once and for all. This is reflected in its strongholds being among bourgeois Wilhelminian elites and in areas where the old Junkers still had the most sway.

The rump DNVP's ideology was in many aspects similar to the NSDAP's. The NSDAP was just much more successful in attracting voters across the board, ironically often voters than had left the DNVP because of its shift to the right. In some senses the NSDAP turned out to be the big vote-attraction machine that anti-republican big money had wanted Hugenberg's DNVP to be.

Speaking of which, what happened to the nazi voters post-Weimar?

Even in the free and fair elections, the NSDAP still got 33% in 1932 and even in 1930 it had 18% of the vote. That is a significant amount of people

That is of course a very good question. In fact as mountvernon (the OP) said the SPD and KPD voters after 1945 would mostly go to the SPD, the Center voters to the CDU and the BVP voters to the CSU (CDU in Palatinate). This leaves a bunch of DNVP voters that already have been discussed, and many, many NSDAP voters. By pure arithmetics a majority of them would go to the CDU/CSU, with minorities going to SPD, FDP, other parties and abstention. Most other parties had already lost most of their voters to the NSDAP by 1932/33

In fact if you look at electoral data over a long timespan you see that the Catholic camp always remained very stable. The socialist camp (with SPD, USPD and KPD seen as communicating vessels) was mostly stable from 1912 on, apart from the 1919/20 peak that it was not able to hold. The rump DNVP held on relatively well among some milieus, but had an electoral breakdown in most areas. All other parties never managed to build up loyal supporting milieus. A typical voter biography for a voter born in 1890 might have been: 1912 Nation Liberal, 1919 DDP, 1920 DVP, 1924 DNVP, 1928/30 Economic Party, 1932/33 NSDAP, 1949+ CDU.

Finally while probably a majority of NSDAP votes came from non-Catholic non-socialist parties, a very significant part came from abstention or first-time voters. It might be more tricky to tell where these went after the war.

[mountvernon]

Thanks for the all the interesting comments.  Just a few reactions:

1. In terms of former NSDAP voters after 1945, probably a disproportionate number were living in the Soviet Zone or were refugees from the East.  (The same would have been true for former DNVP voters).  Given that the NSDAP gained support across the political spectrum, but especially among right-of-center Protestants, I'm guessing that ex-Nazis were proportionately strongest among the small parties of the extreme right (often led by ex-Nazis), then the FDP (especially its nationalist wing), followed by the CDU/CSU (e.g., Kurt-Georg Kiesinger), and least among the SPD (the Nazis never made big gains among left-wing voters).  But former Nazi voters made up a  large enough group that I imagine every party had some.

2. From what I have read, the former DNVP figures who were involved with the CDU early on had indeed left the Nationalists for the CSVD -- and so had less of a "brown" taint.   (The CSVD had been seen as an attempt to form a Protestant version of the Zentrum).  I'm guessing more hard-line ex-Nationalists were more likely to flirt with the extreme right before probably joining the CDU.

3. It sounds grisly, but I'm guessing a disproportionate number of onetime DNVP voters were dead by 1949.  They tended to be older.  They were also concentrated in areas that took it on the chin at the end of World War II.  Given the large numbers who would have been refugees in places like Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, probably many would have supported the GB/BHE for a time.

[Coldstream]

There’s also the fact that the DNVP were essentially (if not exclusively) a vehicle for the elite of the aristocracy and military to try and subvert or destroy republicanism and maintain power in their hands or return the country to its Pre-WW1 social order. The number of people by 1945 who still thought that a return to the Pre-WW1 German Empire was desirable must have been vanishingly small.

[Kingpoleon]

Hermann Ehlers was the first Bundestag President post-WW2 and ex-DNVP member, IIRC. Robert Lehr was ex-DNVP and served as Minister of the Interior for several years.

[Coldstream]

Hermann Ehlers was the first Bundestag President post-WW2 and ex-DNVP member, IIRC. Robert Lehr was ex-DNVP and served as Minister of the Interior for several years.

To be fair to him Lehr was quite atypical of the DNVP, he was arrested by the Nazis and was a member of the conservative resistance. He was basically just a Protestant conservative, if he’d been catholic he’d have been in the centre party.

[Kingpoleon]

Hermann Ehlers was the first Bundestag President post-WW2 and ex-DNVP member, IIRC. Robert Lehr was ex-DNVP and served as Minister of the Interior for several years.

To be fair to him Lehr was quite atypical of the DNVP, he was arrested by the Nazis and was a member of the conservative resistance. He was basically just a Protestant conservative, if he’d been catholic he’d have been in the centre party.

That’s not super atypical. Carl Goerdeler was a prominent DNVP leader, too. And he was pretty anti-Nazi. Reinhold Quaatz, Hugenberg’s chief advisor, was half-Jewish and a founder of the Berlin CDU. The DNVP, DVP, and DDP had a lot of overlap - they competed for the votes of academic, economic, and aristocratic elite, as well as national liberals.

[Coldstream]

Hermann Ehlers was the first Bundestag President post-WW2 and ex-DNVP member, IIRC. Robert Lehr was ex-DNVP and served as Minister of the Interior for several years.

To be fair to him Lehr was quite atypical of the DNVP, he was arrested by the Nazis and was a member of the conservative resistance. He was basically just a Protestant conservative, if he’d been catholic he’d have been in the centre party.

That’s not super atypical. Carl Goerdeler was a prominent DNVP leader, too. And he was pretty anti-Nazi. Reinhold Quaatz, Hugenberg’s chief advisor, was half-Jewish and a founder of the Berlin CDU. The DNVP, DVP, and DDP had a lot of overlap - they competed for the votes of academic, economic, and aristocratic elite, as well as national liberals.

Didn’t Goerdeler leave the DNVP before 1933 because Hugenberg had completely adopted anti democratic politics? Before the depression they had a mainstream conservative wing but I think they’d mostly disappeared by the time they joined up with the Nazis.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It would be more accurate to say that the DVP had a significant overlap with the DDP and the DNVP, but the DDP and the DNVP did not have a significant overlap with each other. Any votes the DDP lost to points rightwards were lost permanently and were not contested by them again, in essence.

[Kingpoleon]

It would be more accurate to say that the DVP had a significant overlap with the DDP and the DNVP, but the DDP and the DNVP did not have a significant overlap with each other. Any votes the DDP lost to points rightwards were lost permanently and were not contested by them again, in essence.

No, but if actual elections were held again? Mahraun could have brought them back into the fold, and he had the manpower to combat the anti-Weimar paramilitaries that no other democratic party ever mustered.