German Democratic Party (DDP)

The proclamation establishing a liberal democratic party was adopted at a meeting in the Augustinerbräu in Munich on November 17, 1918. As a successor to the Progressive People’s Party (FVP), which had been in existence in Bavaria since 1910, the newly established group was to become Bavaria’s first clearly republican-oriented bourgeois party. At the first regional party conference on December 21/22, 1918 in Nuremberg, the unanimous decision was taken to join the DDP at Reich level. The Bavarian party initially called itself the ‘German People’s Party in Bavaria’, but from October 1919 onwards this was changed to the ‘German Democratic Party in Bavaria’.

The first chairman in December 1918 was the physician Georg Hohmann, who also became a member of the party’s main executive committee at Reich level. The Bavarian party leadership included both left-liberal and national-liberal personalities, which repeatedly resulted in clashes over policy. Only with great difficulty was it possible to agree to provide conditional support for the Eisner government. The DDP was a member of all Bavarian coalition governments between 1919 and 1922. The strongly national-liberal Ernst Müller-Meiningen was Minister of Justice in 1919/1920, while the democratically-minded Eduard Hamm was Minister of Trade from May 1919 to July 1922 and Minister of Economics from 1923 to 1925. The Reichswehr Minister from 1920 to 1928, Otto Geßler, was likewise from the ranks of the Bavarian DDP.

The Franconian constituencies had been strongholds of the liberals in Bavaria even prior to the First World War. This was particularly true of Central Franconia, where a prominent local politician belonged to the DDP, namely Nuremberg’s mayor Hermann Luppe. The DPP had huge press potential, enjoying the support of a total of 32 daily newspapers. The party was represented in state parliament from 1919 to 1928, although the number of MPs fell from 25 in 1920 to just 3 in 1924. In 1930 the DDP shifted to the right both at Reich level and in Bavaria, merging with the ‘People’s National Reich Association’ (VNR), founded by the Young German Order (Jungdo), to form the German State Party (DStP). After this it quickly disappeared into insignificance and was formally dissolved on June 28, 1933.