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German National People's Party

(Redirected from DNVP)

The German National People's Party (German: Deutschnationale Volkspartei) (DNVP) was a right wing national-conservative party in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic.

It was led by Alfred Hugenberg from 1926. It was dissolved with all other political parties in 1933. In the last years of the Weimar Republic the DNVP co-operated with the NSDAP.

Generally hostile towards the Weimar Constitution, the DNVP spent most of the inter war period in opposition despite holding around 50 seats in the Reichstag. Largely supported by landowners and wealthy industrialists it favoured a monarchist platform and was strongly opposed to the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1931, the DNVP, the NSDAP and the Stahlhelm veterans' organisation briefly formed an alliance known as the Harzberg Front. This served only to strengthen the NSDAP by giving it access to funding and political respectability while obscuring the DNVP's own less extreme platform.

The following year, the DNVP became the only significant party to support Franz von Papen in his short lived tenure as Chancellor. Performing badly in subsequent elections, the party ended up as junior coalition partners to the NSDAP on Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933, supporting the Enabling Act that effectively abolished the Weimar Republic.

Hitler's patience with his conservative allies was limited, and the DNVP representatives in his first Cabinet were quickly excluding from power or bullied into resignation. Shortly thereafter, DNVP members were coerced into joining the NSDAP or retiring from political life altogether. The party was extinguished in the subsequent ban on all political parties other than the NSDAP.

Although the DNVP escaped condemnation as a criminal organisation after WW2, no serious attempt was made to recreate it as a political force in post war Germany. It was briefly revived in 1962, but the new DVNP soon afterwards was merged into the National Democratic Party of Germany

Last updated: 08-01-2005 11:01:22
Last updated: 08-17-2005 06:37:52