Centre Party Germany: Encyclopedia II - Centre Party Germany - Between coup d'etat and authoritarian democracy

Centre Party Germany - Between coup d'etat and authoritarian democracy

Following Brüning's resignation, the Centre Party entered the opposition. Though they also opposed the National Socialists, their energies were directed mainly against the renegade Papen, whom they – not without cause – accused of lusting for dictatorship. Also some Centre politicians were soothed by Hitler's strategy of legality into downplaying the Nazi threat. This hampered their ability of being a bulwark of the republic against the rising National Socialists.

In regard to the government, the Centre Party rejected a "temporal solution", such as Papen's presidial cabinets, and rather advocated a "total solution", i. e. a government according to the rules of the constitution. Since the Centre considered Papen's administration of being "in a dangerous way dependent on radical right-wing parties", chairman Kaas advised the President to recognize this connection by basing the government on a coalition with the rising right-wing parties, the "logical result of current development". This would force the radicals to "take their share in responsibility" and "acquainting them with international politics". The Centre would then act as the party of opposition to this administration.

As Papen was faced with almost uniform opposition by the parties, he had the Reichstag dissolved. In the subsequent elections, the Centre Party campaigned on two fronts, against both the Papen government and National Socialists and reaffirmed their stance as the "constitution party" opposed to "any measure contrary to constitution, justice and law" and "unwilling to yield to terror". The July elections brought further losses to the mainstream parties and gains to the extremist parties. The National Socialists supplanted the Social Democrats as the largest party in parliament.

As Communists and National Socialists together had won the majority of seats, no government coalition could be formed without one of them. Papen tried to justify his authoritarian style of government by pointing out that parliament could no longer function properly. Countering this reasoning, the Centre and the BVP tried to of re-establish a working parliament by cooperation with the National Socialists, since the three parties together had attained 53% of the seats. When Papen called upon the people to "reject the dictatorship of a single party," the Centre Party agreed "without reservation," but it also stated that "with the same resolution we reject the dictatorship of the nameless party, now in power, … even if cloaked with the illusion of non-partisanship."

After Papen's attempt to attain Hitler's support for his administration had failed, the Centre began their own negotiations with the National Socialists. They started in the state of Prussia, where the Weimar Coalition had lost its majority. An alternative majority could be not found and the Papen administration had seized this opportunity to assume control of Germany's largest state in the "Prussian coup" via presidential decree. Now, the National Socialists proposed to end this direct rule by forming a coalition with the Centre Party, promising an equal share in government. Since this went too far for the Centre's national leadership, the negotiations were transferred to the national level, where Brüning conferred with Gregor Strasser. During that period the anti-Nazi polemics ceased in order not to disturb the negotiations. Since the NSDAP was the larger party, the Centre was willing to accept a Nazi as Chancellor, provided he could gain the trust of the President, which at that time seemed quite a difficult task.

The negotiations were bound for failure, since the aims of the two groups were largely incompatible. The Centre argued that the vote of July had "called Hitler not to dictatorship but to responsibility, to getting in line with law and constitution". They hoped to "build a strong government without touching the substance of the constitution", to create "clear responsibilities" and to "preclude anti-constitutional experiments". The Centre advocated a return to Brüning's "authoritarian democracy", which they considered up to the times and tested by experience, against Papen's "omnipotent state and independent leadership", while the Nazis would only accept a coalition that would serve their prupose of achieving total dominance. Not expecting a successful conclusion, Hitler used the Centre negotiations in order to put pressure on the Papen administration.

The negotiations were also met with criticism from within the Centre Party. Some rejected them as "currying favour with the National Socialists" and giving credence to Hitler's strategy of legality. The journalists Fritz Gerlich and Ingbert Naab dismissed as "illusionary" the attempt to "uphold the constitution and the legal order" with a man such as Hitler with his "unconditional propensity to evil". Instead of "driving out the devil by Belzebub", the Centre should act as the parliament's conscience. The party leadership answered their critics by calling it a "duty of conscience" to try to achieve a constitutional government.

Thoug Papen did not expect the negotiations to succeed, he was nonetheless concerned as a success would have led to a presidential crisis, as Hindenburg was unwilling to have a coalition parties dictate the administration. In September he ended all speculations by dissolving the Reichstag again, almost immediately after its first meeting.

Papen's act did not end the negotiations between Centre and NSDAP. In fact, it made further meetings possible, since the Centre Party's leadership blamed the failure not on the parties' incompatibility but on Papen calling for new elections. Since the NSDAP vote dropped again in the elections of November 1932, the Centre Party considered their strategy successful and resumed negotiations resumed, this time under the slogan of forming a "Notgemeinschaft (community of need)," even though the Centre, BVP, and NSDAP together no longer formed a majority in parliament.

Chairman Kaas advised President Hindenburg not to continue Papen's "administration of conflict"; he advocated "national concentration including the National Socialists", but did not comment on an alternative Chancellor, since he considered that the "personal prerogative of President". Hindenburg's negotiations with Hitler failed, however, as did Kaas' attempt to form a coalition in parliament. By avoiding a clear statement, Hitler managed to pin the blame for this failure on DNVP's Hugenberg, who had rejected Kaas's proposals.

In December, the President appointed General Kurt von Schleicher Chancellor, since the cabinet had refused to support Papen's planned coup d'état, a permanent dissolution of the Reichstag. The Centre Party contributed to the failure of Schleichers "Querfront (cross-front)" policy, since it could not bring itself to supporting the new administration actively. This pushed the General-Chancellor further in the direction of Papen's proposed coup d'etat, a move the Centre Party, as well as the other parties, refused to condone. Under these circumstances, President Hindenburg refused to back the coup and Schleicher accordingly resigned on 28 January 1933.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Between coup d'etat and authoritarian democracy", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki