Centre Party (Germany)

German Centre Party

Deutsche Zentrumspartei
German Centre Party Deutsche Zentrumspartei
Federal Chairman	Christian Otte
Founder	Joseph Görres
Founded	13 December 1870 (original form); 1945 (current form);
Headquarters	Straberger Weg 12 41542, Dormagen, NRW
Youth wing	Windthorstbund
Paramilitary wing	Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (1924–1930)
Membership	600 (2022 est.)
Ideology	Christian democracy; Political Catholicism; Republicanism;
Political position	Centre to centre-right
Religion	Catholic Church
Regional affiliation	Bavarian People's Party
Colours	Black; White; Blue
Bundestag	0 / 630
Bundesrat	0 / 69
State parliaments	0 / 1,884
European Parliament	0 / 96
Heads of State Governments	0 / 16
Party flag
Website
	www.zentrumspartei.de
	Politics of Germany; Political parties; Elections; Flag used until 1933

The Centre Party (German: Zentrum), officially the German Centre Party (German: Deutsche Zentrumspartei) and also known in English as the Catholic Centre Party, is a Christian democratic political party in Germany. It was most influential in the German Empire and Weimar Republic. Formed in 1870, it successfully battled the Kulturkampf waged by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck against the Catholic Church. It soon won a quarter of the seats in the Reichstag, and its middle position on most issues allowed it to play a decisive role in the formation of majorities. The party name Zentrum (Centre) originally came from the fact that Catholic representatives would take up the middle section of seats in parliament between the social democrats and the conservatives.^[6]

For most of the Weimar Republic, the Centre Party was the third-largest party in the Reichstag and a bulwark of the Republic, participating in all governments until 1932. Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in early 1933, the Centre Party was among the parties who voted for the Enabling Act, which granted legislative powers to Hitler's government. Nevertheless, the party was pressured into dissolving itself on 5 July, as the Nazi Party became the only legally permitted party in the country shortly thereafter.

After World War II, the party was reconstituted, but could not rise again to its former importance, as most of its members joined the new interdenominational Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and, in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The Centre Party continued on as a marginal party and concentrated its efforts on regional politics, mainly based in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The party was unrepresented on the German federal level from 1957 to 2022, when Federal representative Uwe Witt and European representative Jörg Meuthen defected from the AfD and joined the Centre Party.

^ Fogarty, Michael P. (1957). Christian Democracy in Western Europe: 1820–1953. Routledge Revivals. ISBN 978-1-351-38672-2. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^ Spenkuch, Jorg L.; Tillmann, Philipp (2017). "Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis". American Journal of Political Science. 62 (1). Midwest Political Science Association: 3. doi:10.1111/ajps.12328. Promoting the political and cultural ideals of Germany's Catholic minority, the Zentrum had been the spearhead of Political Catholicism ever since its founding in the second half of the nineteenth century.
^ Rossol, Nadine; Ziemann, Benjamin; Baranowski, Shelley (2022). The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 459. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198845775.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-884577-5. In addition, the Centre remained a republican party opposed to the anticonstitutional right. Nowhere was this clearer than in the overwhelming support that Catholics lent to Hindenburg's re-election as President in 1932 in order to block the candidacies of Adolf Hitler and the Stahlhelm leader, Theodor Duesterberg.
^ Rossol, Nadine; Ziemann, Benjamin; Stibbe, Matthew (2022). The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 119–122. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198845775.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-884577-5. However, having agreed the wording of the proposed law, the SPD and KPD failed to persuade centrist 'bourgeois' parties like the DDP or the Zentrum officially to join them, giving the referendum campaign a distinctly sectarian aura from the outset. [...] The republican paramilitary organization the Reichsbanner, which leaned strongly towards the SPD but also had supporters from the centrist DDP and Zentrum in its ranks and was therefore officially obliged to stay neutral in the referendum, also found itself in a deeply uncomfortable position in 1926, with some left-wing and even moderate branches coming out in defiance for a 'yes' vote.
^ Spenkuch, Jörg L.; Tillmann, Philipp (2018). "Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis". American Journal of Political Science. 62 (1): 21. doi:10.1111/ajps.12328. JSTOR 26598748. "As a consequence, the Zentrum's right-of-center position both aided and hindered the Church hierarchy's efforts to counter extremist movements.
^ Blackbourn, David (December 1975). "The Political Alignment of the Centre Party in Wilhelmine Germany: A Study of the Party's Emergence in Nineteenth-Century Württemberg". Historical Journal. 18 (4): 821–850. doi:10.1017/S0018246X00008906. JSTOR 2638516.

[1] Fogarty, Michael P. (1957). Christian Democracy in Western Europe: 1820–1953. Routledge Revivals. ISBN 978-1-351-38672-2. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

[2] Spenkuch, Jorg L.; Tillmann, Philipp (2017). "Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis". American Journal of Political Science. 62 (1). Midwest Political Science Association: 3. doi:10.1111/ajps.12328. Promoting the political and cultural ideals of Germany's Catholic minority, the Zentrum had been the spearhead of Political Catholicism ever since its founding in the second half of the nineteenth century.

[3] Rossol, Nadine; Ziemann, Benjamin; Baranowski, Shelley (2022). The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 459. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198845775.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-884577-5. In addition, the Centre remained a republican party opposed to the anticonstitutional right. Nowhere was this clearer than in the overwhelming support that Catholics lent to Hindenburg's re-election as President in 1932 in order to block the candidacies of Adolf Hitler and the Stahlhelm leader, Theodor Duesterberg.

[4] Rossol, Nadine; Ziemann, Benjamin; Stibbe, Matthew (2022). The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 119–122. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198845775.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-884577-5. However, having agreed the wording of the proposed law, the SPD and KPD failed to persuade centrist 'bourgeois' parties like the DDP or the Zentrum officially to join them, giving the referendum campaign a distinctly sectarian aura from the outset. [...] The republican paramilitary organization the Reichsbanner, which leaned strongly towards the SPD but also had supporters from the centrist DDP and Zentrum in its ranks and was therefore officially obliged to stay neutral in the referendum, also found itself in a deeply uncomfortable position in 1926, with some left-wing and even moderate branches coming out in defiance for a 'yes' vote.

[5] Spenkuch, Jörg L.; Tillmann, Philipp (2018). "Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis". American Journal of Political Science. 62 (1): 21. doi:10.1111/ajps.12328. JSTOR 26598748. "As a consequence, the Zentrum's right-of-center position both aided and hindered the Church hierarchy's efforts to counter extremist movements.

[6] Blackbourn, David (December 1975). "The Political Alignment of the Centre Party in Wilhelmine Germany: A Study of the Party's Emergence in Nineteenth-Century Württemberg". Historical Journal. 18 (4): 821–850. doi:10.1017/S0018246X00008906. JSTOR 2638516.

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