DOCUMENT 26.1: German Center Party Program, 1922

DOCUMENT 26.1

German Center Party Program, 1922

The German Center Party was founded in 1870. A Catholic political party with largely moderate policy positions, it had a sizable presence in the Reichstag and was often a key player in the formation of centrist coalitions. Its role in coalition building is reflected in this 1922 party program. While insisting on the centrality of Catholicism to its agenda, the program’s authors were determined to find a middle way, an approach to government that balanced the needs and aspirations of all. As you read this party program, think about the challenges of political consensus building in Weimar Germany. How did the German Center Party try to meet these challenges? How practical was its program?

As a Christian party of the people: the national community of Germans; the realization of Christian principles in the state, society, economy, and culture. Views the solidarity of the German peoples toward the outside world and the turning of its energies inward as the foundation of the international standing of Germany. Longings for self-determination and self-assertion should not be guided by selfish conceptions of power but by the moral idea of the nation. True Christian community as the highest ideal of world politics. A Christian conception of the state and the constitutional party. Rejection of violent overthrow, repudiation of the all-powerful state, opposition to the denunciation and dissolution of the idea of the state. The power of the state finds its limits in natural right and divine law.

Commitment to the German national state; self-government; the professional civil service as the backbone of government. The dominance of a class or caste is incompatible with the essence of the national state.

The independence of regional states within the frame of national unity. Strong central power secures the existence and free development of peoples and regional states; a centralized state structure does not correspond to the character of the German people.

Solidarity of all social strata and professions; rejection of class struggle and class domination.

The final goal of the economy is the individual and his higher duties; human dignity and the moral character of work may never be sacrificed to purely economic ends. The predominance of capital, alongside the attending political, social, and cultural dangers, is to be prevented. The goal of the economy is an increase in the production of goods, whereby, however, a just distribution of goods is to be maintained, which is also the guarantee of free participation in cultural values. Recognition of private property; striving for a steady increase in the number of property owners. Recognition of the economic significance of free entrepreneurial activity and the desire for personal gain; equally meaningful, however, is the promotion of joy in labor and the productivity of wage-earners; for that reason, the securing of a role for the latter in the administration of business, of the possibility of sharing in profits and owning property. The goal of social policy is to defend and promote the professions. A just distribution of public burdens and the active support of the economically weak.

Safeguarding of freedom of conscience, religious freedom, and the freedom of education, and the free development of vital religious energies as provided for in the constitution. The freedom and independence of ecclesiastical communities and the safeguarding of their influence on the life of the people. The cooperation of state and church without violation of their mutual independence. Popular morality as the source of the people’s health and the fertile foundation for the forces responsible for the creation of culture. Tending the health of the family as the basic cell of human community.

Recognition of the role of the state in the education of the young, while rejecting a state monopoly on schools and insisting on the right of the church to the religious education of the young. Support for the natural right of parents to the education of their children; confessional schools.

Source: Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg, eds., The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 104–105.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

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