NOTE: The most important historian of left liberalism is Ludolf Parisius. The history of liberalism by Oscar Klein Hettingen also forms a fruitful basis. For a precise knowledge of the left-liberal politics in the new German Reich, a study of the ABC books by Eugen Richter, which have processed a comprehensive material in a relatively tight space, is almost essential. One of the most outstanding periodicals of resolute liberalism of lasting value is the weekly “Die Nation” published by Theodor Barth, 24 volumes, 1883–1907. Also to be mentioned are the “Hilfe” from Naumann-Berlin in the Hilfe-Verlag in the appearing collection “Patria”, books for culture and freedom, Volume 12, 1912 and the “March”, a weekly from the half-monthly publication Munich 1907 ff.
Contemporary development
Left liberalism today in the Progressive People’s Partyis organized uniformly as a parliamentary faction and as a party for all of Germany, was politically represented during the first 40 years after the establishment of the Reich by a majority of parties with different organizations and different programs. It developed with parliaments and in parliaments that were created from the same direction as democratic liberalism itself public life in Germany exerted a palpable influence even before the founding of the empire. But left-wing liberalism has only become a political phenomenon that can be grasped briefly and a uniformly acting factor in Germany since the existence of the Reich Parliament. His cradle is the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. After the dissolution of the Frankfurt parliament, he fled to the state parliaments until the Reichstag became his home. Its prehistory goes back well beyond 1848. The ideas of the 18th century, first taken up in literature and popularized by the leading minds in Germany, gradually adapted to the ideas rooted in Germany’s historical circumstances at the beginning of the 19th century. The proclamation of “human rights”, The themes and currents of the great revolution in France jumped into Germany’s world of ideas and aroused the most conflicting moods. First Wilhelm von Humboldt and Freiherr von Stein tried to get what they could use in Germany for the basis of state building in a planned and far-sighted manner. Wilhelm von Humboldt is the first great exponent of political liberalism as a state-reshaping power. The humane idea of the value of the individual and the development of his or her powers was the starting point for one of Wilhelm von Humboldt is the first great exponent of political liberalism as a state-reshaping power. The humane idea of the value of the individual and the development of his or her powers was the starting point for one of Wilhelm von Humboldt is the first great exponent of political liberalism as a state-reshaping power. The humane idea of the value of the individual and the development of his or her powers was the starting point for one ofbelow has become a constructive conception of the state. As distinguishing features of individual value that can be used by the state are becoming increasingly difficult to find, this view had to arrive at the assumption of an equal value for citizens. This is the basic democratic idea, which at the same time receives abundant spiritual nourishment from the Christian concept of brotherhood. It was just as understandable that this new doctrine was opposed by all the resistances that, conversely, a construction of the state from above,from an absolute point down to the starting point and were spiritually and materially anchored in the ideas, habits and interests corresponding to this view. The course of historical and national development, which necessitated a tight consolidation of forces after the pernicious divisions of Germany, especially in the Napoleonic period, increased, crossed and inhibited liberal and democratic development. That is why it is heterogeneous and not straightforward. The governments of the 18th century brought the movement that produced liberalism and saw it as the bearer of a new organization needed to face fear and no insight. Resentment against this lack of insight and resistance created left-wing liberalism, that is, the form of liberalism that wanted to assert itself against the ruling powers. This attempt led to the great boom of 1848 and failed due to the lack of organizational foundations and the difficulty of bringing about a lack of political education in times of extreme excitement. This failure strengthened the absolutist tendency, which was therefore able to allow itself to introduce pseudo-constitutional conditions even after the reaction. The events of 1866 and the establishment of the political unification of North and South Germany in the Reich led the development on a new and uniform basis.
All of this explains the difficulty of the struggles of left liberalism so far. This half-finished state and the lack of any success affecting the popular conception is one of the causes of the at times powerful swelling of other tendencies which, like liberalism, are not oriented towards the center of the idea of the state and the common good. This includes the denominational center, the agrarian direction, the social democracy, which organizes the workers’ army created by German economic development under the idea of class pressure to a party of the working class and its supporters through the wage struggles and the ideas of democratic liberalism, incidentally, under at the same time fighting the same, has animated.
This made the transition from semi-constitutional to constitutional states more difficult, both internally and externally, the creation of which is one of the main tasks of left-wing liberalism.
The party history
In the context of this overview, it can only be outlined for the Reichstag parties and not also for the parties in the individual countries, although they were and still are of profound importance for party development. The development of the parties naturally takes place in parallel with the political and historical development itself, which must therefore be used to represent the party’s history.
The largest and oldest of the three left-liberal parties was the “German Progress Party”. It was founded in 1861, was merged into the “Free Liberal Party” in 1884, which was formed from the Progressive Party and from the “Secession” that emerged from the National Liberal Party in 1880. After this connection was broken on May 6, 1892, the members of the German Progressive Party took on the name of the Free People’s Party , while the members of the Free Party that emerged from the “Secession” were called the Free-minded Association after its split . Both united with the German People’s Party on March 6, 1910 on the basis of a common program and statuteProgressive People’s Party. In the development of the parties, insofar as they became of decisive importance for Reich policy and the parliamentary groups in the Reichstag, the following facts and sections can be highlighted.
The Progress Party was founded on June 18, 1861. Its founders included the leading men of Prussian democracy and resolute liberalism: Waldeck, von Hoverbeck, Virchow, Schulze-Delitzsch, von Forckenbeck. The party exerted a significant influence on the public spirit and political education, especially through the struggles it had to fight in the Prussian House of Representatives. At the top of her program in 1861 she placed the demand for “a firm unity in Germany, which could not be conceived without a strong central power in the hands of Prussia and without a common German representative body.”
The party possessed from 1862 to 1866 in conjunction with the party of the center-left has a majority in the Prussian House of Representatives and led to Bismarck’s ministry in the conflict years for maintaining the Constitution, the heavy fighting, which at that time [ 37 ]developed from the military organization. In material terms, the main controversy was the introduction of two-year service, which was declared possible by the Progressive Party, impossible by Bismarck and Roon, and which in 1893 has proven to be feasible and has proven itself. The conflict led to a rejection of the additional demand for new troops, to a budgetless regiment and an unconstitutional administration until in 1866, after the end of the war, the Bismarck Ministry sought identity for the unconstitutional government in the state parliament. Prince Bismarck himself said on April 5, 1876 in the House of Representatives to the Member of Parliament Virchow, “I have enough objectivity to be able to fully settle in the ideas of the House of Representatives from 1862 to 1866, I have full respect for the determination with which the Prussian parliament at the time represented what it considered to be right. I don’t blame anyone for that. At the time, they had no way of knowing where I thought politics was going to end; I also had no certainty that she would actually go there andThey also had the right, if I could have told them, to answer me: the constitutional law of our country is more important to us than a foreign policy. Since then I was far from blaming anyone for it, or at least I am now, even though in the passion of the fight I may not always have been. “
The passion of that struggle created deep cracks in political life, not only in Prussia, but also in the rest of Germany. The harsh fighting position into which the Progressive Party was forced, with its bitterness and persecution, strained political life and the position of the parties for decades.
In Prussia, in the Customs Parliament and in the constituent and then in the newly created Reichstag, the members of the Progress Party advocated constitutional development for solid finances, for all liberal laws, in particular for the major legislative works, which, after the establishment of the Reich, ensure uniformity in the field of the army, civil status, coinage, the judiciary, trade law and the press. The party’s view that state administration should be more open and that individuality should be given political, intellectual and economic scope for fruitful self-activity and that the communities should be given freedom of movement and self-administration, often led to clashes with Prince Bismarck under the chancellorship of Prince Bismarck. Were leaders of the Progressive Party in the ReichstagRichter, Hänel and Virchow.Eugen Richter, born on July 30, 1838 and resigned from the civil service in 1864, was elected to the Prussian state parliament in 1869, in 1871 he became a member of the constituent Reichstag and remained as one of its most outstanding members in the Reichstag until his death in 1906 The Progressive Party was most purely and completely absorbed in its hottest years of struggle, and thanks to the extraordinary talent that he brought with him for the political and parliamentary struggle, he was able to give his character again in a particularly characteristic measure to the party, of which he had been the undisputed leader for more than 30 years is. The energy with which he recorded his convictions and the tactical guidelines that he considered necessary to make progress a reality,
At the end of the 1970s, Bismarck had made the transition to protective tariff policy, in which the Progress Party saw serious dangers for the German economic area, which was dependent on exports. This view coincided with the economic views of a section of the National Liberal Party, a number of distinguished politicians; Bamberger, von Forckenbeck, Stauffenberg, Lasker, Rieckertamong other things in 1880 “a secession” and a “liberal association” formed. Since these secessionists were also politically extremely liberal and were disappointed by Bismarck’s internal policies, especially by the Social Democratic exception law, this rapprochement and extensive agreement on March 5, 1884, shortly after Lasker’s death, led to an organic connection [ 38 ] in a party that took on the name of the German liberal party . It comprised 100 members and its programmatic basis was laid down in 6 agreement points.
They read:
“1. Development of a truly constitutional constitutional life in secure cooperation between government and parliament and through the legal organization of a responsible Reich Ministry. Defense against all attacks on the rights of the people’s parliament, in particular maintaining the one-year financial period, the annual revenue approval, and freedom of speech.
2. Preservation of the rights of the people: Preservation of the secret, general, equal and direct right to vote, safeguarding freedom of choice, in particular also through the approval of diets; Freedom of the press, assembly and association; Equality before the law regardless of person or party; full freedom of conscience and religion; legal regulation of the relationship between the state and religious societies with equal rights for all denominations.
3. Promotion of the existing people’s welfare on the basis of the existing social order. With full preservation of equal rights, self-employment and the free unification of the working classes, advocate for all efforts to raise the same feeling, fight also against state socialism, as well as the measures aimed at tutelage and restraint of commercial and commercial life, freedom of trade and freedom of movement.
4. Justice in the tax system and protection of the people’s strength; Relief of the most essential needs of life; no customs and economic policy in the service of special interests; no monopolies; Legislation and effective supervision of the Reich in the railway sector.
5. Preservation of the full military strength of the people; full implementation of the general duty of service with the possible shortening of the service period; Determination of the strength of the peace presence within each legislative period. All of this to secure the national unification of Germany, in loyalty to the Kaiser and on the constitutional soil of the federal state. “
The party, led by Richter, Bamberger, Barth, Schmid-Elberfeld, Schräder and Rieckert, vigorously feuded by Prince Bismarck, emphatically represented this program in parliament in the 1980s; For reasons of constitutional law, it turned against a septennate of military spending, because this seven-year commitment far exceeded the duration of the three-year legislative periods at that time. Bismarck used the septnate question and the irritation between France and Germany at the time to attack and dissolve the Reichstag, in which the cartel parties of the Conservatives and National Liberals that agreed with him did not have a majority.
In the newly elected Reichstag under the excitement of nationalist moods, the free-minded party had entered the parliament, much weakened, and Prince Bismarck had once again obtained a majority for his policy. During this period in the Reichstag from 1887 to 1890, the death of Kaiser Wilhelm I and the accession to the throne of Kaiser Friedrich fell.In the 100 days of his reign, by dismissing the conservative election minister Puttkammer and awarding awards to Virchow and von Forckenbeck, Emperor Friedrich announced his intention, despite the energetic resistance of Bismarck, that he had broken with the tactic of respecting free-thinking politicians want to know, and that he considers a different position to be justified and necessary than the one that Prince Bismarck has pushed through party politics. The death of Emperor Frederick inhibited the natural political development that would have taken place.
Kaiser Wilhelm II proclaimed the continuation of the old course. Prince Bismarck demanded the extension of the Socialist Law, which the free-thinking party rejected as an exceptional law and as a misguided means, as in earlier years. Since an agreement between Prince Bismarck and the National Liberal Party on the duration of the extension was not reached, the Socialist Law was passed in the absence of a resolution by the Reichstag to extend it.
From the new elections that took place in February 1890, the Liberal People’s Party increasingly returned. The majority of the internal policy of Bismarck had in [ 39 ] transformed a minority. The difference of opinion and temperament between Kaiser Wilhelm II and Bismarck led to the breakup and dismissal of Bismarck on March 20, 1890. The position of second Chancellor Caprivi was due to the political situation and the contrast that Prince Bismarck pointed out and that was in connection with a weakening of the protective tariff policy created an aggressive current in conservative and national liberal circles so politically cramped that he could not resolutely pursue a new direction.
On the tactical question of the extent to which the free-spirited party could support the government of the Reich Chancellor under such circumstances and such uncertainty, differences of opinion arose within the free-spirited party, to which others, from the time before the unification of the two parties, were added. The highly gifted MP Theodor Barth advocated a policy of rapprochement with Caprivi, Eugen Richtera policy of reserves, and rightly so. When discussing the modalities under which the two-year service period with the foot troops should be introduced, the MP Barth and some of his close friends parted with the majority of the party. The amendment proposed by him to the law, which wanted to introduce a permanent increase in army numbers but only revocably, was rejected by Caprivi, who, when he subsequently failed to achieve a majority, dissolved the Reichstag on May 6, 1892. The differences of opinion on the above-mentioned issue, which required a solution before the start of the election campaign, led, together with other tactical and personal differences, in the agitated parliamentary group meeting immediately after the dissolution of the ReichstagSplit in the party. Two parties were formed again, which took the names Liberal People’s Party and Liberal Association . The first consisted essentially of the members of the old Progressive Party, under Richter and Schmid-Elberfeld, the second of the members of the liberal association under Schrader and Barth. In the election campaign that followed, both parties suffered losses. On October 26, 1894, Caprivi was dismissed by the emperor.
Under Hohenlohe and initially under Bülow, the period from 1895 to 1905 was politically indefinite. After the heated battles and the political upheavals of the previous time, under the still active criticism of the former Chancellor Bismarck, under the attempts of Kaiser Wilhelm II to initiate a new policy, a certain mood of waiting also emerged in party political life. After the alienating split, the members of the free-thinking People’s Party and the free-thinking association were only able to come closer together again, despite the fact that the uncertain situation and the prescribed policy of critical reserve had brought them side by side again.
The “German People’s Party” was active in the same direction and between the two other liberal parties politically and personally . It comprised the democratic liberals of southern Germany and was briefly referred to as the South German People’s Party . Like the Progressive Party, the beginnings of the German People’s Party go back to the movement of 1848. After the reaction period was over, it reorganized itself at the beginning of the 1960s, initially in Württemberg under Carl Mayer, Julius Haussmann and Ludwig Pfau.The constitution of a party that also included other German areas dragged on from 1865 to 1869. In September 1868 a meeting of delegates in Stuttgart established the program of the German People’s Party, which was then revised and expanded on October 12, 1873. The area from which she was recruited was essentially southern Germany. The direction was democratic. In the first periods of the Reichstag, only represented by very few members, including Leopold Sonnemann, the outstanding democratically and socio-politically oriented founder of the “Frankfurter Zeitung”, their number increased in 1881 and after the septenate elections, which had temporarily completely ousted them more in 1890. Friedrich Payer had been the leader since the 1970s ,the deserving democratic president of the Württemberg state parliament. In 1895 the party adopted a new program at the delegates’ day in Munich, the guiding principles of which, based on the earlier program, were as follows:
I. The German People’s Party is a party of political progress; it is committed to the democratic principles of freedom and equality and demands the equal participation of all citizens in legislation, administration and jurisdiction, the implementation of self-government of the people in the state.
II. The People’s Party is a party of the national community and state self-government. It stands up for the unbreakable unity of the German fatherland, as well as for the preservation of independence and the equality of all German tribes.
III. The People’s Party is a party of social and economic reform. It recognizes that state and social issues are inseparable and that the economic and social uplift of the working classes and the realization of political freedom are mutually dependent. It strives for the peaceful balance of social contradictions in a social order that guarantees the freedom of the individual.
IV. The People’s Party is a party of peace. It recognizes in war and in militarism the most serious damage to the people’s prosperity, as well as to the interests of culture and freedom. It strives for a peace and freedom union of the peoples.
In the Reichstag, Bismarck’s policy, which was intended to drive democratic liberalism into the opposition, had led the German People’s Party to the side of the Progressive Party and Eugen Richter. Even in the period after 1895, the German People’s Party actually worked together, especially at the beginning of the century, in the fight against the high protection tariff with the Free People’s Party and the Free Union, which, however, all worked in separate parliamentary groups. Outside the parliament, a merger then took place between the “Freethinking Association” and the fourth left-liberal tendency, the “National Social Party”, that of the strong personality of Friedrich Naumannwas guided and animated. As a result, Theodor Barth, who was no longer a member of the Reichstag, resigned from the Liberal Association shortly before his death in 1908, which came two years after the death of Eugen Richter.
In the years that followed, the Center gradually came to dominate parliament as it took legislative action on the middle line between national liberal and conservative politics; it established a majority for the policies directed in this way and made the government of Chancellor Hohenlohe and afterwards Bülow useful, not without making their indispensability tangible by temporarily moving to the left. Under this constellation and under the advance of the protective tariff agrarianism, which had created an apparently politically neutral organization in the “Federation of Farmers” and pushed for the increase in food tariffs, social democracy grewever closer, which finally obtained a number of mandates in 1903, which enabled the center, as the numerically strongest parliamentary group in the Reichstag, to form a majority with the Social Democrats alone. When the center had made use of this option in December 1906 on the materially subordinate issue of a last expenditure for the insurrectionary troops in South West Africa and the government, with which the three other parties, right, national liberals and left liberals had voted on this issue, became a minority was transferred, Prince Bülow dissolved the Reichstag. He created a new party constellation , initially only for the elections that were to decide on the rejected demand .She actually got a majority in the elections. After that demand was approved, Chancellor Bülow tried to make the semi-accidental grouping of the new majority parties the basis of a conservative-liberal government policy in accordance with his election slogan. In this new situation, the three left-liberal parties, which had won fifty seats, formed a parliamentary grouptogether and declared that they did not want to prevent that attempt, which corresponded to the electoral constellation, as long as the government policy would actually offer advantages to liberalism. The attempt at the bloc politics of Prince Bülow succeeded in the first year with the liberal Reichsvereingesetz, which was opposed by the center and the social democracy, and also in the second with the constitutional advance of the November debate, but failed in the third year of the attempt at the Reichsfinanzreform, from which conservatives and Center stamped out the imperial inheritance tax. The secondary purpose of their policy was to force Prince Bülow to resign. The “blue-black block”, [ 41 ]As the union of conservatives and the center, which remained victorious with 8 votes, was called, was the first tangible expression of a completely new march of the parties, a camp of the right versus a camp of the left. The new Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg evaded this idea in his opening speech and proclaimed the longing for an early blurring of the differences, while at the same time he claimed for the government “the position above the parties”.
The party unification of left liberalism
In view of this situation, the three free-thinking parties recognized the need for close unity. On March 5, 1910, they formally dissolved the individual parties and on March 6, 1910 in Berlin, they created a unified party of left-wing liberalism, which was named the “Progressive People’s Party” and a program and party that was decided on the same day and previously approved by all individual parties. Statute accepted, based on drafts that the Reichstag members Wiemer, Schrader, Payer and Müller-Meiningen had jointly drawn up.
The organizational statute sets the party congress as the highest organ of the party, which consists of the Reichstag members, a number of members of the state parliament, the members of the Reichstag of the last period, the members of the central committee and the delegates of the Reichstag constituencies. Other organs are the Central Committee and the Executive Committee. Party membership requires consent to the program, registration and membership fees. The party is divided into local, district and regional associations, which have independent competencies. The party organization of the constituency is responsible for the decision in runoff elections.
The program precedes the individual requirements with the following principles :
The party advocates protecting and strengthening the empire and upholding its federal foundations.
The party demands the equal participation of all citizens in legislation, administration and jurisdiction to promote political and social progress, to raise welfare and popular education, it combats all special efforts that run counter to the common good, and strives for a peaceful balance of social contradictions in a society Freedom of the individual guaranteeing social order.
The party commits its members to active cooperation in all areas of public life and expects from this joint and systematic work the expansion of political freedom and the indispensable increase in the legitimate influence of the German bourgeoisie.
The individual claims extend over the entire area of the state’s ability to influence. On behalf of the executive committee, I tried to present the guiding ideas in a paper entitled “The Work Program of the Progressive People’s Party”. The demands of the program are based on a unified conception of the state that unites them; they can be summarized under the main categories that correspond to the nine sections of the program as follows:
The state: equality before the law. Offices and positions. Protection against whim, arbitrariness and abuse of office. Selection based on proficiency. The right to vote, protection of minorities, freedom of choice, constituency division. Imperial Constitution. The imperial constitution, constitutional mode of government, budget and legislative law, education for responsibility. Collegial and responsible Reich Ministry. The inadequacy of the Federal Council, association, assembly and press law. Raising the press, self-government. Simplification and cheapening of the administrative apparatus, aliens law.
Freedom of conscience and religion, school and instruction. Protection for the freedom of religious belief, conscience, science, research and the arts. Equality of Religious Societies. Tolerance, parity, neutrality and sovereignty of the state. State teaching. Freedom of the state and freedom of the churches, separation of their territories, dissemination and deepening of popular education. No denominational segregation at school. Elementary school free of charge.
The military force. Development of full physical strength according to plan without dangerous excessive strain or drill. Securing full military strength. No luxury expenses. No favors. Service time no longer than necessary, even with mounted weapons. Reform of the officer’s pension system. Sharp-eyed supervision for ill-treatment of soldiers. Restriction of military jurisdiction, reform of military criminal law. More effective right of appeal.
Administration of justice. Impartiality and benevolence. Appropriate training of lawyers. Participation of laypeople in adjudication. Practical, fair and prompt administration of justice. Political trials and press trials against the jury. Reform of criminal law, criminal procedure law and the penal system. Separation of justice and administration. Independent administrative jurisdiction.
State budget and state burdens. Determined and planned thrift, no irresponsible carelessness and no unhealthy bond economy, good financial management, tolerable tax burden and fair tax distribution. Gradual reduction of foodstuffs such as industrial tariffs to reduce the risk of an artificial affirmation of the standard of living and a state shift in natural private economic conditions. Protection of German labor through export opportunities. Income, wealth and inheritance tax. Progressive taxes as a requirement of fair taxation. Tax privileges for the dead hand either.
Social improvement: Legislation, administration, self-help and professional association in systematic interaction. Humanization of legal ideas and the employment contract. Equality before the law and state power. Freedom of association, professional associations. Worker protection, doubled for young people and women. Trade inspection, reinforced by the involvement of workers. Collective agreements. Unification offices. Civil independence. Need of the Reich insurance reform. Insurance for private employees, insurance against involuntary unemployment, freedom of movement, health care, housing policy, transport policy. Improvement of the work regulations in the company workshops, state model workshops. International labor protection agreements.
The employment status.Fundamental equality of agriculture, trade and commerce and regular, systematic promotion of all specialist training. Utilization of all modern aids, object lessons, information and instruction, maintenance of skills. Activation of self-help as the best state aid. Facilitation of commercial and rural credit. Freedom of trade. No sinking back into the diseases of the guild. Promote the development of specialty industries for quality goods and handicrafts, meet the refinement of needs. Economically sensible supervision of prison and military workshop work. Share in world traffic. Trade contract policy to facilitate traffic in view of its effect on prices and wages. Railways and rail tariffs as a means of unified economic development. Need for increasing standardization of the German railway administrations. Development of the waterways. Precautions against the risk of economic activity spilling out into cartels and monopolies. Protection of solid business against unfair forms of competition, economically sensible regulation of the submission system. Fideikommiss restriction to eliminate the dangers inherent in the formation of huge assets. Internal colonization and amelioration. Creation of efficient municipal associations. Elimination of the communal privileges of large estates. Economically sensible regulation of the submission system. Fideikommiss restriction to eliminate the dangers inherent in the formation of huge assets. Internal colonization and amelioration. Creation of efficient municipal associations. Elimination of the communal privileges of large estates. Economically sensible regulation of the submission system. Fideikommiss restriction to eliminate the dangers inherent in the formation of huge assets. Internal colonization and amelioration. Creation of efficient municipal associations. Elimination of the communal privileges of large estates.
The position of women. Admission of women to all schools and educational establishments, to all suitable professions and employment opportunities. Equal rights in the national insurance institutions. Admission to social welfare in the communities. Participation in assembly and club life as a measure of interest in political affairs. Protection of marital property law and legal granting of a share in marital achievement.
The rapprochement. Promotion of efforts to bring peoples closer to common cultural work and equal relief of the armaments burden. Expansion of international law and international arbitration institutions for the peaceful settlement of disputes [ 43 ] . The peaceful growth of Germany and the European community of interests. Selection of diplomats. Politics of international friendships with firm, loyal and dignified protection of Germany’s national vital interests.
The history and program of the progressive People’s Party show that in Germany too, left-wing liberalism is an expression of the forward movement in contemporary history and the organization of forces that recognize the direction that serves the German general and state interests between the national liberal and the social-democratic schools of thought, which in normal development would follow Creation of internal and external uniformity is expected to have an increasing influence on public opinion.
Literature:
L. Bergner, The old Harkort. 4th edition Leipzig 1902. –
A. Bernstein, Schulze-Delitzsch Life and Work, Berlin 1879. –
Verlag der Frankfurter Zeitung: History of the Frankfurter Zeitung 1856 to 1906 Frankfurt a. M. 1906. –
Oskar Klein-Hattingen, History of German Liberalism, 2 volumes, Berlin-Schöneberg, 1911/12. –
Friedrich Naumann, Democracy and Empire, Berlin-Schöneberg,
3rd ed. 1905. The political parties, there 3rd ed. 1910. –
Ludolf Parisius, Germany’s political parties and the Bismarck Ministry, Berlin 1878. –
Leopold Freiherr von Hoverbeck, 2 volumes, Berlin I (1897) II 1 (1898) II 2 (1900). –
Martin Philippson, Friedrich III. as Crown Prince and Kaiser, Berlin 1893. The life of Kaiser Friedrich III., 2nd edition Wiesbaden 1898. Max von Forckenbeck, Dresden and Leipzig 1898. –
Eugen Richter, Jugenderinnerungen, Berlin 1893. In the old Reichstag, 2 volumes, Berlin 1894 and 1896. Political ABC book, 10 years, the last one in 1903. –
Martin Wenck, Handbook for Liberal Politics, Berlin Schöneberg 1911. –
Conrad Haussmann, The Work Program of the Progressive People’s Party 2nd edition, “Deutsche Presse” publishing house. Berlin 1911. –
Leonhard Müller, Baden State Parliament History. 4 volumes. Berlin 1900/02. –
K. Schmidt-Buhl, Swabian Folk Men. Vaihingen a / Enz 1907. –
SOURCE: Handbook of Politics Volume Two: The Tasks of Politics, Part Seventh: The Political Parties in Germany, Section 34, pp. 34-43-1914-Berlin and Leipzig