All-German People's Party
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All-German People's Party
Gesamtdeutsche Volkspartei |
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|---|---|
| Leader | Gustav Heinemann |
| Founded | 1952 |
| Dissolved | 1957 |
| Split from | Christian Democratic Union and Centre Party |
| Merged into | Social Democratic Party of Germany |
| Ideology |
Centrism, Christian democracy, Christian left, Pacifism, Neutralism |
| Political position | centre to centre-left |
| International affiliation | none |
The All-German People's Party (German: Gesamtdeutsche Volkspartei, GVP) was a minor political party in West Germany active between 1952 and 1957. It was a Christian, pacifist, bourgeois centre-left party that opposed the re-armament of West Germany because it believed that the remilitarisation and NATO integration would make German reunification impossible, deepen the division of Europe and pose a danger to peace.
Most members were dissidents from the Christian Democratic Union or German Centre Party who disagreed with the foreign and intra-German policy of Konrad Adenauer's government. The party failed to win broader public support, only gaining 1.2 % in the federal election. The party dissolved and many members joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD), with a number of former GVP activists rising to high-ranking positions, including two Presidents of Germany, Gustav Heinemann and Johannes Rau.
The party was formed by a number of former CDU or German Centre Party members and former Confessing Church supporters, who opposed the re-armament of Germany and a close co-operation with the Western powers. The forerunner of the party was the "Emergency Association for Peace in Europe" (Notgemeinschaft für den Frieden Europas), founded in November 1951 by Gustav Heinemann.
Heinemann was the president of the synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany and had been a CDU member and minister of the interior in Adenauer's first cabinet from 1949 to 1950 before he resigned in protest against Adenauer's secret negotiations with the Americans about a West German contribution to a Western military alliance. Together with Helene Wessel, then chair of the Catholic Centre Party, and two other persons he formed the steering committee of the party which did not have a chairman. Heinemann and Wessel often appeared together in order to appeal to both Protestants and Catholics.
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