Centre Party (Germany)
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German Centre Party
Deutsche Zentrumspartei |
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| President | Gerhard Woitzik |
| Founder | Joseph Görres |
| Founded |
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| Headquarters | Straberger Weg 12 41542, Dormagen, NRW |
| Membership (2006) | 600 |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| European affiliation | European Christian Political Movement |
| International affiliation | None |
| European Parliament group | No MEPs |
| Colours | |
| Bundestag |
0 / 630
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| European Parliament |
0 / 96
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| Ministers-president of states |
0 / 16
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| Website | |
| www |
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The German Centre Party (German: Deutsche Zentrumspartei or just Zentrum) is a lay Catholic political party in Germany, primarily influential during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic. In English it is often called the Catholic Centre Party. Formed in 1870, it successfully battled the Kulturkampf which Chancellor Otto von Bismarck launched in Prussia to reduce the power of the Catholic Church. It soon won a quarter of the seats in the Reichstag (Imperial Parliament), and its middle position on most issues allowed it to play a decisive role in the formation of majorities. Its support for the Nazi Party in the early 1930s was decisive in the passage of the Enabling Act, whereby Adolf Hitler assumed dictatorial powers and the Nazi party became the only legally permitted party in the country.
After World War II, the party was refounded, but could not rise again to its former importance, as most of its members joined the new Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The Centre Party was represented in the German parliament until 1957. It exists as a marginal party, mainly based in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Centre Party belongs to the political spectrum of "Political Catholicism" that, emerging in the early 19th century after the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, had changed the political face of Germany. Many Catholics found themselves in Protestant dominated states.
The first major conflict between the Roman Catholic Church and a Protestant state was the "Colonian Church conflict", when the Prussian government interfered in the question of mixed marriages and the religious affiliation of children resulting from these. This led to serious aggressions against the Catholic population of the Rhineland and Westphalia and culminated in the arrest of the Archbishop of Cologne.
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Wikipedia