Refounding and Post-war History
After the war, the Centre party was refounded, but it was confronted with the emergence of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a new party formed as a Christian party comprising both Catholics and Protestants. As many former Centre party politicians, e.g., Konrad Adenauer, were founding members or joined the CDU and also Cardinal Frings of Cologne endorsed the new party, the Centre lost their position as the party of the Catholic population.
For some time however, the party managed to hold on to regional strongholds in North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1945 the Centre's Rudolf Amelunxen had been the new state's first Ministers-President and the Centre Party participated in the state government until 1958, when it dropped out of the state parliament. Until 1959 the Centre was also represented in the state parliament of Lower Saxony.
On the national level, the Centre Party in the elections of 1949 won ten seats in the first Bundestag. However, in 1953,the party (with the aid from the regional CDU) only retained two seats. In 1957, largely due to the massive CDU landslide that year, the party dropped out of the Bundestag completely and has never returned.
This demise is at least partly due to Helene Wessel. In 1949 she was one of the Centre's representatives in the Bundestag and also was elected chairwoman of the party, the first woman ever to lead a German party. In 1951 she vocally opposed Adenauer's policy of German rearmament and joined forces with the CDU's Gustav Heinemann, the former Minister of the Interior. The two formed the "Notgemeinschaft zur Rettung des Friedens in Europa" ("Emergency community for saving peace in Europe"), an initiative intended to prevent rearmament.
Wessel resigned from her post and in November 1952 left the party. Immediately afterwards, Wessel and Heinemann turned the "Notgemeinschaft" into a political party, the "Gesamtdeutsche Volkspartei" ("Whole-German People's Party" aka GVP), that failed badly in the elections of 1953. In 1957 the GVP dissolved and most members joined the SPD.
Meanwhile the Centre Party tried to forge an alliance of small parties of Christian persuasion, to offer an alternative to disappointed CDU/CSU voters, but it only gained the support of the "Bavarian Party". The two parties joined forces under the name "Federalist Union", first in parliament since 1951, and in 1957 the general elections, but the results were disappointing.
In 1988 the right wing of the party split off and formed the "Christian Centre Party". In 2003 the evangelical "Christian Party of Germany" (CPD) joined the Centre Party.
Since its demise on the national level, the Centre Party focuses on local politics, while maintaining the same positions as in the post-war period. The party is represented in some city councils in North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt.
The chairman of the party is Gerhard Woitzik, vice-mayor of the city of Dormagen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The party is affiliated with the European Christian Political Movement.
Despite its marginal numbers, the Centre party emphasizes continuity to its history by sometimes referring to itself as the "oldest political party of Germany". According to its statutes the official name of the party is "Deutsche Zentrumspartei - Älteste Partei Deutschlands gegründet 1870", which translates as "German Centre Party - Oldest Party in Germany founded in 1870".
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