Development
As opposed to more openly neo-Nazi parties, the DRP preferred to distance itself from the Third Reich, preferring to exalt Imperial Germany (1871-1918). The party, however, moved towards explicit neo-Nazism in 1952, when the Socialist Reich Party (SRP) was declared anti-constitutional and disbanded by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Much of its membership then joined the DRP. The membership of Hans-Ulrich Rudel in 1953 was seen as marking out the party as the new force of neo-Nazism and he enjoyed close ties to Savitri Devi and Nazi mysticism.
Stability under Konrad Adenauer and the growth experienced during the Wirtschaftswunder meant that the DRP struggled for support, averaging around only 1% of the national votes in the federal elections of 1953, 1957 and 1961. The party's only major breakthrough came in 1959 in the regional election for Rhineland-Palatinate, where it won 5.1% of the vote and thus was able to send deputies to the assembly.
In 1962 the party took part in an international conference of far right groups hosted in Venice by Oswald Mosley and signed up as members of his National Party of Europe. This initiative did not take off as Mosley had hoped, however, as few of the member parties, including the DRP, were interested in changing their name to National Party of Europe, as he had hoped they would. One of the party's last acts in 1964 saw it sponsor a tour of Germany by controversial American historian David Hoggan.
Read more about this topic: Deutsche Reichspartei
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