Centre Party (Germany) - The End of The Centre Party

The End of The Centre Party

With the passing of the Enabling Act the Centre Party had in fact acquiesced in its own demise, as it had played the part Hitler had assigned to it and was no longer needed. As promised during the negotiations, a working committee chaired by Hitler and Kaas and supposed to inform about further legislative measures, met three times (31 March, 2 April and 7 April) without any major impact.

At that time, the Centre Party was weakened by massive defections by party members, often to the NSDAP. Loyal party members, in particular civil servants, and other Catholic organisations were subject to increasing reprisals, despite Hitler's previous guarantees. The party was also hurt by a declaration of the German bishops that, while maintaining their opposition to Nazi ideology, lifted the ban on cooperation with the new authorities.

On 8 April, Hitler sent Vice-Chancellor Papen to Rome to offer to the Pope negotiations for a nationwide concordat. Throughout the years of the Weimar Republic, the National Socialists had always been a staunch opponent of such an agreement, but now Hitler intended to deal a decisive blow against Political Catholicism. Shortly before Papen, the Centre Party's chairman Kaas had arrived in Rome and because of his expertise in Church-state relations, he was authorized by Cardinal Pacelli to negotiate terms with Papen, but pressure by the German government forced him withdraw from visibly participating in the negotiations. Though the Vatican tried to hold back the exclusion of Catholic clergy and organisations from politics, in the end it had to accept the restriction to the religious and charitable field, which effectively meant acquiescing to end the Centre Party. On 14 July 1933 Hitler accepted the Concordat, which was signed a week later.

The issue of the concordat pro-longed Kaas' stay in Rome, leaving the party without a chairman, and on 5 May Kaas finally resigned from his post. The party now elected Heinrich Brüning as chairman. At that time, the Centre party was subject to increasing pressure in the wake of the process of Gleichschaltung and after all the other parties had dissolved (or were banned like the SPD), the Centre Party dissolved itself on 6 July. During the concordat negotiations, Cardinal Pacelli had acquiesced into the party's dissolution but he was nonetheless dismayed that it occurred before the negotiations had been concluded. The day after government issued a law banning the founding of new political parties, thus turning the NSDAP into the party of the German state.