Politics
The Democrats were a more left-wing or social liberal party, whereas the German People's Party was right-wing liberal. Along with the Social Democrats and the Centre Party, the Democratic party was most committed to maintaining a democratic, republican form of government. It considered itself also a devotedly national party and opposed the Treaty of Versailles but emphasized on the other hand the need for international collaboration and the protection of ethnic minorities. A Phd thesis of 1978 (by Jürgen C. Hess) called the DDP the party of "democratic nationalism". With Ludwig Quidde (Nobel Peace Prize winner of 1927) and others the party had a pacifist wing which left the Democrats in 1930.
The party was attacked by some for being a party of Jews and professors (and, indeed, Jews formed one of its most loyal voter groups). Its social basis were middle class entrepreneurs, civil servants, teachers, scientists and craftsmen.
Read more about this topic: German Democratic Party
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto—God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)