The Christian People's Party (German: Christliche Volkspartei, CVP) was a political party in Weimar Germany. A Catholic party, it was mainly based in the Rhineland area of western Germany.[1]
History
Idea to create a nondenominational Christian party was floated in 1918,[2] with Christian trade unions driving an unsuccessful attempt rename the Centre Party into Christian People's Party.[3]
The Christian People's Party was founded on 3 May 1920,[4] as a split from the Centre Party, which had contested the 1919 elections as the "Christian People's Party".[5][6]Bernhard Deermann [de] was appointed as the party's chairman. The new party contested the 1920 federal elections in an alliance with the Bavarian People's Party known as the Christian Federalist Imperial Election List (German: Christlich-föderalistische Reichswahlliste),[7] and was partially blamed for the votes lost by the Centre party.[8] The CVP received around 65,000 votes, mostly in the Centre strongholds of Aachen, CologneDüsseldorf, Koblenz and Trier,[9] winning one seat,[10] taken by Deerman.
The Christian People's Party also contested the 1921 Prussian state election, but failed to win a seat after receiving 0.1% of the vote.
References
^Richard Bessel & E.J. Feuchtwanger, Social Change and Political Development in Weimar Germany, Croom Helm, 1981, ISBN085664921X, p. 273
