The Party System of the Kingdom of Hanover
Time for another update of this mod: Today I want to give you some information on my research on parties in the Kingdom of Hanover. Comments, suggestions, corrections and ideas are welcome!
It’s probably kind of wrong to speak of ‘parties’ in the context of the early years of the grand campaign. The first parties in Germany that had some kind of organization and membership were formed around the revolution of 1848/49. Before there were only very loose factions made up from the members of parliament who shared some common belief or ideology. The first party to have some kind of mass membership were the social democrats, just followed by the catholic ‘Zentrumspartei’. The liberal and conservative parties in Germany had no mass membership for the entire time of the grand campaign; they used to be ‘Honoratiorenparteien’ – parties of local and national notabilities.
At the start of the grand campaign there were only two ‘parties’ in the Kingdom of Hanover: The ‘Welfische Partei’ and the ‘Liberale Partei’. ‘
Welfische Partei’ means – literally translated – Party of the Guelphs. You could also call them monarchists or conservatives. It was the party of the supporters of the monarchy and the House of Guelph, consisting mainly of aristocrats, officers and high level bureaucrats. In Victoria terms they quickly developed into a reactionary party under the rule of King Ernst August I. Their electorate consisted nearly completely of protestant voters, making the ‘Welfen’ the counterpart of the catholic ‘Zentrum’. After the annexation of the kingdom by the Prussians the party developed into a kind of separatist force who demanded the full restoration of the kingdom. Under different names (‘Deutsch-hannöversche Partei’, ‘Deutsche Partei’) she did exist even some time after the Second World War. Major politicians of this party are the prime ministers Ernst Friedrich Herbert Graf von Münster, Georg Schele von Schelenburg, and Wilhelm Friedrich Otto Graf von Borries.
The ‘
Liberale Partei’ was another name for the liberal MPs of the early years of the grand campaign. They were fierce enemies of the reactionary measures of King Ernst August I. Made up from free minded aristocrats and the well educated parts of the bourgeoisie they had a typical liberal profile: laissez faire in economic and secular in religious issues. A prominent politician of this faction is Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, the author of the liberal constitution of 1831 and one of the ‘Göttinger Sieben’, the seven professors protesting against the removal of this constitution by King Ernst August I. Another one is Johann Carl Bertram Stüve, the minister president of the time of revolution (1848-1850).
Some years before the revolution of 1848/49 the discontent parts of the bourgeoisie gathered into the ‘
Demokratische Partei’. You could also call them radicals. They’re left-wing and anarcho-liberal in Victoria terms, there main issues are like the ones of the liberals, but a little more … well, radical. As they were only of minor importance in Hanover there is no prominent politician in the game.
The national and liberal MPs gathered into the new ‘
Nationalliberale Partei’ around 1859. This party was the heir of the ‘Liberale Partei’ and had members in nearly all German states. Rudolf von Bennigsen, a lawyer from Lüneburg, was their most prominent politician and head of the party even after the annexation of Hanover by Prussia. The ‘Nationalliberale Partei’ was the party of the well educated and wealthy bourgeoisie. She was a fierce advocate of German unification and had no problem in working with conservative politicians like the German chancellor Bismarck.
Her counterpart on the left wing of liberalism was founded in 1861: The ‘
Freisinnige Partei’ stood in the tradition of the radical democrats and was very successful in many parts of Germany. But in Hanover she wasn’t able to catch up with the national liberals. They are – unlike the ‘Demokratische Partei’ – not anarcho-liberal, but their issues are a way more left wing then the ‘Nationalliberale Partei’.
The ‘
Zentrumspartei’ was the party of political Catholicism in nearly all states of Germany since the revolution of 1848/49. Conservative in ideology she was a kind of catholic completion of the protestant ‘Welfen’. These parties often allied and had a joint candidate in critical electoral districts. The ‘Zentrum’ was very strict on religious issues; economically her profile was more interventionist than the liberals. After the unification of Germany the ‘Zentrum’ was the first victim of the domestic policy of Chancellor Bismarck: In the ‘Kulturkampf’ he tried to marginalize the political Catholicism by a strict separation of church and state. But eventually this dispute made the catholic party even stronger. One of the most prominent politicians of this party, Carl Ludwig Windhorst, was from Meppen (Victoria province of Lingen).
The ‘
Freikonservative Partei’ used to be a more moderate version of conservatism. As she was pro-unification and in support of Bismarck, she was no real match for the ‘Welfische Partei’ – the only party which continuously resisted annexation of the kingdom. Therefore they can only be considered a third party in Hanover.
The development of the labour movement in Germany came of in several steps: In 1863 the ‘
Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein’ was founded by Ferdinand Lasalle, a follower of Marx and Engels. It was the first socialist party in Germany. Just some years later in 1869 another party, the '
Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei' was constituted by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. This party was more radical than the ADAV and was not a friend of the German unification. After some long debates both parties united in 1875; the new party was called ’
Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei’. In 1890 it was renamed a last time into ‘
Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD)’, a name that didn’t change until today.
