4 - Growth and Consolidation

Summary

Chapter 4 explores the ways in which the DNVP tried to reach out to groups that had stood outside the orbit of the prewar conservative parties, namely Catholics, youth, and women at a time when it adopted an increasingly hard line against Germany’s republican system and the foreign policy of the Fehrenbach and Wirth governments. Under Helfferich’s leadership, the DNVP was able to exploit the inflationary spiral of the early 1920s and the distress that this created in diverse sectors of German society, but particularly among the German middle strata. It was also able to solidify its position in the German agricultural community by virtue of its outspoken opposition to the continuation of war-time controls over farm prices and production quotas. The DNVP was thus able to build upon the organizational growth of the previous year and a half and to consolidate its position as the political agent of Germany’s conservative milieu.