2 - Infrastructure of the German Right

Summary

Chapter 2 examines the infrastructure of the German Right with particular attention on the integration of industry, agriculture, Christian labor, and the different sectors of the German middle class into the organizational structure of the DNVP. It also deals with the way in which industry, agriculture, Christian labor, and the German middle classes organized themselves in order to represent their special interests within the framework of Germany’s new republican order. The high degree of interest articulation that this involved, however, subjected the DNVP to centrifugal pressures that were sometimes difficult contain and that posed a threat to the party’s unity and political effectiveness. Still, the DNVP was remarkably successful in anchoring itself in Germany’s conservative milieu since its founding a year and a half earlier and was well on its way to developing into a socially heterogeneous conservative Sammelpartei. Interest articulation that this involved, however, subjected the DNVP to centrifugal pressures that were sometimes difficult contain and that posed a threat to the party’s unity and political effectiveness. Still, the DNVP was remarkably successful in anchoring itself in Germany’s conservative milieu in the short period since its founding and was well on its way to developing into a socially heterogeneous conservative Sammelpartei.