Independent Regional Party for Alsace-Lorraine

The Independent Regional Party for Alsace-Lorraine (German: Unabhängige Landespartei für Elsaß-Lothringen, colloquially simply referred to as Landespartei) was a political party in Alsace, France. The party was founded by a group of key supporters of the publication Die Zukunft. The Landespartei represented the radical fringe of the broader Alsatian autonomist movement.[1]

Landespartei electoral poster

The founding meeting of the Landespartei took place in the Restaurant A l'Abattoir in Strasbourg in September 1927. Around 300 persons attended the founding meeting. The meeting was led by Paul Schall, René Hauss and Karl Roos. A programme of German linguistic demands was formulated, largely on the pattern of the Heimatbund.[2]

In the 1928 parliamentary election Landespartei obtained 11.5% of the votes in Lower Alsace (the French département of Bas-Rhin).[3]

In 1928 the Landespartei joined the Volksfront, a coalition of Alsatian political parties favouring autonomy for the region.[4]

In the 1929 municipal election in Strasbourg, the party won five seats and became part of the ruling majority in the city council.[5] The party lost one of its seats in the subsequent 1935 municipal election, in which the autonomist side lost its majority.[6]

The Landespartei gradually moved closer to fascism.[4] Its new publication, Die Elsaß-Lothringische Zeitung often praised Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Moreover, splinter-groups of the party began forming uniformed combat groups styled after the SA.[4]

In April 1939 the erstwhile communist newspaper Die Neue Welt was merged into Elsass-Lothringische Zeitung.[6] In July 1939, the Alsatian Workers and Peasants Party (which had published Die Neue Welt) merged into the Landespartei.[7]

References
  1. Fischer, Christopher J. Alsace to the Alsatians?: Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870–1939. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. p. 180
  2. Fischer, Christopher J. Alsace to the Alsatians?: Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870–1939. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. p. 191
  3. Hülsen, Bernhard von. Szenenwechsel im Elsass: Theater und Gesellschaft in Straßburg zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich : 1890 – 1944. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verl, 2003. p. 166
  4. Fischer, Christopher J. Alsace to the Alsatians?: Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870–1939. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. pp. 198–199
  5. Hülsen, Bernhard von. Szenenwechsel im Elsass: Theater und Gesellschaft in Straßburg zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich : 1890 – 1944. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verl, 2003. p. 169
  6. Hülsen, Bernhard von. Szenenwechsel im Elsass: Theater und Gesellschaft in Straßburg zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich : 1890 – 1944. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verl, 2003. pp. 170, 264
  7. Goodfellow, Samuel. From Communism to Nazism: The Transformation of Alsatian Communists, in Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 231–258
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