Deutsche Reichspartei

For the party that existed in Imperial Germany, see Free Conservative Party.

The Deutsche Reichspartei (German Reich Party, German Imperial Party or German Empire Party) was a nationalist political party in West Germany. It was founded in 1950 from the German Right Party (Deutsche Rechtspartei), which had been set up in Lower Saxony in 1946 and had five members in the first Bundestag.

In 1949 the conservative German Right Party's more neo-Nazi elements split away to form the Socialist Reich Party. The remaining forces of the German Right Party sought to merge with other right wing groups, and the result was the creation of the Empire Party. The initial founders of the party were, among others: Alexander Andrae, Oskar Lutz, Hans Bernd von Grünberg, Wilhelm Meinberg, Otto Heß, Hans Schikora, Heinrich Kunstmann, Adolf von Thadden.

As opposed to more openly neo-Nazi parties, the Empire Party preferred to distance itself from Adolf Hitler. Instead it preferred to exalt Imperial Germany (1871-1918). The party, however, moved towards national socialism in 1952, when the SRP was declared anti-constitutional and disbanded by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany and much of its membership re-joined the Empire Party. The membership of Hans-Ulrich Rudel in 1953 was seen as marking out the party as the new force of neo-Nazism.

Despite this the party suffered through a lean period in the 1950s, which continued until a revival in the regional elections of 1959. By then, however the Empire party was already in the process of going out of existence, as its chairman Adolf von Thadden wanted to form a broader-based political force of socialists, nationalists and non-reactionary, non-religious conservatives. The party held its final conference in 1964 when it was symbolically dissolved. It was quickly replaced by the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD).