GERMAN CATHOLIC CENTER. - In German parliamentary and political history the name of the G. C. C. appeared for the first time in 1859, when Catholic deputies of the Prussian Diet formed a faction of their own, to which they gave, in view of the position of the seats they occupied in the chamber, precisely the name of G. C. C. Politically this group identified itself, also in its personnel, with the Catholic faction of the diet existing since 1852, which opposed the decrees of Minister Raumer, which infringed the personal and religious freedoms sanctioned by the constitution. The program of the Prussian Centre was summed up in 1861 in the following points: a Greater German vision of national unity, with the condemnation of Prussian particularism of a "Little Germany"; freedom of all confessions, and not only of the Catholic one, in the face of state interference; the widest possible autonomy in every field of social life. The G. C. C. therefore, from its origins, was not a confessional party in the strict sense of the word, and, if it was one subsequently for quite some time, this is due not so much to the rigid formulation of a political program of its own, but to the Kulturkampf unleashed by Bismarck after 1870.
In fact during the so-called "constitutional conflict" (1862-66) the deputies of the faction did not form a homogeneous bloc: some voted against the government, others instead granted their confidence to Bismarck. To this one may add that this Centre did not yet constitute a party in the true sense of the word. Lacking any organizational apparatus and a press that might be its spokesman and its channel to the electorate, the subsequent elections sealed its temporary disappearance. The publication of the Syllabus (1864), the hegemony of Prussia and of Protestantism in Germany after the defeat of Austria at Sadowa (1866), the definition of papal infallibility (1870) had profound repercussions on Prussian domestic politics. The condemnation of liberalism, pronounced in the Syllabus, caused Catholics to be viewed with suspicion and accused of obscurantism and ultramontanism. On the other hand, once the confederation of North Germany under Prussian leadership was constituted, Catholics found themselves in a minority in the face of the Protestants. They were therefore compelled by the force of circumstances to tighten their bonds for the protection of their rights. Nor did the tension show any sign of diminishing. The dogma of papal infallibility, presented by anti-Catholic circles as a return to the Dictatus papae of Gregory VII and to the Unam sanctam of Boniface VIII, overheated an atmosphere that was already extremely feverish. This complex of circumstances determined the formation of the G. C. C. properly speaking, of that party which for over half a century was to be one of the protagonists of German domestic politics. Its date of birth can be fixed at 11 June 1870, with a letter of Peter Reichensperger, one of the most influential members of the Prussian Centre from 1852 onward, which appeared in the Kähnische Volkszeitung. Drafted in the form of a manifesto, this letter is an appeal to Catholics to choose in the imminent elections the representatives suited to defend the freedom to live as Christians, undermined and threatened by state authority. On 28 Oct. 1870 the first political program of the G. C. C. appeared, known as that of Soest, from the city in western Germany where it was drafted. It consisted of nine points: 1) absolute freedom of the Church; 2) effective equality of the recognized confessions; 3) opposition to any attempt to profane marriage; 4) confessional schools; 5) a federal State, with ample recognition of the autonomy of the individual Länder; 6) administrative decentralization; 7) rigorous control of expenditures, taxes and tributes, and their equitable distribution among the taxpayers; 8) overcoming the existing gap between capital and labor by placing social questions on a strictly legal basis. The elections to the Prussian chamber of deputies, held in 1870, secured for the G. C. C. 48 seats. The subsequent elections to the first German Reichstag, after the proclamation of the empire in Jan. 1871, returned 63 representatives of the Centre. It was precisely at a meeting of the group, in Dec. 1870, that August Reichensperger and Savigny proposed for the new party the name of G. C. C., which was accepted. Its first leaders were Windthorst and Mallinckrodt. In the Reichstag the Centre immediately took a position in favor of the freedom of the Holy See and that of German Catholics. In the course of the debate on the reply to the speech from the throne, the Centre proposed that the address include the request for diplomatic intervention in favor of the Holy See (the occupation of Rome by the kingdom of Italy had taken place a few months earlier), but the request was rejected by 243 votes to 63. More fraught with consequences was the negative attitude taken by the non-Catholic parties during the discussion of the new constitution of the German empire. The representatives of the Centre indeed perceived in the draft of the constitution the absence of any guarantee for the freedom of the Catholic Church. Intuitively they fought for the recognition of their rights. The coalition of the opposing parties once again carried the majority. From then on anti-Catholic measures followed one after another. Thus began the so-called Kulturkampf, which for several years profoundly disturbed the patriotism and the religious faith of German Catholics. After 1880 the chancellor Bismarck, who had been the chief person responsible for the anti-Catholic campaign, had to acknowledge the futility of the struggle he had begun, and the anti-Catholic laws ceased. The Kulturkampf on the other hand had strengthened the Centre, and many Catholics who had previously not voted for this party, once they perceived the threat, gave it their votes. In this way the conservative and liberal majority crumbled, and in parliament the Centre became the arbiter of the situation, and served as the needle capable of tipping the pans of the balance in one direction or the other. This situation allowed the G. C. C. to oppose an anti-Catholic policy on the part of the government and the parliament, but gave it no possibility of obtaining positive advantages: its policy was, in short, on the whole a static one, which gave it much freedom of maneuver, while preventing it from carrying out a legislative function on its own programmatic points. From the exhaustion of the Kulturkampf until the First World War the political action of the Centre retained the aforementioned characteristics. When the war broke out in 1914, the Centre too voted the requested credits, and renounced any form of opposition for the duration of the conflict. Only in 1917, with the peace motion presented by the Centre deputy Erzberger, a motion that also received the votes of the Social Democrats and the Liberals, did the Centre return to the forefront. After the Revolution of Nov. 1918 the Centre, while remaining faithful to the Catholic platform of its program, proceeded to an internal reorganization that brought the left wing and the representatives of the trade unions to the leadership of the party. Tactically it sided with the other parties of the right in order to prevent a socialist majority. In the elections of Jan. 1919 the Centre, including therein the seats of the Bavarian People's Party, a movement of the Catholics of Bavaria, had a representation of 91 deputies in the Constituent Assembly, and was thus able to oppose a form of social republic, dreamed of by the extreme parties. During the years of the Weimar Republic the Centre continued to be a major force in German political and parliamentary life, and several times its representatives held the important office of chancellor (Fehrenbach, June 1920-May 1921; Wirth, May 1921-Nov. 1922; Marx, Nov. 1923-Dec. 1924 and May 1926-May 1928; Brüning, March 1930-May 1932).
After Hitler's rise to power (Jan. 1933), the C. C. T., under the leadership of Msgr. Kaas and of Brüning, granted full powers to the National Socialists, deceived by the promise that the fundamental rights of citizens would not be violated. A few months later, on July 5, the C. C. T. dissolved itself, until the German catastrophe in 1945 permitted its reconstitution once again. Dr. Hamacher and Johannes Brockmann were its promoters. The reborn C. C. T., however, lacked a solid electoral base, because this had been absorbed by the new Christian Democratic Union. At the end of 1948 one of the most eminent figures of the C. C. T., Karl Spiecker, a former collaborator of Chancellor Wirth, therefore proposed the merger of the party with the Christian Democratic Union, but his advice was not followed.