This article is about the German People's Party which existed between 1868 and 1910. For the party with same name, which existed between 1918 and 1933, see German People's Party.
Initially, the South German democrats supported the Greater German solution of the German Question. After the establishment of the German Empire in 1871 under Prussia, the solution which excluded Austria, it advocated federalist structures and defended the South German states' rights against increasing strengthening of the central government in Berlin. Insistently, the party demanded democratic reforms, in particular strengthening of the position of the parliament, which had no say in the formation of the government and no influence on government policies as the government was appointed and dismissed by the emperor alone.
The most influential among the German People's Party's state organisations was the Democratic People's Party in Württemberg. After the German People's Party was disbanded, it continued as the regional branch of the Progressive People's Party, the German Democratic Party and is still part of the full name of the liberal Free Democratic Party in the state of Baden-Württemberg. In contrast to the South German People's Party of 1868–1910, the German People's Party in the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) was a monarchist successor to the imperial National Liberal Party.
^Winkler, Jürgen R. (1995). Sozialstruktur, politische Traditionen und Liberalismus. Eine empirische Längsschnittstudie zur Wahlentwicklung in Deutschland, 1871–1933. Springer. p. 66.
^Stargardt, Nicholas (1994). The German Idea of Militarism: Radical and Socialist Critics 1866-1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 31.
