The Economic Reconstruction Union ( or WAV) was a German political party that was active immediately in Allied-occupied Germany after the Second World War. Although usually translated into English as the Economic Reconstruction UnionGilad Margalit, Guilt, Suffering, and Memory: Germany Remembers Its Dead of World War II, Indiana University Press, 2010, p. XIFrank Biess, Mark Roseman, Hanna Schissler, Conflict, Catastrophe and Continuity: Essays on Modern German History, Berghahn Books, 2007, p. 227David F. Patton, Out of the East: From PDS to Left Party in Unified Germany, SUNY Press, 2011, p. 17 it is also sometimes known as the Union for Economic Reconstruction,Alfred Grosser, Germany in Our Time, Penguin Books, 1971, p. 252Noel D. Cary, The Path to Christian Democracy: German Catholics and the Party System from Windthorst to Adenauer, Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 288 the Economic Reconstruction Association,Jose Raymund Canoy, The Discreet Charm of the Police State: The Landpolizei and the Transformation of Bavaria, 1945-1965, BRILL, 2007, p. 65 or the Economic Reconstruction Party.Mark S. Milosch, Modernizing Bavaria: The Politics of Franz Josef Strauss and the CSU, 1949-1969, Berghahn Books, 2006, p. xiv
Formation The WAV, which existed only in Bavaria, was established in 1945 by the Munich lawyer Alfred Loritz. It was officially licensed as a political party by the US military government on 8 December 1945.Rebecca Boehling, A Question of Priorities: Democratic Reform and Economic Recovery in Postwar Germany, Berghahn Books, 1998, p. 195 The party's programme was populist and was in some ways simply a support for its demagogic leader as it had a very limited policy base beyond support for federalism. Due to its anti-liberal stance the group has been characterised as radical right wing populist party by Betz and Immerfall.Hans-Georg Betz, Stefan Immerfall, The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, p. 95 Like the later All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights the WAV's main support base was amongst internal expellees and it had little support amongst native Bavarians. It also sought to reach out to demobilised soldiers and small-time former Nazi Party officials with only perfunctory connections to ideological Nazism who saw themselves as the victims of denazification plans.Ian Connor, Refugees and Expellees in Post-War Germany, Manchester University Press, 2007, p. 126
Into the Bundestag The party secured representation in the Landtag of Bavaria in 1946.Margalit, Guilt, Suffering, and Memory, p. 189 However the WAV went into decline as its lack of coherent policy and disaffection with Loritz's heavy-handed style of leadership led to around half of the party's local branches having been disbanded by 1948. In the 1948 local elections the demoralised party gained only 1.7% of the vote.Connor, Refugees and Expellees, p. 127 Nevertheless, the party contested the Bavarian seats in the 1949 West German federal election and captured 14.4% of the vote to win twelve seats. As a part of an agreement Loritz signed with the Passau-based refugee organisation the New Citizens Alliance half of the party's candidates were refugees and as a result they gained widespread support in those constituencies with the highest number of refugees. This group, led by the radical nationalist Gunther Goetzendorff, had been barred by the American authorities from participating in the 1949 election and so worked with the WAV for convenience. The combined group, under the WAV banner, was a "radical nationalist party".Connor, Refugees and Expellees, p. 128
Decline The 1949 election represented the high-water mark of the WAV, which went into steep decline thereafter. Their vote collapsed in the 1950 election to the Landtag of Bavaria, with the 2.8% vote share obtained falling some distance short of the 5% required to enter the Assembly. By that October the party within the Bundestag began to disintegrate when four of its members left to form a new group for refugees associated with the Centre Party.Alfred Grosser, Germany in Our Time, p. 253 In December 1951 a further group of six deputies left to join the German Party and when another joined the Deutsche Reichspartei soon afterwards it left Loritz as the WAV's sole deputy. Worse was to come, as in 1952 when the party contested the municipal elections it captured only 0.3% of the vote.Grosser, Germany in Our Time, pp. 252-253
No WAV candidates were put forward for the 1953 federal election and the party itself effectively disappeared soon after.
References