Free-thinking Democratic League

The Democratic Vrijzinnig Bond ( VDB) was a left-liberal party in the Netherlands, which existed from 1901 to 1946.

History 1901-1946

Establishing the VDB occurred in 1901, when a request of the Board of the Liberal Union (Liberal Unie ), take the necessary constitutional changes necessary to implement general suffrage as urgent point in the electoral program, on the general members' meeting was not a majority. In response, the party leadership and advanced Subdivisions left their previous organization and formed the Radical Association ( radicals ) bond the Free Democratic Association ( VDB).

Besides the demand for consistent change in the electoral law, which stood up to its implementation in 1918, the focus of interest, the VDB also differed on other issues by the liberal mainstream. These included the " academic socialism " -oriented demands for greater socio-political commitment of the state and pacifistic motivated goals as unilateral disarmament and development of the international legal order. Due to these substantive differences, the VDB joined not the Founded in 1921, Freedom League ( Vrijheidsbond ) of the other competing liberal parties united and in 1928 the name was Liberal Staatspartij.

Only in the crisis-ridden thirties, when the VDB in the face of the growing threat of Hitler's Germany by his pacifist positions moved away and stood up for a co-operation of all democratic forces, merging of the various liberal movements seemed possible again. Then, however, the German invasion in 1940 marked a turning point in the political development of the independent Netherlands.

As it 1946 was a restructuring of the political landscape and the Social Democrats with the PvdA newly established the breakthrough of the class struggle - for striving People's Party, the VDB closed under the leadership of its then chairman Pieter Oud majority of the PvdA.

Part of the former Liberals but left after a short time the Labour Party and participated in the founding of the VVD, which represented the Liberal Party of the Netherlands for the following decades before the company founded in 1966 D66 increasingly developed a left- liberal profile and the role of the intellectual heirs the VDB claimed for itself.

Position in the party system

The VDB, which in the year of its foundation had about 1,500 members, and only in its heyday mid-20s, the number exceeded 10,000, was one of the smaller parties in the Netherlands. In the elections prior to the implementation of universal and equal suffrage ( to 1917 ) he reached between seven and eleven seats ( out of 100). The suffrage amendment deteriorated rather the position of the Liberals, as the previously underprivileged felt more connected to the confessional parties and the Socialists. The VDB however, was to niederigem level ( between five and seven seats of continued 100) stabilize and 1937 outperform the moderate liberal competition for the first time.

For a long time saw the VDB one of his main tasks in building bridges between the socialists and the bourgeois / Christian parties, but never was able to put through the formation of a corresponding coalition and remained limited for a long time on the role of an opposition party. VDB was found was not until the partial revision of the own programmatic in the 30s to participate in a center-right coalition was willing and 1933 to 1937 participated in three cabinets under Prime Minister Colijn. Pieter Oud, who later became Mayor of Rotterdam, was acted at that time as finance minister. The former party leader Henri Marchant was from 1933 to 1935 Minister of Education. As this 1935 because of his secretly completed converting to Catholicism lost the confidence of his party and thus his offices, Marcus Slingenberg was appointed Minister of Social Affairs for the term of office until 1937.