German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic

The German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic ( DSAP ) was created in 1919 after the creation of Czechoslovakia.

Precursor of the party

Forerunner of the party was the workers 'association founded in the year 1863 in Asch, in the northwestern part of Bohemia, as a section of the General German Workers' Association, the first social democratic organization in the Empire of Austria.

Party Foundation and Function

After the First World War, the fall of the Austrian Empire and the creation of Czechoslovakia then constituted in September 1919, the German workers' movement in Czechoslovakia in Teplice as " German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic " ( DSAP ). Chairman in 1920, Ludwig Czech, who worked as a lawyer in Brno. He was the successor to the first party leader Josef Seliger (1870-1920), who had died only a few days after the second Congress ( in October 1920 in Carlsbad) at the age of only 50 years.

In the election of 1929, the Social Democrats increased their share of the vote to 6.9 percent and became the strongest faction in the German Prague House of Representatives and its chairman Ludwig Czech as Minister of Social Welfare and the ruling party. In the years 1929 to 1938, DSAP then ever belonged to the government, at a time when the onset of the global economic crisis ever more dramatic impact on the industry and craftsmanship of Sudetenland.

Your party leader Ludwig Czech held from 1929 to 1938 in the reign of the first Czechoslovak Republic, the Office of the Minister of Social Welfare, and later the office of the Minister of Labour and Minister of Health last. The " About Maps ", food stamps for unemployed non-union bound, were in the years of economic crisis often badly needed aid for Czech but also Sudeten German working class families. Under the Czech DSAP argued for an inclusive price, which provided for a constructive cooperation of the German minority in the young Czechoslovak Republic.

In the first Czechoslovak Republic, the DSAP was the most important German party that tried to give the German population in the Republic a place. However, it lost many Sudeten German trailer during the economic crisis. The more won the Sudeten German Party ( Sudeten ) in popularity, the open operating a port of the Sudetenland to the German Reich in 1937.

In March 1938, Wenzel Jaksch was elected to succeed Czechs as the new party leader of the DSAP. As German troops began after the Munich agreement on 1 October 1938, the occupation of the Sudetenland, only a part of the democratic politicians could save in the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Immediately after the German invasion of the Sudetenland social democrats were persecuted, as are the members of the Christian Social Party and especially Jews. From October to December 1938 20.000 members of the Social Democratic Party were arrested; 2,500 Sudeten Germans were sent alone to the Dachau concentration camp. To the West fled estimated 30,000 people. The leader of the Sudeten, Konrad Henlein - member of the NSDAP from 1939 - was there with the establishment of the Reichsgau Sudetenland to April 15, 1939 Empire and Gauleiter.

On February 22, 1939, the Board of DSAP decided to close all activities on the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic and the continuation of the work abroad under the name of " loyalty Community Sudeten German Social Democrats ."

Today the Seliger community perceives the political and spiritual heritage of the previous DSAP. It was founded as a " disposition Community Sudeten German Social Democrats " on June 4, 1951 in Munich.