A revived Zentrum insread of the CDU

An interesting thing about post-World War II German history I did not know until recently: the Zentrum did *not* immediately fold itself en masse into the new CDU after the War. It made a quite serious attempt to revive itself. In North Rhine-Westphalia it scored almost ten percent in the 1947 Landtag election "despite a targeted CDU campaign against 'wasted' Center Party votes." http://books.google.com/books?id=nFtkBXw7i38C&pg=PA156)

Can anyone see a scenario where a revived Zentrum, rather than the interconfessional CDU, becomes the main political party of postwar German Catholics? Maybe if you have a Vatican that is more strongly opposed to interconfessional parties?
 
Well, the main CDU/CSU strongholds in the old Bonn Republic always were the mostly Catholic regions: the Rhineland, Baden-Württemberg, the rural areas of North Rhine-Westphalia and of course Bavaria. In contrast, the north was often dominated by the SPD. So in those regions, it wouldn't have made that much of a difference. If the DP (which developed out of the Hanoveranian Party) stays a dominant force in Lower Saxony, they could become something like the CSU, a Protestant Zentrum-offshot which only exists in one state. Konrad Adenauer might even have been up for it, for he was more rooted in the Catholic Rhine regions, and he didn't have much time for the pro-unification 'Berlin' wing or Prussia in general. So I could see it working for a while, but it would also mean that the SPD might get in power more often than it did OTL.

After the reunification it would get more interesting: Given the presence of the protestant church in the East German opposition, I guess some of the East German civil rights movement-based parties might survive longer and form a distinctive Protestant conservative party. This could end up in a similar division like in the Weimar Republic, with the Zentrum present in the South, South-West and West; and some sort of neo-DNVP in the East and North.
 
An interesting side effect would be that the FDP would become a real third force in German politics. Many former DDP politicians joined the CDU in the late 1940s, but they probably wouldn't have joined a confessionally based Zentrum. So they might join the FDP, who would become more socially liberal than OTL (until the 1960s, the FDP was more nationalist and revisionist than the CDU). Conservative-minded Protestants might also join the FDP, which would therefore become a catch-all party for nationalists, liberals of all kind (right-wing and left-wing), and democratic conservatives.
 

Nebogipfel

Monthly Donor
Looking at the political landscape OTL, there was a clear trend from 49 to the 76 - various small parties joined mainly with the CDU (or CSU), which turned into a the big tent of the conservatives. So I think it would be difficult to reverse such a fundamental trend. Another regional stronghold would weaken the CDU - and probably strengthen the idea of a national CSU. But then again, the Zentrum was politically neither to the right or left of the CDU, but essentially occupied the same niche in the spectrum. This makes a long therm survival as significant force difficult (They actually still exist, but on a couple of thousand votes level).
 
What could happen would be a multiplication of the CDU-CSU relationship.

Instead of a CDU, you could see a much looser center-right alliance made up of the revived Zentrum, DP, and CSU where they always go into coalition with each other, and always fight the single member districts as part of an electoral alliance (also they stay out of each others' lander) as far as state politics go. The FDP is often in coalition with this alliance, but does not join the alliance and is willing to split off from it and form coalitions with parties opposing it. I'm not sure what this brings to the table that the IOTL CDU doesn't, but there have been arrangements like this in other countries. Something like this could emerge in a "no Adenauer" or "different Adenauer" scenario.
 
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