Talk:Centre Party (Germany)

Well-written and basically neutral article
I like the article as now constituted but it suffers from over-linking. One link per section is plenty, certainly not every paragraph within a section or within the same paragraph, which gets very distracting. Rlquall 00:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

"Well-written and basically neutral article"??
I think not. Large swaths of text lifted directly from the Catholic Encyclopedia. Article needs to be continually vetted for POV and tone. 216.194.3.77 12:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Name
It was the Catholic Centre Party - not the Centre Party. When it lost against the National Socialists (Nazis) in the elections, the members of the Catholic Centre Party were imprisoned. The party disbanded to avoid further punishments by Hitler.

The whole article does nothing to preserve history, but rather to obscure it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.235.122.19 (talk) 21:17, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The party was called Zentrum or Zentrumspartei or Deutsche Zentrumspartei. "Catholic" was never part of the name. Str1977 (talk) 15:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That's what the war was about in the beginning, not Jews. [1] i.e. Prussia and Protestants. To place Prussia behind the Iron Curtain. Thankfully the Catholic Nazis lost! 69.29.213.247 (talk) 22:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * While it is true that World War II wasn't about the Jews - it never was for the Allies - it definitely wasn't about the Centre Party or anything to do with it because the Centre Party was long dead when the war started. Nobody thought of an Iron Curtain in 1939 either and no one attempted to put anything behind, least of all those that began the war. Finally, if your conspiracy theory really were true, then the obscure "they" were pretty successful as Prussia ended up behind an Iron Curtain.
 * It also remains unclear why you responded to my merely pointing out what the actual name of the party was. Str1977 (talk) 16:35, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Centre Party and social progress
Two suggestions.

First, someone should create a redirect called Center Party (Germany) that redirects here, for the benefit of American readers.

Second, the Centre Party played a key role in the development of labor laws (child labor, social security, maximum number of hours worked per week, etc.) in the 1880s and 1890s (beginning even before Bismarck's death). This is mentioned in only one brief sentence in a very long article. This article does an admirable job of describing the CP's political history, but its actual accomplishments should be included. (With neutral POV, of course; to libertarians it is not an "accomplishment" to pass a child labor law.) These laws influenced the American New Deal and also the development of Catholic social teaching, and are thus very noteworthy. &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 21:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The Enabling Act
Although it may be unintentional, this section reads as an attempt at whitewashing and excuse making. Bottom line is that the Centre Party voted UNANIMOUSLY in favor of the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler dictatorial powers. That is the most important piece of information, and should be in the first sentence of the section, not buried at the end of multiple paragraphs of excuses. It was not impossible to vote against the act, as the Socialist party voted unanimously against it. Also, it is misleading to say that the Socialist party was the only one to speak out against the legislation. The Communist party also opposed it, but were not allowed to speak since it had been outlawed by the Nazis.

Another interesting observation is that the word "Jew" does not appear once in this article. How is that even possible in such a long article dealing with a religiously-based political party operating during a time when the "Jewish question" was so prominent in German politics?

Dansan99 (talk) 17:45, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

The Party That Put Hitler in Power
How the hell is this party still around? Surely their collaboration with the Nazi's and help passing the Enabling Act would of been their death-knell after the war. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.162.92 (talk) 15:35, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It wasn't the party that put Hitler into power. That would be the NSDAP, if you are talking political parties, or the Papen-Hindenburg-Industrial cabal that actually managed Hitler being appointed. THEY put Hitler into power. While the Centre played a not so glorious role in voting for the Enabling Act (but not any worse than all other parties save one), this did start Hitler's rise to power nor did it end there (it ended when Hindenburg died). Still, the vote was a blemish and it in part was the death knell of the party as it never returned to prominence after the war.
 * Still, it is strange but telling how all other culprits for the failure of the Weimar Republic are glossed over, only this one vote is put into prominence. Str1977 (talk) 16:42, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Slant in article
I see you reverted my edit. This material is all currently unsourced, and reads with an editorial slant of proving that the Centre Party wasn't so bad despite voting for the Enabling Act. I mean, the Centre Party was not the Nazi party, it's not interesting or controversial to say that they campaigned against them or any other party. A quick check of Google Books shows authors saying that the Centre Party just straight-up gave up after the Pope & the Concordat basically thought they'd get some accommodations from the Nazis. Why have the retroactive crystal ball about how deeply uncomfortable they were about the disastrous vote? SnowFire (talk) 01:40, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The goal here is to reflect what the reliable sources say, not to make a judgment on what the Center party should or should not have done. Rjensen (talk) 05:06, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Way to entirely miss my point. I just said I searched on Google Books and *that* is what those sources said - the Concordat was what they talked about.  The crystal ball part is currently unsourced, at least in-line (perhaps the sources in general say this).  And I suppose I can't contest that surely some reliable source will say that someone somewhere was uncomfortable about the vote, this is meaningless without context - before ANY event, some people will be for it, some against it, some ambivalent.  It's very easy to selectively cite the people who ended up being "right" as an attempt to make just such a judgment.
 * I see that you're citing Evans over this "deep uncomfortableness". I'll see if I can borrow a copy, but even if Evans talks about it, I'm really not a fan of how it's written anyway - it reads like special pleading, not history.  If there was a split in the Centre Party on the wisdom fo the vote, then say so, and talk about the sides. SnowFire (talk) 19:17, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Far-right?
Perhaps it would be good to include some sources for the claim that they're far-right. I think right-wing by itself, given their adherence to social conservatism & Christian democracy is okay, but far-right is not substantiated. Horarum (talk) 14:50, 14 February 2022 (UTC)