The
German Völkisch Freedom Party was a
right-wingIn politics, right-wing, political right, rightist and the Right are terms used to describe a number of positions and ideologies. They are most commonly used to refer to support for preserving traditional or cultural values and customs or for maintaining some form of social hierarchy or private...
and antisemitic
political partyA political party is a political organization that seeks to attain and maintain political power within government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns...
of
Weimar GermanyThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
founded in 1922 when Wilhelm Henning,
Reinhold WulleReinhold Wulle was a German Völkisch politician and publicist active during the Weimar Republic.-Völkisch politics:...
and Albrecht von Graefe broke from the
German National People's Party (DNVP)The German National People's Party was a national-conservative party in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic.-History:The party was formed in 1918 by a merger of the German Conservative Party, the Free Conservative Party and a section of the National Liberal Party of the old monarchic...
. Leading right-wing figures such as
Ernst Graf zu ReventlowErnst, Count Reventlow was a German naval officer, journalist and Nazi politician.-Early life:Ernst Christian Einar Ludwig Detlev graf zu Reventlow was born at Husum, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, the son of Ludwig Reventlow, a Danish nobleman, and Emilie Julie Anna Louise Rantzau...
,
Artur DinterArtur Dinter was a German writer and Nazi politician.- Biography :Dinter was born in Mülhausen, Alsace to Joseph Dinter, a customs adviser, and his wife Berta, née Hoffmann, and he was baptized in the Catholic Church.After doing his school-leaving examination, Dinter began studying natural...
and
Theodor FritschTheodor Fritsch was a German antisemite whose views did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
joined the party on its foundation.
Völkisch refers to the
Völkisch movementThe völkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic". The term völkisch, meaning "ethnic", derives from the German word Volk , corresponding to "people", with connotations in German of "people-powered", "folksy" and...
, a populist movement focused on folklore and the
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
Volk. A political leader of the party was General
Erich LudendorffErich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German Army officer, victor of Liège, and, with Paul von Hindenburg, one of the victors of the battle of Tannenberg. From August 1916 his appointment as Generalquartiermeister made him joint head of Germany's war effort...
.
The party was founded on December 16 1922. Many members of the
Deutschvölkischer Schutz und TrutzbundThe Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund was the largest, most active, and most influential anti-Semitic federation in Germany after the first World War, and one of the largest and most important organization of the German völkisch movement during the Weimar Republic, whose...
joined the DVFP after the former was banned. After the Nazi Party was banned in 1924, the DVFP merged with many Nazis to form the
National Socialist Freedom MovementThe National Socialist Freedom Movement or National Socialist Freedom Party was a German political party created in April 1924 in the aftermath of the Munich Putsch. Adolf Hitler and many Nazi Party leaders were jailed after the attempted coup and the Nazi party was outlawed in what came to be...
.