Lutheran Orthodoxy and the Beginning of Conservative Party Organization in Prussia

Abstract

Since 1945 German historians, searching for answers to the question of the responsibility of the political parties for the failure of the Weimar Republic, have studied afresh the organization and political activity of parties in Germany. Their work concentrates on the history of parties after 1870, when they became centralized, mass organizations, and treats in a cursory manner the earlier stages in the formation of parties.1In so far as recent and earlier historical studies delve into the period before 1870, they trace the origins of parties in Prussia to the Revolution of 1848. The relation of these parties to the partisan groupings that were formed in the territorial church during theVormärzis overlooked.