Despite the fact that 'bourgeois' politicians like Joseph Wirth, Wilhelm Elfes made up the leadership, the party organisation and finances were in firm control of communist functionaries.
[citation needed] The core program of the BdD was a policy of neutrality as well as opposition to the re-armament of West Germany and the Western integration.
Though the BdD tried to advance economic and social demands of the middle classes and the peasants, it also sought socialisation of the large industrial enterprises.
With the foundation of the German Peace Union (Deutsche Friedensunion) the SED preferred to fuse the BdD with the newly founded GDR-sponsored organisation DFU.
On 2 November 1968, the German Communist Party,[1] DFU, BdD and other leftist groupings formed a common list, the Democratic Progress Action (Aktion Demokratischer Fortschritt) for the Bundestag election of 1969.