Conservative People's Party (Germany)
[5] Among older DNVP members such as Kuno Graf von Westarp and in the conservative monarchist newspaper Kreuzzeitung, the name was controversial.
Hugenberg's active support for the 1929 referendum against the Young Plan that finalized a schedule for German reparations payments to the victors of World War I, and the DNVP's cooperation during the referendum drive with the Nazi Party (NSDAP), met with party members' particular disapproval.
When the bill resulting from the referendum, the "Law against the Enslavement of the German People", was put to a vote in the Reichstag, about twenty out of 73 DNVP deputies refused to follow Hugenberg.
A group around Treviranus and Walther Lambach formed the People's Conservative Association at a meeting in the Prussian House of Lords on 28 January 1930.
Initially the association was not to be a party, only a means to gather like-minded people together in order to bring the DNVP back to its former course.
[7] A few months later, there were once again splits in the DNVP due to its stance with regard to the government of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party.
His presence in the cabinet gave the party a weight beyond its tiny representation in parliament, which was just four seats out of 577 after the September 1930 election.
They expected a prolonged era of reaction and were critical of the curtailment of unemployment insurance and of Papen's foreign policy, but they initially welcomed the 1932 Prussian coup d'état, when Reich President Paul von Hindenburg replaced the legal government of the Free State of Prussia by von Papen as Reich Commissioner.
Even on 18 February 1933, when Hitler was already chancellor, they were still saying that a fascist experiment could not last long and that the only possible form of government for Germany in the future would be an authoritarian state.
Some were for the Combat Front Black-White-Red made up of the DNVP and its paramilitary wing the Stahlhelm, and some for the Christian Social People's Service and indirectly also for the National Socialists.
[8] On 31 March 1933, the KVP folded due to lack of funds, and Heinz Dähnhardt destroyed the party's archives on 1 May 1933.
In domestic policy, the party wanted an unspecified reform of functions at the federal and state level, a strengthening of local self-government, and secure positions for public servants.
[14] The People's Conservative Association, which was temporarily revived alongside the KVP, adopted a charter in 1931 according to which it strove for "the political unification of all forces" that were "determined to fight for a free, vigorously led German state in the spirit of the 'Conservative Manifesto' of 15 February 1931".
The general meeting, the "Conservative Reich Convention", elected a "Leadership Ring" for two years, which chose a speaker.
In particular, unlike the DNVP, it lacked the support of the agrarian interest groups in the conservative strongholds of eastern Prussia.
