When the openly neo-Nazi-oriented Socialist Reich Party (SRP) was declared unconstitutional and disbanded by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, many of its members joined the DRP.

[7] The membership of Hans-Ulrich Rudel in 1953 was seen as marking out the party as the new force of neo-Nazism and he enjoyed close ties to Savitri Devi and Nazi mysticism.

[9] Stability under chancellor Konrad Adenauer of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the growth experienced during the Wirtschaftswunder meant that the DRP struggled for support, averaging around only 1% of the national votes in the federal elections of 1953, 1957, and 1961.

[10][11][12] The party's only major breakthrough came in the 1959 Rhineland-Palatinate state election, where it won 5.1% of the vote and thus was able to send one deputy, Hans Schikora [de], to the assembly.

As a result, the DRP's protectionism, as well as its anti-French sentiment with the slogan "Out with all the Occupiers" ("Raus mit allen Besatzern"), resonated with the winegrowers.

[13] On Christmas Eve 1959, two DRP party members, Arnold Strunk and Josef Schönen, defaced the Roonstrasse Synagogue in Cologne with swastikas and the inscription "Deutsche fordern: Juden raus" ("Germans demand: Jews out").

[15] The party's Rhineland-Palatinate branch was declared to be an SRP successor organization and banned by the state's interior minister August Wolters (CDU) on 26 January 1960.