German Free-minded Party

The economists Ludwig Bamberger and Georg von Siemens as well as the liberal politician Eugen Richter were among the prime movers of the merger in the view of the forthcoming accession of the considered liberal Crown Prince Frederick William to the throne (which took place only in 1888).

The Free-minded Party supported the expansion of parliamentarism in the German constitutional monarchy, separation of church and state and Jewish emancipation.

The main beneficiaries of this defection were the Conservative forces, supporting the protectionist, colonialist and anti-socialist policies of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

In the 1887 federal election, the party again lost half of their seats, falling to 32 Reichstag mandates.

Though urged by his wife Princess Royal Victoria, Crown Prince Frederick William did not dare court trouble with Bismarck by openly taking the party's side.

Members of the Free-minded Party at the Reichstag foyer, 1889, Heinrich Berling , Erwin Lüders , Philipp Schmieder , Moritz Klotz , Adolph Hoffmann , Max von Forckenbeck , Paul Kohli , Alexander Meyer , Paul Langerhans , Albert Traeger , Julius Lerche , Friedrich Witte , Georg von Siemens , August Munckel , Eugen Richter , August Maager , Asmus Lorenzen , Friedrich Schenck , Johann Heinrich Nickel , Reinhart Schmidt , Max Broemel .