Following the end of World War I and the collapse of the German Empire, the party system in Germany remained largely in place because the groups with a common religion, social status, culture, etc.

Negotiations between the two parties began on 15 November 1918, and on the same day they agreed on a program that required significant concessions from the National Liberals, including a commitment to a republic as the future form of government.

Further negotiations on the merger on 18 and 19 November ultimately failed because the majority of National Liberal board members were not prepared to lose their political head and most gifted speaker.

As a result, on 20 November Stresemann and three other leading National Liberals drew up an appeal for the formation of the German People's Party.

It was founded provisionally on 22 November 1918 and permanently on 15 December 1918 by a resolution of the central executive committee of the former National Liberal Party.

Unlike the nationalist-conservative German National People's Party (DNVP), the DVP was not directed destructively against the Weimar Republic but combined its criticisms with proposals for reform that stayed within the system.

The SPD, the leading party in founding the Republic, had suffered significant losses in the election and withdrew into opposition even though it was still the strongest force in the Reichstag at 22% (down from 38%).

After Cuno's government broke up under the strain of the Ruhr occupation, Stresemann and the DVP, together with the SPD, Centre Party and DDP, formed their first grand coalition on 13 August 1923.

Although Stresemann was only able to lead the government for three months, since he also was voted out of office due to the Ruhr crisis, the first steps toward consolidating the Weimar Republic were taken during the short period.

In spite of fierce attacks from the opposition DNVP, passive resistance to the Ruhr occupation was abandoned and the inflation of 1914 to 1923 was fought successfully with the introduction of the Rentenmark on 15 November 1923.

He made a sustained effort to end Germany's foreign policy isolation and to revise the Treaty of Versailles by peaceful means.

His involvement was central to the realization of both the 1924 Dawes Plan, which resolved the issue of German payment of war reparations for the short term, and the Locarno Treaties of 1925 which contributed to Germany's admission to the League of Nations in 1926.

[15] After Stresemann's death in October 1929, Julius Curtius, the previous economics minister, succeeded him in the foreign office and took a more demanding stance.

But many representatives of the liberal wing left the party, as did a large number of the members of the German National Association of Commercial Employees (Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband) who had chosen the DVP because of their dislike of Alfred Hugenberg of the DNVP.

In the spring of 1933 Otto Hugo, the deputy chairman of the DVP, demanded that the party be completely merged into the NSDAP, but Dingeldey refused.

On the other hand, it called on the intellectual and economic elites to have their actions measured against moral standards and to place themselves at the service of society out of a sense of responsibility to it.

The members and representatives of the DVP, who were primarily committed, principled scholars and civil servants, belonged to the middle and upper classes.

The DVP's voter structure thus resembled that of the former National Liberal Party in its distribution by denomination and urban versus rural.

The SPD had its own newspapers, the ideas of the Centre Party were promoted by the Catholic papers and the DNVP had Hugenberg's opinion empire behind it.

The DDP was able to rely primarily on Berlin and Hamburg businesses, especially in the early days of the Weimar Republic, while the DNVP was mainly supported by Rhenish-Westphalian heavy industry.

Smaller amounts were contributed by the Kali-Society and the companies of the Hansabund, an anti-monopolistic economic-political interest group led by DVP politician Rießer.