Finally, in 1983, in complete breach of the party's long-term opposition to measures that could stabilize the economy of East Germany (GDR), CSU leader Franz Josef Strauss supported a credit of more than ten billion Deutsche Mark to the country.

In its early years, the party was able to profit from dissatisfaction with the CSU due to its alleged abuse of power, patronage and limited internal democracy.

This led to a fierce power struggle, in which Handlos accused Schönhuber of seeking to put the party on a course towards right-wing extremism.

[12] The Republicans chose not to contest the 1987 federal election as it considered itself too weak, and CSU leader Strauss adopted some of Schönhuber's rhetoric to win back voters.

[11] When prospects of German unification became more realistic, the Republicans started to see political success, and the year 1989 marked the party's electoral breakthrough.

The party won 7.8% of the vote in the January 1989 election in West Berlin, giving it eleven local seats.

[13] The Republicans lost its electoral gains in the 1990s as it was torn by internal strife, scandals, and failure to attract voters in former East Germany after the reunification.

Internal strife led the leadership of two state branches of the party to be collectively discharged in 1989, and in 1990, open conflict erupted between the 'moderate' Schönhuber and 'extremist' Neubauer.

[8][14] Although the party seemed poised to disappear in the beginning of the 1990s, it won a surprising result in the April 1992 state election in Baden-Württemberg.

Disgruntled by the poor showings in the 1994 "super election year", Schönhuber to much surprise agreed to establish cooperations with the DVU, a party that had always been denounced as "extreme-right" by the Republicans.

[19] His positions included abolishing trade unions, reducing the welfare state, expelling all foreigners and returning to Germany's 1937 borders.

The latter included campaigning for the unification of the then-existing West and East Germany, which helped boost the party's popularity in the late 1980s.

The party did not however strive for the inclusion of all groups it considered as part of the German ethnic community, such as Austrians, South Tyroleans and Transylvanian Saxons.

While it maintained a neo-liberal discourse and calls for budget cuts, it began promoting welfare chauvinism, namely only funding German interests.

[22] The Republicans have criticised immigration since its foundation, but the initial relatively moderate discourse became increasingly radical and outspoken under Schönhuber and Neubauer, as well as becoming one of the major topics of party literature.

The party welcomed the tightening of the rules, but continued to advocate stricter laws and criticise the still high arrival numbers of what it considered as "sham refugees".

Since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, opposition to the European Union has become one of the party's most important issues, and it turned to support a confederal state instead of a federal one.

After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the Republicans was also briefly the inspiration for some short-lived initiatives in countries including Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia and Czechoslovakia.