EUROPE'S CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS (TIME 1953)

time.com ^ | Monday, May. 25, 1953

[Nikas777]

EUROPE'S CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS

Monday, May. 25, 1953

ooking out over devastated Europe at war's end in 1945 the journalists of the world—plain reporters and exalted pundits—considered the future and, to a man, came to the same conclusion: Europe would go left and socialist. The right, dishonored by the Petains and Papens, and by its devotion to 19 century capitalism, was doomed. The center, caught between the stridencies of right & left, and forced to choose, would have to go left. Communists and Socialists had made a name in the undergrounds and concentration camps. And in the end, Socialism, the wave of the future, would triumph, as it had in Scandinavia long before, and in Britain only recently.

The experts were wrong. Instead, postwar Europe's dominant force turned out to be Christian Democracy. Today, Christian Democrats govern or share heavily in the governing of every war-torn country of Western Europe; most of their Premiers and all of their foreign ministers (except The Netherlands') are Christian Democrats. All are disciples of European unity, all share an overall philosophy, all—perhaps by political accident—are Roman Catholics. When Italy's De Gasperi, West Germany's Adenauer and France's Bidault sit down to negotiate a treaty or discuss the future, they draw from a common religious inspiration that sees Europe reunited as it was before Europe burst asunder in post-Reformation strife. They share, too, the paradox of having come to power frankly religious men, in a Europe heavily influenced since the Age of Enlightenment by secularistic and often anti-religious political doctrine. In such a scene, the Christian Democrats have learned not to accent their sectarian differences, but to stress what they have in common.

[buzzer]

Here’s a slight overview and comparision between the most important german parties and their US counterparts.

- NPD - National Democratic Party (Nazis, comparable to the National Alliance in the US http://www.natall.com/ )

- Die Linke - Leftists ( far left, almost communists comparable to the Communist Party USA http://cpusa.org )

- Die Grünen - Green party (http://www.gp.org)

- FDP - Free Democratic Party/Liberals ( Libertarian Party http://www.lp.org)

- CDU/CSU - Christian Democratic/Social Union (www.gop.org)

- SPD - Social Democratic Party (www.democrats.org)

[wolf78]

- NPD - National Democratic Party (Nazis, comparable to the National Alliance in the US http://www.natall.com/ )

Only that the NPD isn't really an important german party. Like other nationalist (e.g. Deutsche Volksunion DVU) or right-wing (Die Republikaner) parties it had limited success in regional or state elections, namely as a protest party, only to fail to re-enter the state parliament four years later. Yes, the NPD consist of batshit crazy neo-Nazis, but it never held any real power, unlike e.g. Le Pen's Front National.