Economic Reconstruction Union

The Economic Reconstruction Union (German: Wirtschaftliche Aufbau-Vereinigung or WAV) was a German political party that was active immediately in Allied-occupied Germany after the Second World War. Although usually translated into English as the Economic Reconstruction Union^[1][2][3] it is also sometimes known as the Union for Economic Reconstruction,^[4][5] the Economic Reconstruction Association,^[6][7] or the Economic Reconstruction Party.^[8]

The WAV, which existed only in Bavaria, was established in 1945 by the Munich lawyer Alfred Loritz.^[4] It was officially licensed as a political party by the US military government on 8 December 1945.^[9] The party's programme was populist and was in some ways simply a support for its demagogic leader as it had a very limited policy base beyond support for federalism.^[4] Due to its anti-liberal stance the group has been characterised as radical right wing populist party by Betz and Immerfall.^[10] Like the later All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights the WAV's main support base was amongst internal expellees and it had little support amongst native Bavarians.^[4] It also sought to reach out to demobilised soldiers and small-time former Nazi Party officials with only perfunctory connections to ideological Nazism who saw themselves as the victims of denazification plans.^[11]

The party secured representation in the Landtag of Bavaria in 1946.^[6] However the WAV went into decline as its lack of coherent policy and disaffection with Loritz's heavy-handed style of leadership led to around half of the party's local branches having been disbanded by 1948.^[4] In the 1948 local elections the demoralised party gained only 1.7% of the vote.^[12] Nevertheless, the party contested the Bavarian seats in the 1949 West German federal election and captured 14.4% of the vote to win twelve seats.^[4] As a part of an agreement Loritz signed with the Passau-based refugee organisation the New Citizens Alliance half of the party's candidates were refugees and as a result they gained widespread support in those constituencies with the highest number of refugees.^[2] This group, led by the radical nationalist Gunther Goetzendorff, had been barred by the American authorities from participating in the 1949 election and so worked with the WAV for convenience.^[12] The combined group, under the WAV banner, was a "radical nationalist party".^[13]

The 1949 election represented the high-water mark of the WAV, which went into steep decline thereafter. Their vote collapsed in the 1950 election to the Landtag of Bavaria, with the 2.8% vote share obtained falling some distance short of the 5% required to enter the Assembly.^[4] By that October the party within the Bundestag began to disintegrate when four of its members left to form a new group for refugees associated with the Centre Party.^[14] In December 1951 a further group of six deputies left to join the German Party and when another joined the Deutsche Reichspartei soon afterwards it left Loritz as the WAV's sole deputy.^[14] Worse was to come, as in 1952 when the party contested the municipal elections it captured only 0.3% of the vote.^[15]

No WAV candidates were put forward for the 1953 federal election and the party itself effectively disappeared soon after.^[14]