The Independent Regional Party for Alsace–Lorraine (German: Unabhängige Landespartei für Elsaß-Lothringen, colloquially simply referred to as Landespartei) was a political party in Alsace, France. The party was founded by a group of key supporters of the publication Die Zukunft. The Landespartei represented the radical fringe of the broader Alsatian autonomist movement.[1]
The founding meeting of the Landespartei took place in the Restaurant A l'Abattoir in Strasbourg in September 1927. Around 300 persons attended the founding meeting. The meeting was led by Paul Schall, René Hauss and Karl Roos. A programme of German linguistic demands was formulated, largely on the pattern of the Heimatbund.[2]
In the 1928 parliamentary election Landespartei obtained 11.5% of the votes in Lower Alsace (the French département of Bas-Rhin).[3]
In 1928 the Landespartei joined the Volksfront, a coalition of Alsatian political parties favouring autonomy for the region.[4]
In the 1929 municipal election in Strasbourg, the party won five seats and became part of the ruling majority in the city council.[5] The party lost one of its seats in the subsequent 1935 municipal election, in which the autonomist side lost its majority.
The Landespartei gradually moved closer to fascism.[4] Its new publication, Die Elsaß–Lothringische Zeitung often praised Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Moreover, splinter-groups of the party began forming uniformed combat groups styled after the SA.[4]
In April 1939 the erstwhile communist newspaper Die Neue Welt was merged into Elsass-Lothringische Zeitung.[6] In July 1939, the Alsatian Workers and Peasants Party (which had published Die Neue Welt) merged into the Landespartei.[7]