Dingeldey, Eduard

(1886-1942)

   lawyer and politician; led the DVP from 30 November 1930 until its dissolution on 4 July 1933. The son of a church official, he joined Hesse's civil service* after studying law and econom-ics. In World War I he worked in Worms as a jurist. After the war he established a legal practice in Darmstadt and married into the Merck industrial family. Late in 1919, as DVP chairman in Hesse, he entered the Landtag. At the time of Walther Rathenau's* murder, Dingeldey was assaulted by young socialists; he was thereafter an opponent of the SPD. He was elected to the DVP's managing committee in 1920 and joined its executive in 1922. Meanwhile, he won con-siderable influence as the Party's deputy chairman in southern Germany. Aligned in Weimar's middle years with the DVP's moderates, he supported Gustav Stresemann's* policies.

   Dingeldey was elected to the Reichstag* on 20 May 1928. Following the severe losses of the middle-class parties (DDP and DVP) in the same election, efforts were initiated to unite the parties; in southwestern Germany discussions were led by Dingeldey and Willy Hellpach.* Although little was achieved, the NSDAP's breakthrough in the 14 September 1930 elections reenergized efforts to form a new, united middle-class party. A key advocate for bourgeois unity, Dingeldey replaced the ineffectual Ernst Scholz* as Party chairman on 30 November 1930. But when attempts at combination failed, he moved sharply to the Right and alienated many in the DStP by removing his support in 1931 from Heinrich Brüning.* In 1932, by proposing a "national opposition" with the extreme Right, he terminated any spiritual connection he might have retained with the late Stresemann and induced the resignation of the DVP's left wing. Oblivious to the import of his words, he hailed the end of the "Weimar system" in October 1932 and called for reforms to free the state from the control of the masses. During the early weeks of Hitler's* regime, he naively believed that the Hitler-Hugenberg-Papen coalition would soon be replaced by "moderates" such as himself. After the DVP's dissolution he resumed his legal practice in Darm-stadt.

   REFERENCES:Benz and Graml, Biographisches Lexikon; Larry Jones, German Liber-alism; Stachura, Political Leaders.