Berlin > municipal parliament

Called Stadtverordnetenversammlung in German, this was the name given to Berlin's municipal parliament founded in 1809 and the forerunner of today's state House of Representatives. The construction of Berlin’s major housing estates during the Weimar Republic was sealed in its chambers. Among the left-leaning parties in the assembly were the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). During the Weimar Republic, these parties formed the political left wing (placed on that side of parliament, as the seating plan indicated), and faced a growing number of bourgeois-conservative parties on the right. Among the right-wing parties were representatives of the now-defunct Catholic Centre Party (formerly DZP), the national-conservative German National People's Party (DNVP), the moderate German Democratic Party (DDP), the national-liberal German People's Party (DVP) and from 1929, Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), which rapidly gained in popularity. Other smaller bourgeois and right-wing parties included the Reich Party of the German Middle Class (WP), the German Socialist Party (DSP) and the Christian Social People’s Service (CVD).

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