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TheGerman People's Party in Romania (German:Deutsche Volkspartei in Rumänien;Romanian:Partidul Poporului German din România, PPGR) was apolitical party which activated in theKingdom of Romania between 1935 and 1938, claiming to represent the entireethnic German community of the country.
Alfred Bonfert founded the PPGR on April 22, 1935, in a split with theNazi-orientedGerman Party, whose president he accused of having a conciliatory attitude toward the party's democratic leaders, and which he denounced asJudeo-Communist during the next few years. The party's base was theVolksdeutschebourgeoisie, influenced by Nazism. It was organised on theHitler-created model, with aparamilitary system in which the cadres were named by superior hierarchical organs. It ran three official newspapers:Der Stürmer (Timișoara),Ost-deutscher beobachter (Sibiu) andSachsenburg (Brașov).
In its programme of 1935, the PPGR asked for the1923 Constitution to be respected, as well as for cultural autonomy for the local German community. Besides its programme, the party's practical activity entailed cultivating a German (in this case Nazi) spirit among the Germans of Romania, and implanting each one of these with the idea that he represented an element, living abroad, of theGreat Reich, whose interests he had to serve. The PPGR was hostile toRomanians and tried to isolate ethnic Germans from the general population. It adopted an intransigent attitude toward the country's governments, disavowing collaboration and pursuing a policy of confrontation toward them. A veritablefifth column for the Reich, it was never very popular, gaining under 1% of the vote at the1937 election despite Germans forming over 4% of the population.
The German People's Party, along with all other parties extant in Romania, was dissolved on 30 March 1938. On 27 October 1938, following orders fromBerlin, the remnants of PPGR were merged with theGerman Party.
