REPUBLICANS, THE

also called Republican Party, German Die Republikaner (REP) ultraconservative political party in Germany, founded (in West Germany) in 1983. The foundersdissidents from Bavaria's Christian Social Union who had protested the leadership's arrangement of credit for communist East Germanywere joined by members of the former Citizens' Party outside Bavaria. The party soon took as its leader Franz Schnhuber, a former volunteer in the Nazi Waffen SS. The party's policies included lower business taxes, restrictions on foreigners, compulsory youth service, and effective law and order. In its first national foray, the party took a surprising 7.5 percent of the popular vote in West Germany's elections of June 1989, winning its biggest successes in Bavaria and Baden-Wrttemberg, but it won only 2 percent of the vote in reunified Germany's elections of December 1990.