The German Fatherland Party (DVLP) was a national conservative political party in the German Empire which was active from September 1917 to December 1918 during World War I. The party was founded in the aftermath of the Reichstag Peace Resolution of July 1917, bringing together pan-Germans, national liberals, conservatives, nationalists, populists, anti-Semites, and voelkisch nationalists who were opposed to a negotiated peace with the Entente Powers and were in favor of promoting maximum German war goals, such as the annexation of Luxembourg and Belgium, the creation of buffer states in Eastern Europe and puppet states in the Baltics, the expansion of Germany's colonial empire in Central Africa, and war indemnities to be paid by France. The Fatherland Party was founded as a counter to pacifist social democracy and was a party of middle-class nationalists and students.
The military served as the DVLP's main source of funding, and many former army officers became active in the DVLP; active-duty soldiers were not allowed to be formal members of political parties. By July 1918, the DVLP had established 32 state associations, 237 district associations, and 2,536 local associations across Germany, growing from 450,000 members in March 1918 to 1,250,000 in July 1918, and shrinking to 800,000 in September. Many conservative parties welcomed the creation of the DVLP, and the National Liberal Party allowed double-membership in the DVLP; however, the liberal Progressive People's Party (which lost several members to the DVLP) and the Catholic Center Party refused to work with the DVLP. More than half of the DVLP's members belonged to "patriotic" clubs and associations affiliated with the party, and several higher officials forced their staffs to join the party. By January 1918, the party claimed to have 290,000 "registered workers" in its ranks, as it appealed to workers by arguing that they supported a peace which secured Germany's economic future. Following the November Revolution of 1918, the DVLP ceased all public activities and transferred its assets to the new German National People's Party (DNVP). DVLP member Anton Drexler went on to found the German Workers' Party (DAP), which soon evolved into the National Socialist German Workers' Party.