State Committee – Wikipedia

Friedrich Ebert with representatives of the German states in the Reich Chancellery, exact date unknown

The state committee in the system of the law on the provisional imperial violence

The State committee was a body in the German Empire in 1919. It served as representation of the member states in the transition period after the November Revolution of 1918/19. The real organ was the Federal Council. Since the downfall of the monarchy, the Federal Council has been essentially inactive at the behest of the Council of the Council of People’s Representatives. Since then, the forum of the state governments has been a country commission (January 26 to 30, 1919) and a conference of states (February 1, February 5-8). ^[first]

The Weimar National Assembly set up a provisional constitutional regulations on February 10, 1919: that Law on the provisional imperial violence . The state committee appears in paragraphs 2–4 and 6. The state committee was involved in the legislation, just like the National Assembly.

The provisional constitutional regulations excluded the state committee from the decision on the new Reich constitution. Nevertheless, he had a great influence on the federal elements in it. After August 11, 1919, on the basis of the new Weimar constitution, there was the Reichsrat.

The authorized representatives of the allies in 1867

During the time of the revolutionary German Empire of 1848/49, there were the representatives of the state governments. They did not form an official committee and did not appear in the Central Power Act, but have been consulted by the Reich government since around 1849. In the case of the Erfurt Union, both the board of directors and the provisional princely college were represented by the member states.

When the North German Confederation was founded in 1866/67, the government representatives formed an informal body. One often referred to it with the expression “the allied governments”. The draft constitution, which was presented to the constituent Reichstag, assumed this body. According to the advisors of the constituent Reichstag, the committee accepted the changed constitutional draft. Then you asked for the approval of the state parliament.

There was no comparable committee of the federal states in the development of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. However, the decision for a parliamentary advice from the Prime Minister conference was based. The Landtag elected the MPs of the Parliamentary Council. The Basic Law later needed ratification of the state parliament.

Paragraph 2 of the law mentions the sending of representatives of the member states to the state committee. The law assumes that this only applies to the member states in which there is already a government that has been used by a freely elected representative representative. However, there are for the other member states (the roaster republics) ^[2] A deadline until March 31, 1919.

Every member state was right for a representative. A state sent other representatives per million inhabitants. However, no state was allowed to provide more than a third of all representatives. There was also a regulation for German-Austria.

The chairman of the state committee was a member of the Reich government. Members of the state committee had a right to speak in the National Assembly.

The state committee participated in the legislation of the empire. In theory, a law could only be valid if both National Assembly and the State Committee agreed. However, there were some exceptions that severely restricted the power of the state committee:

• The future constitution was only passed by the National Assembly (§ 4).
• If the National Assembly and the State Committee were not agreed on a law, the Reich President was able to bring about a referendum.
• A draft law of the Reich government needed the approval of the state committee. If they could not agree, they were allowed to bring their designs into the National Assembly. This meant that the state committee had its own right of initiative (it was able to contribute to the law). Ultimately, however, he had no veto right to government designs. ^[3]

In addition to imperial laws, the consent of the National Assembly and the State Committee also needed:

• Contracts for international law if they refer to objects of Reichs legislation
• Contracts with the League of Nations, Germany should already join a League of Nations

In the legal text (§ 4) it says:

The future Reich constitution is adopted by the National Assembly. However, the area of ​​the free states can only be changed with their consent.

The second sentence seems to refer to the National Assembly. According to Michael Kotulla, the territorial stand could only be changed if the member states agreed. ^[4] However, this remains unmentioned to Huber.

In the transition period, there were already several authorization laws of the National Assembly. The state committee included two of them: the emergency law for Alsace-Lorraine matters and the law on a simplified form of legislation for the purposes of the transitional economy (March or April 1919). According to these authorization laws, the Reich government was able to issue legal regulations. However, the state committee and a committee of the National Assembly had to agree.

Reich Minister of the Interior Hugo Preuß from the DDP had initially presented a very unit -state draft for the Reich Constitution. Above all, he was concerned about Prussia’s dismantling. He took up the amendments to the state committee, in the hope that the National Assembly would largely reverse it.

Although the approval of the state committee was not necessary, the member states had a major impact on the Weimar Reich constitution. Her bodies fought for a more federalist character of the empire in the designs of the Minister of the Interior. They succeeded in enforcing a Reichsrat (with government representatives, but free mandate) instead of a house (with selected, free MPs). In addition, the federal states were allowed to conclude their own international contracts if the imperial power agreed. Instead of the empire, the countries were responsible for the reorganization of the Reich area. ^[5]

The Reich Minister of the Interior, Hugo Preuß, had accepted the change requests, but critically commented in the National Assembly. The required two -thirds majority (in the Reichstag and Reichsrat) would make future constitutional changes more difficult. He also wanted a greater role of the empire in reorganization. ^[6]

The majority socialists also demanded that a reorganization could come about without the consent of the state governments or constitutional amendment. There was a compromise, according to which a simple Reich Act was sufficient if the state government was against it. ^[7] In addition, the constitutional committee of the National Assembly ensured that the members of the Reichsrat were subject to the instructions of their governments. An exception only applied to those Prussian members who were appointed by the provinces. ^[8]

The state committee is an intermediate member in the development from the Empire to the Weimar Republic. In the most important points, however, it is already similar to the later Reichsrat and partly also to the current Federal Council.

The constitutions of the North German Confederation and the Empire had expressly laid down the votes of the states in the Federal Council. For the state committee, on the other hand, a new form of distribution was introduced: it referred to the population in millions, so that the number of representatives automatically increased in the event of population growth. This was continued in the Reichsrat and also in today’s Federal Council.

Like the Reichsrat, the state committee knew one Clausula antiborussica . ^[9] That was a new method to limit Prussia’s superiority: at the state committee to a third of all members, at the Reichsrat on two fifths.

The Chancellor or Chancellor was chairman of the old Federal Council. In the state committee and the Reichsrat, the chairman only had to be a member of the Reich government. The right to speak of the state committee members in the National Assembly corresponded to the regulations before 1918.

Overall, the power of the State Committee was lower than the old Federal Council and the later Reichsrat. The old Federal Council was able to prevent all laws. The Reichsrat was also weaker to the other person, but a two-thirds majority was also necessary for the constitutional changes.

1. ↑ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume V: World War, Revolution and Reich Renewal: 1914–1919 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1978, p. 1182.
2. ↑ So with Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume V: World War, Revolution and Reich Renewal: 1914–1919 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1978, p. 1079.
3. ↑ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume V: World War, Revolution and Reich Renewal: 1914–1919 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1978, p. 1079.
4. ↑ Michael at Kotu: German constitutional history. From the old kingdom to Weimar (1495–1934) . Springer, Berlin 2008, S. 583.
5. ↑ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume V: World War, Revolution and Reich Renewal: 1914–1919 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1978, pp. 1182–1184.
6. ↑ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume V: World War, Revolution and Reich Renewal: 1914–1919 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1978, pp. 1184/1185.
7. ↑ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume V: World War, Revolution and Reich Renewal: 1914–1919 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1978, pp. 1196/1197.
8. ↑ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume V: World War, Revolution and Reich Renewal: 1914–1919 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1978, p. 1194.
9. ↑ See Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume V: World War, Revolution and Reich Renewal: 1914–1919 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1978, p. 1194.