Provincial Association

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Provincial Association was a body of local self-government in the Prussian provinces above the municipalities and rural and urban districts, which was established by law in 1875 and replaced the older rural regional authorities.

Within the framework of the respective province, the provincial federation carried out tasks assigned by the state , some of which were voluntary, as well as state tasks that were assigned to it, so-called commissioned matters. In terms of content, they can be divided into the areas of transport, economic care, public welfare (today probably comparable to social policy) and cultural care.

The highest body was the provincial parliament , which issued the legal regulations in the form of statutes and regulations that actually had the force of law for the area of ​​application. He also decided on the provincial budget. General administration was carried out by the provincial committee, and day-to-day administration by the provincial administration. According to Prussian law, the head of the provincial administration was the state director . Many provincial parliaments changed the name to Landeshauptmann (1889 in Westphalia , 1902 in Schleswig-Holstein, 1920 in general in all provinces except Brandenburg ). In the course of the standardization of official designations by the Nazi regime, this Brandenburg particularism was leveled out in 1937 and the designation state governor was introduced here as well. The individual administrative areas were headed by regional councils. Both the provincial governor and the provincial councilors were elected officials by the provincial parliament.

With the law of December 15, 1933, which came into force on April 1, 1934, the tasks of the provincial committee and the governor were assigned to the chief president, i.e. the head of state administration, of the respective province, who thus experienced a considerable expansion of competencies. The governor became his representative and accordingly also acted in his letterheads as "The Oberpräsident (Administration of the Provincial Association)".

After 1945 the provincial associations, which had in fact already been nationalized, were abolished de jure almost everywhere . Only in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia , formed from the province of Westphalia and the northern part of the Rhine province , do the former provincial associations continue to exist as the regional association of Rhineland and the regional association of Westphalia-Lippe .

Hessen-Nassau, Hohenzollern and Duchy of Lauenburg

While in Prussia a provincial association was generally formed for each province, different regulations applied to Hessen-Nassau , the Hohenzollern Lands and the Duchy of Lauenburg . State municipal associations or district associations took over the tasks of the provincial associations.

The nine senior offices (later the two districts formed in 1925) in the Hohenzollern Lands , which were already attached in 1850, formed the Hohenzollern Regional Association from 1873 , which was dissolved on January 1, 1973.

The regional association for Saxony-Lauenburg, founded in 1872 , remained in existence after the duchy was legally united with Prussia on July 1, 1876 and henceforth formed the district of Duchy of Lauenburg in the province of Schleswig-Holstein . Until the dissolution in the Third Reich, the state communal association of the Duchy of Lauenburg , responsible for the district, existed alongside the Schleswig-Holstein Provincial Association with responsibility for the rest of the province.

Administrative Reform 1885/1886 summed up the circles of administrative districts according to the district chapter Kassel or Bezirksverband Wiesbaden together, fulfilling the tasks until 1953, which otherwise took a Provincial Association.

Associations of individual provinces

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Brandenburg provincial parliament decided to keep the traditional title of state director. See article: Country director in: Der Große Brockhaus: Handbuch des Wissens in twenty volumes (21 volumes), 15th edition. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1928–1935; Vol. 11 (1932), p. 71.
  2. ^ Giesau, Hermann: History of the Provincial Association of Saxony 1825-1925. - Merseburg: Provincial Administration, 1926