Adenauer decree

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Adenauer Decree is the slang term for the resolution passed on September 19, 1950 by the Federal Government under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer ( CDU ) on the constitutional loyalty of civil servants in the Federal Republic of Germany . As a result, these people were forbidden from being members of organizations that the federal government classified as unconstitutional .

background

The background to this was the intensified ideological disputes during the Cold War , as demonstrated in the first federal election in 1949 , when the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) received 5.7% and the right-wing extremist DKP-DRP 1.8% and entered parliament were.

Legal basis

The legal basis for this was Section 3 (2) of the German Civil Service Act , which stipulated that “those in the service of the federal government ... must commit to the democratic conception of the state through their entire behavior”. The Adenauer decree specified this to the effect that the "opponents of the Federal Republic", in the opinion of the Federal Government, increased their efforts to undermine the free and democratic basic order . The decree went on to say: "Anyone who, as civil servant, employee or worker in the federal service, participates in organizations or efforts against the free democratic state order, works for them or otherwise supports them, ... is guilty of a serious breach of duty." 13 organizations whose support has been declared incompatible with official duties.

The decree was directed against right-wing extremist and Marxist groups alike , but the explicit mention of the “violent acts of the 3rd party congress of the SED ” and the so-called “National Congress” shows that the focus was on the fight against communism . In addition to the KPD, the list also included the FDJ , the Kulturbund and the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN).

The decree was criticized insofar as it formally emphasized pure membership and not a case-by-case examination. People working in the public service, whose loyalty to the constitution was questioned, had to reckon with cuts in benefits and dismissals, especially since the decree itself warned of “ruthless” action against “guilty parties” and federal states and municipalities agreed to the decree. As a result, several thousand employees were checked for their loyalty to the constitution and punished. The Nazi SRP was banned in 1952, the KPD ban followed in 1956. In the early 1970s, the Adenauer decree was taken up again in the form of the radical decree .

literature

  • H. Jellinek et al., Grewe Scheuner in the German Confederation for Civil Rights , Frankfurt / M., Political Loyalty Duty in Public Service, 1951