Bamberg Constitution

The Bamberg Constitution of August 14, 1919 was Bavaria's first democratic constitution based on the Basic Law of the Republic of Bavaria of January 4, 1919; it ended the Kingdom of Bavaria , which was founded in 1806 .

history

After the end of the monarchy due to the November Revolution of 1918 and the proclamation of the Free People's State of Bavaria by Kurt Eisner , the first free, equal, direct and secret elections took place in Bavaria on January 12, 1919 . For the first time women were also eligible to vote. In the first version, the “Basic Law of the Republic of Bavaria of January 4, 1919” formed the basis of the elections in January 1919. It began with a preamble to the republic: ... “In the hour of greatest need, however, this powerless people got up , trampled the guilty system of the past in a tremendous revolutionary uprising and seized power. The politically impotent people became the freest through the revolution. "

After the elections, Prime Minister Kurt Eisner, who was murdered shortly thereafter, began to work out the further democratic constitution of Bavaria: “Provisional Basic Law of the Free State of Bavaria of March 17, 1919”, also with 18 articles on citizenship, communal self-organization, the state parliament and government. Most of the draft was written by Robert Piloty and Josef von Graßmann .

After the murder of Kurt Eisner and the subsequent shootings in the state parliament, the state parliament did not meet again, the councils took over the government in Munich. In Eisner's mind, the workers', peasants' and soldiers' councils should work to the state parliament and help implement the resolutions of the state parliament, as the previously royal administration seemed unsuitable for this. Others like Erich Mühsam wanted to implement the models of the Russian councils ( soviets ) as direct mandates.

The Bamberg constitution was passed on August 12, 1919 by the members of the state parliament and the government of the Bavarian People's Party and the majority SPD (165 votes in favor, 3 against by the USPD and one abstention) because of the takeover of power by the Munich Soviet Republic had evaded to Bamberg .

The constitution described Bavaria as a " Free State and a member of the German Empire", contained a catalog of basic rights and provided for Bavarian citizenship for all persons who had their residence in Bavaria for at least six months . It came into force on September 15, 1919. In 95 articles it now also regulated the army, justice, referendums and constitutional changes.

After the democratic constitution had become obsolete after the establishment of a dictatorship in 1933 by the national socialist conformity , the partial sovereignty of the states was also formally abolished by the law on the rebuilding of the Reich in 1934.

After the re-establishment of the democratic order in Bavaria, the new constitution of the Free State of Bavaria from 1946 finally repealed and replaced the Bamberg constitution through Article 186 .

literature

• Wolfgang Ehberger: Bavaria's way to parliamentary democracy. The emergence of the Bamberg Constitution of August 14, 1919 . Bavarian Academy of Sciences , Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3769666595
• Christian Georg Ruf: The Bavarian Constitution of August 14, 1919 , Nomos Verlag 2015, ISBN 978-3-8487-1951-8
• Law and politics in Bavaria between the time of the Prince Regent and National Socialism. The memories of Philipp Loewenfeld . Edited by Peter Landau , Rolf Rieß. Aktiv Druck & Verlag, Ebelsbach 2004, ISBN 3-932653-16-5 , S. XVII.
• Horst Gehringer / Hans-Joachim Hecker / Hans-Georg Hermann (Hrsg.): Democracy in Bavaria. The Bamberg Constitution of 1919 . VDS - Verlagdruckerei Schmidt 2018, ISBN 978-3-929341-58-4 .

See also

• History of Bavaria
• Constitution of the Free State of Bavaria

Web links

• State constitution of the Republic of Bavaria of January 4, 1919
• Provisional constitutional law of the Free State of Bavaria of March 17, 1919
• Text of the constitutional charter of the Free State of Bavaria from August 14, 1919

Footnotes

1. ^ Basic State Law of the Republic of Bavaria of January 4, 1919 ( Memento of July 30, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Provisional constitutional law of the Free State of Bavaria of March 17, 1919 ( Memento of July 30, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
3. ^ Martin Otto: Bamberg Republics . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of August 23, 2017, p. N3.
4. ↑ www.bg.geschichte.uni-muenchen.de: book portrait
5. ↑ www.bayern.landtag.de (book presentation)