Bavarian Council of Ministers

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The Bavarian Council of Ministers was originally institutionalized as an assembly of ministers of state through the "Instruction of January 9, 1821 on the formation of the Council of Ministers". The Council of Ministers served as the king's advisory body. In the course of the progressive constitutionalization of the monarchy in Bavaria in the 19th century, the body increasingly exercised actual executive functions, but only after the revolutionary overthrow of 7/8. November 1918, the Bavarian Council of Ministers, also known as the “General Ministry”, became the highest government body. From 1930 to 1933 the entire ministry - without a parliamentary majority - was only executive under Prime Minister Heinrich Held ; After 1933 the Council of Ministers remained in existence formally, but had become meaningless and functionless in the system of the Nazi state.

Protocols 1919-1945

The minutes for the period from 1919 to 1933 are edited by the Commission for Bavarian State History at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the General Directorate of the Bavarian State Archives . So far, three volumes have been published. An edition on the work of Kurt Eisner's revolutionary government in 1918/1919 was published by the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties at the end of the 1980s.

Protocols 1945–1962

The minutes of the Bavarian Council of Ministers for the years from 1945 onwards have been published since 1991 by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences together with the General Directorate of the Bavarian State Archives. For the years 1945 to 1951, this edition (536 minutes with more than 6,500 pages) has also been available online since July 2017. In 2016, the Bavarian Council of Ministers decided to continue the edition, which was initially planned to run until 1954, until 1962. In 2017, the second volume of the Ehard II cabinet for 1952 appeared in print. It will be integrated into the online presentation around 2019.

The first Bavarian Council of Ministers after the end of the war met on June 8, 1945 under the chairmanship of the former BVP politician Fritz Schäffer, who was appointed Bavarian Prime Minister on May 28 by the US military government . The basis for the meetings of the Council of Ministers, which were initially irregular, very soon and then on a weekly basis in all later cabinets, was the "Rules of Procedure for the Provisional Government of Bavaria" adopted on July 26, 1945. This regulated, among other things, the composition of the government, the policy authority of the Prime Minister, and dealings with the occupying power. With regard to the Council of Ministers meetings, it only contained the provisions that in the event of a tie in the cabinet, that of the Prime Minister was decisive and that minutes had to be kept. Art. 43 of the Bavarian Constitution of December 8, 1946 defines the state government as the "supreme leading and executive authority of the state", consisting of the "Prime Minister, the State Ministers and the State Secretaries". Since then, the terms “State Government”, “Cabinet” and “Council of Ministers” have been largely synonymous in practical usage, even if the term “Council of Ministers” is used in the narrower sense of the regular meetings of government members. Contrary to the requirements of Art. 53 of the Bavarian Constitution, no new rules of procedure for the Bavarian State Government were initially issued. The work in the Council of Ministers meetings and their minutes therefore followed the habits and procedures that had been established since 1945. Regular participants in the Council of Ministers were the members of the government (ministers and state secretaries), who are all equally entitled to vote, the head of the state chancellery, the secretary - a senior official of the state chancellery - and, since 1951, the head of the state chancellery's press and information office. Since 1949, a technically competent adviser from the State Chancellery also took part in the Council of Ministers when advising federal affairs.

The first copy of the minutes was signed by the keeper of the minutes, the head of the state chancellery and the prime minister and, after review and approval by the head of government and usually two to three weeks after the meeting of the Council of Ministers, distributed to the departments as a hectographed copy. There was no right of the ministers to object to the protocol. It was only with the new rules of procedure for the Bavarian State Government of August 1, 1952, that the possibility of objections to the content of the minutes, which had to be communicated to the State Chancellery within a week and which the Prime Minister decided, was formally fixed.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Wolfgang Ehberger - Johannes Merz (edit.): Das Kabinett Hoffmann I, March 17 - May 31, 1919 . Munich 2010, p. XVIII + 77 * + 311 pages .
  2. Wolfgang Ehberger - Matthias Bischel (edit.): Das Kabinett Hoffmann I, Part 2, May 31 - September 1, 1919 . Munich 2017, p. XVII + 81 * + 453 pages .
  3. Walter Ziegler (edit.): Das Kabinett Held IV, May 1932 - March 1933 . Munich 2010, p. XVII + 79 * + 399 pages .
  4. Franz J. Bauer (edit.): Die Eisner government 1918/19. Council of Ministers minutes and documents . In: (Sources on the history of parliamentarism and political parties I 10) . Düsseldorf 1987, p. CV + 486 pages .
  5. Commission for Bavarian State History: The Protocols of the Bavarian Council of Ministers 1919–1945 (accessed on July 22, 2017)
  6. Oliver Braun (arr.) ,: Das Kabinett Ehard III. 18 December 1950 to 14 December 1954. 2: 1952 . Boston / Berlin 2016, p. XCVII + 1054 pages .