Deutsches Reich

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German Empire from 1871 to the end of the First World War and the fall of the German Empire
German Empire 1920–1937

Deutsches Reich was the name of the German nation-state between 1871 and 1945. Initially not identical, the name also became the legal designation for Germany . After the “Anschluss” of Austria in March 1938, the term “ Greater German Reich ” came into propaganda and official use. A Führer decree in June 1943 instructed the state institutions to use this term in the future.

The term German Empire is occasionally also used to denote the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806): a supranational , ultimately supranational system of rule that began on the 15th and 16th centuries. Century had been provided with the addition "German Nation".

In 1848, during the March Revolution, a " German Empire " was created as a German federal state . Its imperial government and thus the provisional constitution was recognized by the Bundestag of the German Confederation . In the spring of 1849, however, the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV put down the revolution and the drafted constitution could not be implemented.

In the German Empire of the 19th and 20th centuries, a general distinction is made between several periods: the monarchy of the German Empire (1871–1918), the pluralistic , semi-presidential democracy of the Weimar Republic (1918 / 19–1933) and the dictatorship of the Nazi state in the time of National Socialism (1933 to 1945). In the following transition period in occupied Germany until 1949 , the name was largely out of use. In the initially controversial question of whether the German Reich continued to exist after 1945, the thesis that the German Reich survived the collapse of 1945 prevailed from the end of the 1940s and finally with the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court of July 31, 1973. The Federal Republic is not its “legal successor”, rather as a state it is identical to the state “German Reich”; in terms of spatial expansion, the old Federal Republic of Germany was "partially identical" (partially congruent) until 1990. From the formula of the spatial partial identity it followed: "The GDR belongs to Germany" (BVerfGE 36, 17), but not to the Federal Republic.

Establishment of the Empire in 1871

Vivatband for Bismarck

The German Empire formally came into being on January 1, 1871, when a common constitution came into force . The constitutional text corresponded to the text of the North German Federal Constitution in the version according to the Baden-Hessian Treaty. After the southern German states - Bavaria , Württemberg , Baden and Hesse - had decided in the November Treaties of 1870 to found a German Confederation by joining the North German Confederation , it was agreed on December 10 that the designation “German Confederation” was replaced by “Deutsches Reich ”and to give the“ Federal Presidium ”the title of“ German Emperor ”. As a nation-state , the empire brought together all Germans, with the exception of German-Austrians , Luxembourgers and Liechtensteiners . Austria had expressly consented to the expansion of the North German Confederation over the Main Line on December 25, 1870, thereby recognizing the Reich under international law. The founding of the empire took place almost at the invitation of the most powerful German monarch to the other German rulers. With this in mind, the Prussian King's proclamation was staged on January 18, 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles . This date was celebrated as the day of the founding of the Reich , but not made a public holiday, as the coronation of Frederick I as King of Prussia was commemorated on January 18 . The important holidays of the German Empire were rather the Emperor's birthday and Sedan day . After the first all-German Reichstag elections , Kaiser Wilhelm I opened the Reichstag on March 21, 1871 . The Reichstag redrafted the incomplete constitution, the draft of which was available on April 16, promulgated on April 20 and entered into force on May 4, 1871 .

Constitutional history

The federal flag of the North German Confederation became the Reich flag

The North German Confederation, founded in 1866 as a military alliance , had received a constitutional law on July 1, 1867. This constitution of the North German Confederation had shaped it into a monarchical federal state under Prussian leadership. The accession of the southern German states at the end of 1870 did not create a new state in terms of state and constitutional law , but only a constitution of the German Confederation ( November constitution of December 31, 1870).

The subsequent constitution of the German Empire of April 16, 1871 was based on this (new) constitution .

story

The Munich Agreement in 1938 is the last (but not affected with other powers Czechoslovakia ) contracted area of jurisdiction of the German Reich. The " destruction of the remainder of Czechoslovakia " in 1939 and the de facto annexation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was a violation of international law act, because the appeasement policy of the Western powers was tolerated.

The history of the German Empire is divided into three or, if you include the occupation , four sections:

  1. 1871–1918 German Empire under the Bismarck Constitution
    1871–1890 time of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck
    1890–1918 Wilhelmine era and First World War
  2. 1919–1933 Weimar Republic under the Weimar Imperial Constitution
  3. 1933–1945 period of National Socialism with the Nazi state as the ruling system; propagandistic self-designation until 1939: " Third Reich "; official state name from 1943: " Greater German Reich "
  4. 1945-1949 of the main victors of World War II in occupied zones divided from now on as " Germany as a whole " ( "Germany as a whole" refers) and the Allied Control Council , the highest governmental power as a whole and the military governors in the individual zones as trusteeship assumed (→  post-war Germany , Germany 1945 to 1949 ).

When the Spanish Queen Isabella II was overthrown in 1868 , the Hereditary Prince Leopold of the Catholic Princely House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen offered his services as future king at the instigation of Bismarck on the question of Spanish succession . Because of the violent reaction in France, he immediately withdrew his candidacy. Nevertheless, the diplomatic conflict escalated into a national question, as neither side wanted or could not suffer a loss of reputation. France felt its prestige or even its security threatened and tried to militarily prevent the election of a king. France felt challenged by the Ems dispatch and declared war on Prussia in July 1870. The Franco-Prussian War was successful for the German armies, they occupied Paris in early 1871. Bismarck used the war to achieve his goal, the unification of the German states, through a common enemy.

After the military defeat of the German Reich in World War II , Germany was placed under occupation by British , French , American and Soviet troops in 1945 . The areas east of Oder and Neisse and the city of Swinoujscie to the west of this line (in accordance with the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement ) as well as the city of Szczecin (a total of about a quarter of the area from 1937) were in fact separated from the Reich and, according to the Potsdam Agreement, "For the time being" placed under Polish or Soviet administration - but in the end de facto annexed . The German population residing in the eastern regions was, as far as possible, expelled in violation of international law in the following years, unless they had already fled westwards in the course of the war .

With the restoration of the Republic of Austria from April 27, 1945 ( declaration of independence ) - until 1955 under the four occupying powers , then as a sovereign state -, the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic in 1949, the German Reich did indeed cease to exist from a historical point of view (as a result of complete armed struggle and military occupation), but by no means de jure to exist: Even after the German surrender in May 1945 and the assumption of sovereignty over Germany by the four occupying powers, the Weimar Constitution was not officially repealed and the German Reich was not dissolved. The consequences of this de jure continued existence are explained in the section on questions of constitutional law after 1945 .

Heads of state and heads of government

Origin of the term

The use of the term German Empire was linked to a political entity that was called the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . This was broken in 1806 in the face of secularization and Napoleonic superiority (dictation), but also the desire of certain imperial estates to achieve full sovereignty. The Habsburg Emperor Franz II , who in 1804 proclaimed himself Emperor of Austria based on Napoleon's example , resigned the title of Roman-German Emperor and released all imperial officials and organs from their obligations towards the "German Empire". With the act of laying down the imperial crown, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ended.

The later epoch of the Wilhelmine Empire was known as the Second Reich . This choice of words indicated a successor to the “first German Reich” without explicitly saying it. This restraint was necessary tactically and diplomatically. The Austrian Empire and its emperors viewed themselves as successors to the Holy Roman Empire and would therefore have been indirectly designated as illegitimate. The term "Second Reich" was coined in 1923 by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck ; in his book The Third Reich he called the Roman-German Empire a “First Reich” and the German Empire from 1871 to 1918 the “Second Reich”. He expected that this would be followed by a “ Third Reich ”. Van den Bruck died in 1925, so did not experience it.

The idea of ​​a Third Reich was quickly incorporated into the propaganda of the NSDAP , which expressed its rejection of the Weimar Republic (→  “Third Reich” under National Socialism ). However, National Socialism soon abandoned the term “Third Reich” again. “ Reich ”, on the other hand, remained in use, exaggerated and pseudo-religious, as a result of which the term was increasingly associated with National Socialism itself in the course of the post-war period.

In the Anglo-Saxon world, people still speak of the Third Reich or the German Reich . The English word empire is felt to be unsuitable for a republic. That is why one avoids the term German Empire for the period after 1918, although the Weimar Constitution expressly stipulates in Article 1, Paragraph 1: “The German Empire is a republic”.

Term after 1945

Even in the first years after 1945, the German Reich and Reich was a common name for the state to be restored or reorganized. The subject of the heads of state and international law itself remained untouched; as such, Germany was represented by the Allied Control Council until 1948 , while the highest level of government in the respective occupation zone was exercised by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and, for Berlin, by the Allied Command . Before and during the occupation of Germany, the Allies themselves never spoke of the German Reich in their declarations , only of Germany or Nazi Germany .

In many drafts for a new constitution from 1946/1947, for example the CDU , FDP and DP or their politicians, the expression "German Reich" can be found again. The pfennig coins issued under Allied rule from 1945 to 1948 continued to bear the designations Reichspfennig and German Reich . In the deliberations of the Parliamentary Council on the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany , the German state planned for the western occupation zones , it was discussed in October 1948 whether it should continue to use the name German Reich . A decision was made against it for “reasons of a psychological nature”: According to Carlo Schmid during the consultation, the empire had “an aggressive accent among the peoples around us” and was understood “as a claim to domination” ; Theodor Heuss spoke of an "aggressive tone" that the word got. Schmid stated in May 1949: "As venerable as the tradition of the name 'German Reich' is - the memory of the crimes that were committed in this name during the Nazi dictatorship is still too fresh".

Federal and imperial eagles on a German postage stamp, 1969

Constitutional issues after 1945

The unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht and the subsequent founding of the Federal Republic and GDR raised the question of whether the German state still existed at all. This question was by no means only academic, since an occupation could be assumed if the German Reich continued to exist, which meant that the occupying powers were subject to the restrictions that the Hague Land Warfare Regulations provided for in the event of an occupation of enemy territory. If the Reich no longer existed, they were free of these ties with the Germans.

As early as 1944 and 1945, the Austrian-American legal scholar Hans Kelsen advocated the thesis that the German Reich had perished as a result of Debellatio . With the assumption of governmental authority (“supreme authority”) in the Berlin Declaration of June 5, 1945, there was no longer any German state authority that was one of the three constitutive elements of a state . Assumptions that the German state still exists are just legal fictions . In the discussion process that took place in Germany from 1945 onwards, however, the continuity theorem soon prevailed, which seemed to guarantee the Germans better legal protection. Shortly after Kelsen's arguments became known in Germany, the German-Austrian legal scholar Rudolf Laun contradicted in 1947 at the time : Every people has the right to representation under international law, including state organs that could exercise this representation. Laun organized a conference at the University of Hamburg , at which the continued existence of the German Reich was supported by arguments. The continuation thesis was also represented in widely acclaimed legal publications by Erich Kaufmann , Wilhelm Grewe and Rolf Stödter from 1948. Further German international law discourse took place in reports from the administrative bureaucracy of the federal states and in legal journals , which began to appear again from the spring of 1946. The German Bureau for Peace Issues , an authority in several German states, played a major role in which, as the legal historian Bernhard Diestelkamp put it, lawyers were “put in the service of the national cause” by politics. The dependence of political considerations of usefulness in answering questions of international law is also clearly evident in the later Federal Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano ( CDU ). At a meeting of the Ellwanger Kreis on November 22, 1947, the latter took the view that if you look at things “as they really are”, you could have “considerable doubts under constitutional law” about the continued existence of the German Reich after 1945. "But for political reasons alone, I believe that we absolutely have to answer this question in the affirmative."

But there were also votes against. The SPD -Vorsitzende Kurt Schumacher told a meeting of the party executive on 22 August 1946 the German Reich did not exist more, "because the imperial power is currently not of a kingdom people out." Even in the CSU is still hanging on the decline thesis: The leading Bavarian politicians emphatically advocated the thesis that the German Reich had collapsed, which corresponded to their basic federalist convictions. At the constitutional convention on Herrenchiemsee , where in August 1948 fifteen experts on behalf of the then eleven West German states worked out a draft constitution for a West German state to be created, the head of the Bavarian State Chancellery Anton Pfeiffer argued that the Reich had a debellatio with the capitulation on May 8th ceased to exist. Therefore, the new state must constitute itself as a federal state of the states that have already been founded, as the “Federation of German States”, without deriving its sovereignty from the past. In this legal opinion he was supported by the Munich international lawyer Hans Nawiasky , who was a member of his delegation. The majority of the participants, on the other hand, did not see the constituent power in the countries, but in the existing state people, to which the right of self-determination of the people is entitled, in those parts of the state territory where a free expression of their will is possible, the contents and forms of their political existence to design. This right was not revoked by the surrender, but only temporarily "suspended". This attitude prevailed not only in the international law debate, but also in the Parliamentary Council , which from September 1948 to May 1949 drafted the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany . The policy committee emphasized "the continuity of the new federal state in relation [...] to the German Reich both in terms of state authority and in terms of the territory". According to the arguments of constitutional lawyer and SPD representative Carlo Schmids, this is carried out in trust by the Allied Control Council and by the German states and municipalities. Schmid made a decisive contribution to the fact that the thesis of the continued existence of the German Reich found its way into the preamble of the Basic Law and thus turned from a legal thesis into a constitutional principle.

The victorious powers themselves did not officially comment on this controversy. Margit Roth deduces from the fact that there was no annexation and that the Potsdam Agreement was based on Germany as a whole, they assumed that the German Reich would continue to exist. Bernhard Diestelkamp and Manfred Görtemaker argue against it that France has the position that the German Reich has perished. After Joachim Rückert and Thomas Olechowski, it was important for the USA, Great Britain and the Soviet Union to have as free a hand as possible in their actions. Therefore, they were interested in extending their rights more than was customary in the case of an occupation. On the other hand, however, they would have wanted to keep their obligations towards the German population low and therefore left the question of continued existence in the balance. Since 1946, their military governments declared that it was an occupatio sui generis to which the restrictions of the international law of war did not apply. After the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Western Powers decided at a meeting of the Foreign Ministers what status the Federal Republic would have under international law. In a communiqué published in New York City on September 19, 1950 , the foreign ministers recognized “the government of the Federal Republic of Germany as the only freely and legally constituted German government”, which was therefore empowered to “act as a representative in international affairs of the German people to speak for Germany. ”In a message to the federal government that had been kept secret for 30 years and contained a“ formula for defining the legal status of the Federal Republic ”and an interpretative protocol (“ interpretative minute ”) dated the same day, the confirmed Foreign minister on the one hand that the federal government is the only one that is “legitimized to speak for the former German Reich”. In the interpretation protocol they reserved the “supreme authority” of the occupying powers and spoke of the “continued existence of the German state”. The “power of rule” of the federal government is limited to the “federal territory”. In this declaration, the Western powers assumed that the German state would continue to exist. They differentiated between the state as a whole (German Empire) and the Federal Republic. The foreign ministers granted the Federal Republic with restrictions "the right to represent the German people at the international level and to assume the rights and obligations of the Reich" - the latter only to the extent that "the federal organs could de facto exercise rights and fulfill their obligations." The three powers “probably until reunification” had a different view of the legal position of Germany than the federal government. Although there was agreement on the "continued existence of the German Reich as a state and subject to international law", the three powers did not share the German thesis of "the legal identity between the Federal Republic and the Reich". Jochen Abraham Frowein , on the other hand, points out the limited meaning of the declaration: On the one hand, it does not follow from its text that the Federal Government would have been entitled to act as a representative for the German Reich under international law. Rather, it was simply a question of having a say. In addition, the victorious powers submitted an interpretation protocol that was not published. It stated that the federal government would not be recognized as the de jure government of Germany as a whole , even if the continuation thesis was confirmed. The recognition of the Federal Republic is only provisional until the reunification of Germany.

The discussion continued nonetheless. The increasingly dominant supporters of the continuation thesis argued that the victorious powers explicitly declared in the Berlin Declaration that they did not want to annex Germany and that the German Reich had therefore not been dissolved. Most of the German laws after 1945 remained in force, newly appointed civil servants were used as German, not as Allied civil servants. An annexation of German national territory expressly did not take place. The Land of Prussia was dissolved, the Republic of Austria “restored” within its borders before the “Anschluss” in 1938 ; the historic German states remained, were only partially re-established with changed borders. As a subject of international law, the Federal Republic is therefore identical to the German Reich, which was no longer able to act as a state as a whole due to the lack of state organs after 1945. This view corresponded to the fact that the Federal Republic took over all treaties and other rights and obligations of the German Reich, in particular those relating to reparations . On April 7, 1954, Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer declared in a government declaration "that there is, has existed and will be only one German state and that it is only the organs of the Federal Republic of Germany that today represent this never-submerged German state".

Until about 1969 the Federal Republic of Germany took the view that only one of the two German states, namely itself, represented the entire state of the German Reich , exercised its rights and tasks in a fiduciary manner and was legally identical with it. With reference to the fact that the Germans in the GDR were denied free elections and lacked the right to self-determination, the governments of the Federal Republic raised the right to sole representation for the citizens of the GDR in the first two decades . The GDR was seen as a mere de facto regime , as a territory occupied by a foreign state or as a new state that had emerged through secession . According to this shrinking state or core state theory, the German state had been shrunk to the territory of the Federal Republic. The social-liberal coalition under Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt only deviated from the legal opinion held up to that point in that it did not assume any identity between the Federal Republic and the continuing German Reich. This also corresponded to the view of the Western Allies.

Even after the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, legal voices rose against the thesis of the continued existence of the German Reich: at a conference in 1954, prominent constitutional lawyers Wolfgang Abendroth , Willibalt Apelt and Hans Nawiasky defended the doom theory in a minor opinion . In 1977, the German constitutional lawyer Helmut Ridder strongly advocated the debellation thesis. In the 1970s, the dismembration thesis was also advocated, according to which the German Reich had split up into its two successor states in 1949 or when the basic treaty with the GDR came into force . However, this thesis is difficult to reconcile with the Berlin Declaration or the Potsdam Agreement of 1945, which speaks of Germany within the borders of December 31, 1937 .

The continuation theory became through the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court on the basic treaty with the GDR of July 31, 1973 to the highest court case law in the Federal Republic. The Bavarian state government had initiated a norms control procedure because the treaty seemed to violate the reunification requirement of the Basic Law. The lawsuit was rejected. In the reasoning, the Constitutional Court stated:

“The Basic Law - not just a thesis of international law and constitutional law! - assumes that the German Reich survived the collapse of 1945 and did not go under either with the surrender or through the exercise of foreign state authority in Germany by the allied occupying powers; this follows from the preamble, from Art. 16, Art. 23, Art. 116 and Art. 146 GG. This also corresponds to the permanent jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court, to which the Senate adheres.
The German Reich continues to exist (BVerfGE 2, 266 [277]; 3, 288 [319 f.]; 5, 85 [126]; 6, 309 [336, 363]), still has legal capacity, but is a state as a whole unable to act due to a lack of organization, in particular due to a lack of institutionalized bodies. In the Basic Law, the conception of the all-German state people and of all-German state power is also 'anchored' (BVerfGE 2, 266 [277]). Responsibility for “Germany as a whole” is also borne by the four powers (BVerfGE 1, 351 [362 f., 367]).
With the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, a new West German state was not founded, but part of Germany was reorganized [...]. The Federal Republic of Germany is therefore not the “ legal successor ” of the German Reich, but as a state is identical to the state “German Reich” - with regard to its spatial extent, however, “partially identical”, so that in this respect the identity does not claim exclusivity. [...] Under constitutional law, it limits its sovereignty to the 'scope of the Basic Law'.
The Federal Republic [...] also feels responsible for the whole of Germany [...]. The German Democratic Republic belongs to Germany and cannot be viewed as a foreign country in relation to the Federal Republic of Germany. "

The Federal Republic and GDR are partial orders under one roof, which is why this legal conception is referred to as the umbrella state theory or partial order theory. The factual recognition of the GDR that the Basic Treaty brings with it is "special". Without prejudice to the reunification requirement , which binds all constitutional organs, it is permissible that "an additional new legal basis [...] binds the two states in Germany more closely than normal international treaties between two states".

This position was confirmed with reference to the identity of the German state people in the so-called Teso decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of 1987. It was about whether the GDR citizen Marco Teso, who was born in Meißen in 1940 , who had moved from the GDR to the West, the German citizenship may be granted, which he had been denied by the Nazi state when he was born because of his Italian father. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled in favor of Tesos and confirmed that there is only one German nationality. However, the court differed with regard to the choice of the term from 1973: Now there was no longer talk of the “German Reich as a subject of international law incapable of acting”, but rather of a “subject identity” of the Federal Republic with the “German Reich as a subject under international law”. This legal position is now the dominant opinion in law and international practice; it has fully established itself as a doctrine . The former Nazi state split up into a federal state in 1949. The legal debate about the continuation thesis has come to a standstill, since it has now been raised to the level of constitutional law and decided in a legally binding manner.

In the Soviet Union , the GDR and the Eastern Bloc countries , things were seen differently. Initially, in its first constitution from 1949 , the GDR claimed to be the state of all Germans and therefore identical to the German Reich. This claim to continuity can be seen in the Görlitz Agreement of July 6, 1950, in which the GDR recognized the Oder-Neisse Line as the “state border between Germany and Poland ”. This legal opinion can also be seen in the GDR citizenship law , which continued the Reich and Citizenship Act of 1913 with some changes until the law on citizenship of the GDR of February 20, 1967 . From 1951 on, however, the legal opinion prevailed that the GDR was to be viewed as a new state whose state power no longer rests in the hands of monopoly capital , but of all working people. The German Reich went under in 1945 in a debellatio , there are now two German states . This was shown in the GDR constitution of 1968 , in which reunification was abandoned as a national goal. The Soviet Union seems to have assumed that the German Reich would continue to exist for some time, but was reluctant to make appropriate statements out of consideration for its ally, the GDR.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : German Empire  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: German Empire  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Remarks

  1. ↑ In addition Susanne Hähnchen , legal history. From Roman antiquity to modern times , CF Müller, 4th edition 2012, § 7 I 1 marginal number 280 .
  2. Ralf Heikaus: The first months of the provisional central authority for Germany (July to December 1848) . Diss. Univ. Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [u. a.] 1997, p. 40 f.
  3. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber , German Constitutional History since 1789 . Vol. 3, Bismarck and the Reich . 3rd edition, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1988, p. 749.
  4. Michael Kotulla : German constitutional history. From the Old Reich to Weimar (1495–1934) . Springer, Berlin 2008, marginal number 2048.
  5. Heiko Holste : The German Federal State in Transition (1867-1933) . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002, p. 125.
  6. Michael Kotulla: German constitutional history. From the Old Reich to Weimar (1495–1934) . Springer, Berlin 2008, marginal number 2045 f.
  7. Dietmar Willoweit : Empire and State. A little German constitutional story . CH Beck, Munich 2013, p. 88 f.
  8. Horst Dreier: The German Revolution 1918/19 as the nation's feast day? About the (im) possibility of a republican holiday in the Weimar Republic . In: Ders .: Constitutional Law in Democracy and Dictatorship. Studies on the Weimar Republic and National Socialism . Edited by Matthias Jestaedt and Stanley L. Paulson. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2016, p. 44 f.
  9. Michael Kotulla: German constitutional history. From the Old Reich to Weimar (1495–1934) . Springer, Berlin 2008, marginal number 2052.
  10. Cf.. Dieter Blumenwitz , I think of Germany: answers to the German question , Vol. 1, Bavarian Regulatory Authority for Political Education , Munich 1989, p 67: "After the defeat of the Nazi regime by the Allied victors in 1945 was the The problem of the fall of Germany through ' debellatio ' is given great importance, especially in international constitutional and international law literature. [...] The continued existence of the German Reich under the name 'Germany as a whole' ("Germany as a whole") can be demonstrated above all by the state practice of the victorious powers after the 'collapse', which in 1945 was not least politically about To postpone final decisions, to obtain a debtor for all war claims and to secure a say in all status and security issues in Central Europe. […] The unconditional surrender of the German armed forces on May 7th and 8th, 1945 was only a military act and therefore could not have a decisive impact on the legal substance of the German state authority . [...] Even with the arrest of the last - no longer effective - Reich government ('managing government Dönitz ') by the victorious powers on May 23, 1945, the core of German state authority was not yet affected, since state authority does not depend on the fate of one of its officials and for the rest, German state authority was still exercised at the middle and lower levels. "
  11. Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-092864-8 , pp. 156-160 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  12. Raymond Poidevin and Jacques Bariety: France and Germany. The history of their relationships 1815–1975 . CH Beck, Munich 1982, p. 110.
  13. Proclamation No. 2 of the Control Council of September 20, 1945, OJ of the Control Council No. 1, p. 180 f.
  14. Helmut Berschin : Concept of Germany in linguistic change. In: Werner Weidenfeld , Karl-Rudolf Korte (ed.): Handbook on German Unity 1949–1989–1999. Updated new edition, Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1999, pp. 217–225, here p. 220 .
  15. Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Moved by the hope of all Germans. On the history of the Basic Law. Drafts and discussion 1941–1949. Dtv, Munich 1979, p. 25 f. (Introduction by the editor).
  16. Images at Muenzensammeln.com.
  17. Eberhard Pikart, Wolfram Werner (edit.): The Parliamentary Council 1948–1949. Files and minutes. Volume 5 / I: Committee on Policy Issues. Harald Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1993, p. 169 f. (Seventh session, October 6, 1948).
  18. Quoted from Martin Wengeler : The German Questions. Key words of Germany policy. In: Karin Böke, Frank Liedtke , Martin Wengeler : Political key words in the Adenauer era (=  language - politics - public. Volume 8). De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1996, pp. 325–377, here p. 366 .
  19. Marcel Kau: The state and the individual as subjects of international law . In: Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum and Alexander Proelß (eds.): Völkerrecht . 7th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-044130-7 , p. 206, marginal number 212 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  20. ^ Bernhard Diestelkamp : Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), pp. 183 f .; Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, p. 174.
  21. ^ Hans Kelsen: The International Legal Status of Germany to be Established Immediately upon Termination of the War , in: American Journal of International Law 38 (1944), pp. 689 ff., And The Legal Status of Germany According to the Declaration of Berlin , in: ibid. 39 (1945), p. 518 ff. See also Thomas Olechowski : Kelsen's Debellatio thesis. Legal historical and legal theoretical considerations on the continuity of states. In: Clemens Jabloner, Dieter Kolonovits et al. (Ed.): Commemorative Robert Walter. Manz Verlag, Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-214-00453-8 , pp. 531–552.
  22. ^ Bernhard Diestelkamp: Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), pp. 187 ff.
  23. ^ Rudolf Laun: Germany's representation under international law . In: The time of December 1, 1947; Bernhard Diestelkamp: Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), p. 190; Joachim Rückert : The elimination of the German Reich - the historical and legal-historical dimension of a suspension situation. In: Anselm Doering-Manteuffel (Hrsg.): Structural features of the German history of the 20th century (=  Writings of the Historical College , Vol. 63), Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-58057-4 , p. 66 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  24. Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, p. 177.
  25. ^ Bernhard Diestelkamp: Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), pp. 191–194 (here the quote).
  26. Wolfgang Benz: Federal policy in the CDU / CSU. The constitutional discussion in the “Ellwanger Kreis” in 1947/48 . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 25, Heft 4 (1977), p. 793 ( online , accessed on July 6, 2018).
  27. Willy Albrecht (ed.): The SPD under Kurt Schumacher and Erich Ollenhauer 1946 to 1963. Minutes of the meetings of the top committees . Vol. 1: 1946-1948 . Dietz, Bonn 2000, p. 73.
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  29. ^ Bernhard Diestelkamp: Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), pp. 192 and 201 f .; Manfred Görtemaker : History of the Federal Republic of Germany. From the foundation to the present , CH Beck, Munich 1999, p. 58 f.
  30. Michael Stolleis : History of Public Law in Germany, Volume Four, Constitutional and Administrative Law Studies in West and East 1945–1990 , Beck, Munich 1992, p. 34.
  31. ^ Bernhard Diestelkamp: Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), p. 203; Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, p. 180 f.
  32. ^ Margit Roth: Germany Policy . In: Everhard Holtmann (Hrsg.): Politik-Lexikon . 3rd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 978-3-486-79886-9 , pp. 126–130, here p. 127 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  33. ^ Bernhard Diestelkamp: Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), pp. 184 f .; See Charles de Gaulle's statement of May 15, 1945: “The victory therefore had to be a total victory. It happened. In this respect, the state, power and doctrine, the German Reich has been destroyed ”, quoted by Manfred Görtemaker: History of the Federal Republic of Germany. From the foundation to the present , CH Beck, Munich 1999, p. 18.
  34. Joachim Rückert: The elimination of the German Empire - the historical and legal-historical dimension of a suspension situation. In: Anselm Doering-Manteuffel (Ed.): Structural features of the German history of the 20th century (=  writings of the Historisches Kolleg , vol. 63), Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, p. 79 f. (Accessed via De Gruyter Online); Thomas Olechowski: Kelsen's Debellatio thesis. Legal historical and legal theoretical considerations on the continuity of states. In: Clemens Jabloner, Dieter Kolonovits et al. (Ed.): Commemorative Robert Walter. Manz Verlag, Vienna 2013, p. 546.
  35. ^ Bernhard Diestelkamp: Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), p. 185; this interpretation later found its way into the German scientific discourse, see Georg Dahm , Jost Delbrück , Rüdiger Wolfrum : Völkerrecht , Vol. I / 1, 2nd edition, Berlin 1989, p. 225 with further references; Theo Stammen , Gerold Maier: The Allied Occupation Regime in Germany . In: Josef Becker , Theo Stammen, Peter Waldmann (Hrsg.): Prehistory of the Federal Republic of Germany. Between surrender and the Basic Law. UTB / W. Funk, Munich 1979, p. 61 f.
  36. Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, cited p. 189 f.
  37. Jochen A. Frowein: The development of the legal situation in Germany from 1945 to reunification in 1990 , in: Ernst Benda , Werner Maihofer , Hans-Jochen Vogel (ed.): Handbook of constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany , 2nd edition, de Gruyter, Berlin 1994, ISBN 978-3-11-089096-9 , pp. 25 f., Rn. 14 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  38. Also on the following Kay Hailbronner , in: Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum (Ed.), Völkerrecht , 4th ed., De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, 3rd section, paras. 200–203 ; Georg Dahm (Jost Delbrück / Rüdiger Wolfrum), Völkerrecht , Vol. I / 1, 2nd edition, de Gruyter, Berlin 1989, pp. 145–150 ( 146 ff. ); cf. the reunification requirement anchored in constitutional law up to 1990 .
  39. Quotation from Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, p. 185.
  40. Marcel Kau: The state and the individual as subjects of international law . In: Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum and Alexander Proelß (eds.): Völkerrecht . 7th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, p. 206, marginal number 214 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  41. Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, pp. 186 f. And 190.
  42. Helmut Rumpf: Contribution to the discussion. In: Germany after 30 years of the Basic Law. State task of environmental protection. Reports and discussions at the conference of the Association of German Constitutional Law Teachers in Berlin from 3. – 6. October 1979. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, ISBN 978-3-11-087334-4 , p. 131 (accessed from De Gruyter Online).
  43. Helmut Ridder: The "German citizenship" and the two German states. In: Dieter G. Wilke and Harald Weber (eds.): Gedächtnisschrift für Friedrich Klein. Vahlen, Munich 1977, pp. 437 ff. And 444 f., Quoted from Rudolf Bernhardt : Germany after 30 years of the Basic Law. State task of environmental protection. Reports and discussions at the conference of the Association of German Constitutional Law Teachers in Berlin from 3. – 6. October 1979. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, p. 17 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  44. ^ Karl Thedieck: German citizenship in the federal government and in the states. Genesis and basics of citizenship from a German law perspective . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1989, p. 67 f .; Gilbert Gornig : Germany's status under international law between 1945 and 1990. Also a contribution to the problems of state succession. Wilhelm Fink, Munich 2007, p. 22 f. And 88.
  45. BVerfGE 36, 1 ; Gilbert Gornig: Germany's status under international law between 1945 and 1990. Also a contribution to the problems of state succession. Wilhelm Fink, Munich 2007, p. 22; Marcel Kau: The state and the individual as subjects of international law . In: Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum and Alexander Proelß (eds.): Völkerrecht . 7th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, p. 206, marginal number 214 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  46. Marcel Kau: The state and the individual as subjects of international law . In: Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum / Alexander Proelß (Ed.): Völkerrecht . 7th edition, de Gruyter, 2016, pp. 206 f., Marginal number 215.
  47. BVerfGE 77, 137 (150 ff.) - Teso; Ingo von Münch : The German citizenship. Past - present - future . De Gruyter Recht, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89949-433-4 , pp. 103 ff. (Accessed via De Gruyter Online); Michael Schweitzer : Constitutional Law III. Constitutional law, international law, European law . 10th edition, CF Müller, Heidelberg 2010, p. 262, Rn. 636 .
  48. Georg Ress , in: Ulrich Beyerlin, Law between Upheaval and Preservation (=  contributions to foreign public law and international law , vol. 120), 1995, pp. 843 f. , 849 ; Hartmut Schiedermair , The Downfall of States and the Problem of State Succession , ZOR 59 (2004), p. 135 ff., Here p. 143.
  49. Comprehensive on this, see Andreas Zimmermann , State Succession in International Treaties. At the same time a contribution to the possibilities and limits of international law codification , Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 2000, ISBN 3-540-66140-9 , pp. 71 f., 82 f. , 87 f., 92 with further references; Klaus Stern , The State Law of the Federal Republic of Germany , Volume V, CH Beck, Munich 2000, pp. 1964 f .; Dieter Blumenwitz, NJW 1990, p. 3041 ff. With further references; Jochen A. Frowein, The Constitution of Germany in the Framework of International Law , in: VVDStRL , Issue 49, 1990, pp. 7–33.
  50. ^ Karl Doehring : Völkerrecht , 2nd, revised edition, CF Müller, Heidelberg 2004, Rn. 139, Note 177 .
  51. ^ Bernhard Diestelkamp: Legal history as contemporary history. Historical considerations on the development and implementation of the theory of the continued existence of the German Reich as a state after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 7 (1985), p. 181 f.
  52. Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, p. 187.
  53. ^ Ingo von Münch: The German citizenship. Past - present - future . De Gruyter Recht, Berlin 2007, pp. 90 f. (Accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  54. Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, p. 187 f .; Marcel Kau: The state and the individual as subjects of international law . In: Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum and Alexander Proelß (eds.): Völkerrecht . 7th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, p. 206, marginal number 215 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  55. Walter Schwengler: The end of the Third Reich - also the end of the German Reich? In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1995, p. 191 f.