Appointed state parliament
In order to enable the rebuilding of the state order in Germany after the Second World War in a democratic sense, Appointed Landtag (in the city-states : Appointed Citizenships ) were brought into being by the occupying powers in most countries .
Procedure and principles
The Potsdam Agreement of August 2, 1945 was a first important basis for the establishment of new political structures . This envisaged the restoration of local self-government, but also of electoral representations at municipal, district, provincial and state level. The establishment of the state structures after the collapse took place from the municipal level through the state level and finally at the federal level. As a first step, mayors and city councilors were appointed by the occupation authorities. These were soon replaced by elected local parliaments and mayors.
The first state parliaments were set up at the end of 1946. The occupation authorities based their distribution of seats in the appointed state parliaments on the distribution of votes in local elections. Where these, as in North Rhine-Westphalia, were only elected after the constitution of the state parliaments, the military authorities initially oriented themselves on the results of the last free elections in the Weimar Republic . In these countries, too, the composition was later adapted to the results of the local elections that had now taken place. The selection of the MPs was based on the one hand on their party affiliation and on the other hand on their political reliability. The appointed state parliaments were soon replaced by freely elected state parliaments in the three western occupation zones, which later became the Federal Republic. In Bavaria, the first Bavarian state parliament was elected by the people after the war in 1946.
Tasks and competencies
The main task of the appointed state parliaments was the (co-) control of the (also appointed) administrations at the state level and the preparation of the election of constituent assemblies or elected state parliaments. In part, the main task was the drafting of a democratic state constitution, for example in Hamburg . In other countries, such as Hesse or North Rhine-Westphalia , this task was reserved for the state parliaments to be elected as soon as possible.
All resolutions were subject to the restrictions of occupation law . Decisions were made by the occupation authorities or had to be confirmed by them.
Overview appointed state parliaments in the states
Details on the respective Appointed Diets of the Länder can be found in the individual articles in the following table.
literature
- Siegfried Mielke , Werner Reutter (Ed.): Land parliamentarism in Germany. History, structure, functions. Wiesbaden 2004.