Forsthoff-Abendroth controversy

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The Forsthoff-Abendroth controversy, also known as the Forsthoff-Abendroth debate, was a dispute between the constitutional lawyer Ernst Forsthoff and the political scientist Wolfgang Abendroth about the importance of the welfare state in the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, particularly in the mid-1950s .

After the Second World War , Forsthoff was one of the commentators on the German Basic Law of 1949. Against the background of the terms welfare state and rule of law, Forsthoff was of the opinion that the welfare state was not an instrument of justice , but an illegitimate means of distributing wealth. Forsthoff, who in 1934 had emphatically welcomed the Nazi state and the eradication of “alien and enemies” in the second edition of his work “Der totale Staat” , was a representative of traditional, conservative legal and political theory. In his argumentation he tried to deduce that “welfare state” is not a legal concept and therefore does not represent a legal principle in the constitutional context of the Basic Law.

The socialist Abendroth, on the other hand, believed that he recognized such a legal principle, which must be seen as necessary for the preservation of the rule of law and democracy . He derived this from Artt. 20 I, 28 I 1 GG, on which the welfare state principle is based to this day.

swell

  • Ernst Forsthoff: First subject of discussion: Concept and nature of the social constitutional state . In: The foreign violence of the Federal Republic. Reports and discussions on the reports in the negotiations of the conference of German constitutional law teachers in Bonn on October 15 and 16, 1953 (= Association of German constitutional law teachers [ed.]: Publications of the Association of German constitutional law teachers . No. 12 ). Reprint d. 1954 (1966). Reprint 2013 edition. De Gruyter, Berlin, Boston 1973, ISBN 3-11-090449-7 , pp. 8-128 , doi : 10.1515 / 9783110904499.8 .
  • Ernst Forsthoff: Constitutional problems of the welfare state. Lecture . Aschendorff, Münster / Westphalia, 1954, DNB 451325176 .
  • Wolfgang Abendroth: On the concept of the democratic and social constitutional state in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany . In: ders .: Antagonistic Society and Political Democracy, Luchterhand, Berlin / Neuwied, 1972, DNB 720075602 . Reprinted in: Wolfgang Abendroth: Gesammelte Schriften . Volume 2: 1949-1955. Edited and introduced by Michael Buckmiller , Joachim Perels and Uli Schöler . Offizin Verlag Hannover 2008, pp. 338–357. Available online from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, May 2019.
documentation
  • Ernst Forsthoff (Hrsg.): Rule of law and welfare state. Papers and Essays (=  avenues of research . No. 118 ). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1968.

literature

  • John Philipp Thurn: Which welfare state? Ideology and Understanding of Science in the Debates of Federal German Constitutional Law. 1949-1990 (=  Fundamentals of Law . No. 20 ). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-16-152529-2 (Zugl .: Freiburg, Univ., Diss., 2012).