Capital question of the Federal Republic of Germany

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The question of the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany was the search for a seat of government for the West German state , which had become necessary in 1948/49 . The term capital was deliberately avoided and the provisional character was emphasized by the term seat of government ; however, the problem was mostly referred to as the capital issue . The capital was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, which was clearly expressed in the preamble to the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany . Adolf Süsterhenn later emphasized that all parties “rightly emphasized and emphasized the fragmentary, provisional character of this structure to be created by us with incredible sharpness and clarity”.

Bonn was officially named federal capital for the first time in the Bonn Treaty of 1970, which regulated Bonn's funding from the federal budget.

Frankfurt or Bonn

The old capital of the Reich, Berlin , was legally out of the question because of its four-power status and was also inexpedient because of West Berlin's "island location" within the Soviet occupation zone and the German Democratic Republic . So another city had to be found. Initially, two West German cities, Bonn and Frankfurt am Main, applied .

Bonn was strongly supported by the British military government , while Frankfurt am Main was valued because of the ( Greater German ) Frankfurt National Assembly ; It also housed the Economic Council of the United Economic Area and important agencies of the American military government .

On October 27, 1948, Hermann Wandersleb was able to explain Bonn's advantages to the council of elders . On November 5, 1948, representatives of the Hessian state government and the city of Frankfurt promoted their alternative. General Walter M. Robertson spoke to Konrad Adenauer on November 18, 1948 in favor of Frankfurt as the seat of the federal organs. A few days later, Adenauer explained the advantages of Bonn to the American advisor Robert Murphy : as a city on the left bank of the Rhine, it would counter the ongoing plans of the Fourth French Republic to redraw the borders of the countries . They aimed at a “special regulation for the left bank of the Rhine”, which, as a Rhine state, was to be separated from the Danube state (Bavaria) and the Elbe state (northern Germany / Hamburg).

New candidates

When Kassel and Stuttgart had also announced their candidatures, the commission to examine the information provided by the cities of Bonn – Frankfurt – Kassel – Stuttgart regarding the provisional seat of the federal government was formed on January 27, 1949 . Its members were Adenauer (CDU), Johannes Brockmann (center), Paul de Chapeaurouge (CDU), Otto Heinrich Greve (SPD), Wilhelm Heile (DP), Karl Sigmund Mayr (CSU), Hermann Schäfer (FDP) and Fritz Hoch ( SPD), which was replaced by Friedrich Wolff (SPD) in early March 1949 .

After the commission had visited the four cities from February 3 to 9, 1949, the question of the capital fell silent again. Only when the question was raised in the Council of Elders on March 3, 1949 whether the Parliamentary Council had any decision-making authority at all, did Franz Josef Strauss press for a decision; otherwise the Federal Republic would be like "a lady without a belly". The decision on the federal seat should at least not be included in the Basic Law, because a change in the Basic Law would be necessary if it were to be moved later. The commission concluded its work in March 1949 with a neutral report and rejected the decision (without a vote) to the Parliamentary Council.

Due to the excessive war damage and its exposed location not far from the inner-German border , Kassel was ruled out as a possible seat of government. Stuttgart failed primarily because of its financial problems: in 1948 the city had to raise one million German marks for rents alone .

Discussion in the Parliamentary Council

Construction of the plenary hall in Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main was the favorite of the SPD . Bonn was favored by Adenauer from Cologne and most of the members of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group . As early as July 5, 1948, Walter Menzel initiated the preparatory meetings of the constitutional convention on Herrenchiemsee in the Koenig Museum in Bonn and in the Pedagogical Academy . Frankfurt, Karlsruhe and Celle came into consideration as further candidates for the constitutional convention .

Shortly before the vote in the Parliamentary Council on May 10, 1949, things did not look good for Bonn. The SPD stuck to Frankfurt; the Hessian CDU MPs were also in favor of their home “metropolis”. In a secret trial vote by the 27-member Union parliamentary group , Bonn received only 21 out of 27 votes. The mayor of Frankfurt, Walter Kolb , has already had a speech of thanks recorded on Radio Frankfurt .

Used rumor

A few hours before the vote, however, Konrad Adenauer presented the CDU MPs with a "confidential report" distributed by the German press service . It said that at a board meeting of the SPD in Cologne in the morning the SPD chairman Kurt Schumacher was pleased that there would be a “certain defeat” of the conservatives in the capital city vote. This rumor was enough to change the mood among the Hessian CDU MPs.

Adenauer had not told his MPs that the alleged agency report he had read had never been published. The CDU journalist Franz Hange had typed the message together with his colleague Heinrich Böx into the telex, but did not send it to the dpd headquarters. But it did get to Adenauer, who used it for his own purposes and thus achieved the majority he wanted for Bonn.

Secret vote

Two days after the Basic Law was passed, on May 10, 1949, MP Greve, on behalf of the SPD parliamentary group, submitted a motion to the plenary to change the rules of procedure. He wanted to have a paragraph inserted which, contrary to the practice of the Parliamentary Council, would allow a secret ballot if it were requested by ten MPs. Max Reimann (KPD) alone contradicted this . The parliamentarians had assumed responsibility for their work on the Basic Law in front of the public and now wanted to withdraw into anonymity; every MP should "show the public how he stands". If it was rejected by the Communist Party of Germany , Greve's proposal was accepted. The final plenary discussion is documented.

Bonn's triumph

With 33 out of 62 valid votes in secret ballot, the decision was made in favor of Bonn as the “provisional seat of the federal organs”. The public had expected it with great excitement and met with thunderous applause from the predominantly Bonn audience in the stands - which was frowned upon according to parliamentary practice. There were 29 votes in Frankfurt. The confident mayor of Frankfurt, Kolb, had already identified a "government district" on Bertramstrasse and - to create facts - even had a plenary hall built for parliament. The building ( Funkhaus am Dornbusch ) now houses the Hessischer Rundfunk .

The main official reasons for the decision against Frankfurt was, on the one hand, the lack of offices and living space due to the air raids on Frankfurt am Main . On the other hand, it was questionable whether the Americans could be persuaded to relocate their military headquarters to the IG Farben building , because the new seat of government should be vacant. Because of the open capital issue, the US military government decided that Frankfurt should not become Hesse's state capital instead of Wiesbaden .

Based on a motion by the SPD parliamentary group on September 3, 1949, the 1st German Bundestag again discussed the capital issue on November 3, 1949. Frankfurt was again defeated, with 176 votes to 200 with three abstentions. Decisive for Bonn were the undestroyed and representative buildings and the evacuation of the Belgian garrison in Duisdorf, which the Allies promptly initiated . At the same meeting, the status of Berlin as the German capital was confirmed by an overwhelming majority: “The leading federal organs will move their headquarters to the capital of Germany, Berlin, as soon as general, free, equal, secret and direct elections have been held throughout Berlin and in the Soviet occupation zone are."

At the same time, the Allied Military Governors issued the statute for the appointment of the High Commissioners , according to which the occupation-free enclave Bonn (so-called "Federal Zone Bonn") was created and therefore also removed from the British zone. This special zone, directly subordinate to the High Commissioners , extended extensively around the Bonn city area and was modeled on the US District of Columbia , which also does not belong to any federal state and is not one itself.

bribery

The allegations of corruption in favor of Bonn - a total of two million D-Marks are said to have flowed to members of parliament for voting in favor of Bonn - published the magazine Der Spiegel in its issue of September 27, 1950. He quoted from a questioning of the member of parliament Aumer in the so-called Spiegel investigation committee , which dealt from 1950 to 1951 with the "allegations of corruption in connection with the question of the capital Bonn-Frankfurt". Hermann Aumer said: “A total of around two million DM has been paid to members of all parliamentary groups. About a hundred MPs were bribed with amounts between 20,000, 10,000 and 1,000 DM, Aumer said. 20,000 DM for those who have a say, 10,000 DM for those who are heavy and 1,000 DM for those who only gave their vote. ”The committee found that money was paid for the voting behavior of individual parliamentarians. How this actually affected the vote is not known.

See also

literature

  • Nikolas Dörr: The Social Democratic Party of Germany in the Parliamentary Council 1948/1949. WVB, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86573-265-1 , pp. 78-81.
  • Andreas Salz: Bonn – Berlin. The debate about the seat of parliament and government in the German Bundestag and the consequences. Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-86582-342-4 (also: Bonn, Univ., Master's thesis).
  • Günter Püttner: Administrative apprenticeship . A study book. 4th edition, Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56674-5 , § 8, IV, 2.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horst Ulrich (Red.): Capital , in: Berlin-Handbuch. The lexicon of the federal capital . FAB-Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 978-3-927551-27-5 , pp. 535-541, here pp. 539 f .; on the Bonn Treaty and the "Bonn Agreement" of 1970 see Jens Krüger: The financing of the Federal Capital Bonn . De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-915926-5 , pp. 135-153.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Michael F. Feldkamp : The Parliamentary Council 1948–1949, the emergence of the Basic Law . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998. ISBN 3-525-01366-3 . Revised new edition, with a foreword by Bundestag President Norbert Lammert : Göttingen 2008. ISBN 978-3-525-36755-1 .
  3. ↑ The Parliamentary Council , vol. 8, p. 52, note 7
  4. ↑ The Parliamentary Council , Vol. 10, p. 94.
  5. ↑ Adenauer, March 30, 1949, in: Rainer Salzmann (edit.): The CDU / CSU in the Parliamentary Council. Minutes of meetings of the Union Group . Stuttgart 1981, p. 446.
  6. ↑ Battle of the would-be metropolises , Spiegel article / one day on the topic
  7. ↑ The Parliamentary Council, Vol. 9, pp. 631 ff.
  8. ^ German Bundestag, Federal Archives (ed.): The Parliamentary Council 1948–1949. Files and minutes . Volume 9: Plenary. Boldt, Munich 1996, pp. 677-683.
  9. ↑ Edith Ennen , Dietrich Höroldt: Small history of the city of Bonn. Stollfuß Verlag, Bonn 1967, p. 278 ff.
  10. ^ Rudolf Pörtner : Childhood of the Federal Republic. from the rubble time to the economic miracle. ECON Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-430-17515-1 , pp. 16-82.
  11. ↑ Plenary Protocol 01/14 of the German Bundestag from November 3, 1949
  12. ↑ Printed matter 01/135 and 01/143 of the German Bundestag
  13. ↑ Paul Zurnieden: Three Cities and Two Dozen Villages - The Origin of the "Federal Zone " , in Rudolf Pörtner : Children's Years of the Federal Republic. Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-430-17515-1 , pp. 50-53
  14. ↑ Federal capital: Be smart and hold your mouth , Der Spiegel No. 39/1950.