Intergroup Committee

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The Intergroup Committee ( IFA ) was in the final phase of the First World War a coordination body of the majority parliamentary groups in the Reichstag of the German Empire .

meaning

The Intergroup Committee was founded on July 6, 1917 and marked the beginning of the parliamentarization of the German Empire. The unofficial body coordinated the work of the parliamentary groups of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Progressive People's Party (FVP) and the Center Party . These parties have formed the majority in the Reichstag since the Reichstag election in 1912 . Until January 1918, members of the National Liberal Party also took part in the deliberations in the Intergroup Committee.

The immediate reason for the foundation was the Reichstag debate on the drafting of a peace resolution , which MP Matthias Erzberger had initiated with his important speech during the session of the main committee of the Reichstag on the morning of July 6, 1917. They wanted to consider whether there is a peace with or without annexations, that a victorious peace or a negotiated peace should give. The Intergroup Committee should sound out the political and programmatic commonalities of the four parties.

The IFA met more often than the Reichstag and was therefore able to react more quickly to current problems in politics. In the multiple new government formations in the final phase of the First World War , the IFA also had the function of a coalition committee of the parties united in it. He set up joint minimum government programs that had to be accepted by the new Reich Chancellors if they did not want to run the risk of having the Reichstag majority against them. However, the IFA did not succeed in exerting any decisive influence on the composition of the Michaelis and Hertling governments .

The IFA mainly had a psychological effect on its members, the leaders of the majority parties. In addition to Erzberger (center) and Friedrich von Payer (FVP), they also included his party comrade Conrad Haussmann and Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann from the SPD . The close cooperation and the frequent balancing of parliamentary compromises had a confidence-building effect and thus accelerated the process of understanding and building consensus, which would have taken considerably longer in the Reichstag.

Concrete successes in the implementation of important program items, including the peace resolution, for example, the reform of the Prussian three-class suffrage and the state of military siege , the IFA could hardly record until September 1918. The self-critical conclusion of Conrad Haußmann is indicative of this: "The last year has not been exploited, but politically wasted."

Nevertheless, the institutionalization of a parliamentary majority according to Udo Bermbach marks the beginning of a parliamentarization in a constitutional system of government. The parties involved in the IFA formed the Weimar coalition during the Weimar Republic .

swell

  • The Intergroup Committee 1917/18. Edited by Erich Matthias with the participation of Rudolf Morsey , 2 volumes, Düsseldorf 1959 (Sources on the history of parliamentarism and political parties, series 1: From the constitutional monarchy to the parliamentary republic, volume 1, parts 1 and 2).

literature

  • Udo Bermbach: Preliminary Forms of Parliamentary Cabinet Formation in Germany. The Intergroup Committee 1917/18 and the parliamentarization of the Reich government. Cologne et al. 1967.
  • Klaus Epstein: The Intergroup Committee and the Problem of Parliamentarization 1917–1918. In: Historical magazine . 191, 1960, pp. 562-584.
  • Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. 8 volumes. Stuttgart et al. 1957–1990.
  • Manfred Rauh: The parliamentarization of the German Empire. Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 3-7700-5092-5 .
  • Gerhard A. Ritter (Ed.): Society, Parliament and Government. On the history of parliamentarism in Germany. Düsseldorf 1974, ISBN 3-7700-5080-0 .
  • Gerhard A. Ritter (Ed.): Government, bureaucracy and parliament in Prussia and Germany from 1848 to the present. Düsseldorf 1983, ISBN 3-7700-5121-1 .
  • Christoph Schönberger: The outdated parliamentarization. Gaining influence and lack of power of the Reichstag in the democratizing empire. In: Historical magazine. 272, 2001, pp. 623-666.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Intergroup Committee 1917/18. edited by Erich Matthias with the assistance of Rudolf Morsey, Düsseldorf 1959, volume 2, p. 533.