Control Council Act No. 18

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The Control Council Law no. 18 dated March 8, 1946 (entered into force on 14 March 1946) is a Control Council Law . It authorized the German authorities to allocate the remaining living space to people in need against the will of the owners.

history

After the Second World War, there was an immense housing shortage in the zones of occupation in Germany. It is estimated that 31% of the housing stock in large cities and 21% of the housing stock in medium-sized cities were destroyed. Of the 16 million apartments in the German Reich that were located in the four zones of occupation, 2.5 million apartments were completely destroyed and 4 million apartments damaged. The average occupancy increased from 3.6 in 1936 to 6. This forced the military government to act and put the remaining living space under compulsory management. The law was intended, among other things, to prevent uncontrolled housing construction, but this never succeeded despite numerous other regulations and an absolute freeze on housing.

The Control Council Act No. 18 did not constitute a comprehensive regulation of housing policy in the post-war period. While the law directly replaced the regulation on housing control of 1943, other housing policy laws from the time of National Socialism remained, including the rent freeze decreed in 1936 and the Tenant Protection Act of 1942, which in fact completely forbade the landlord to give notice. This and the lack of a central housing administration - the housing offices were assigned to the municipalities - led to undesirable developments in the housing market, which ultimately hindered reconstruction after the war.

The Federal German legislature adopted the provisions of the Control Council Act No. 18 in federal law, which is why the law was repealed by the Allied High Commission on May 14, 1953. With the entry into force of the Basic Law, some of these regulations conflicted with the fundamental right to freedom of movement, but these restrictions were expressly legitimized by a special regulation ( Art. 117 (2) GG). In certain particularly tense housing markets, such as Munich and Hamburg , the housing market was partially compulsorily managed until 1977.

Regulations

The Control Council Act No. 18 introduced the following provisions:

Housing offices should be introduced across the board in all occupation zones . Housing offices already existed in the territory of the State of Prussia on the basis of the Prussian Housing Act of 1918, other German states had not yet set up housing offices. The housing authorities should be supported in their decision-making by housing committees as a quasi-democratic body. The housing authorities were obliged to take stock of all remaining living space. Owners must report vacant living space to the housing office immediately.

For the purpose of increasing the living space, various measures were allowed to be carried out, including redesigning apartments, swapping apartments, carrying out urgent repairs and adding non-intended living space to the housing market. In special emergency areas (these were areas in which the living space per inhabitant was less than 4 m²), more extensive construction work was also permitted. Existing living space was allocated to entitled persons upon application, whereby the application had to be accompanied by the food cards and a certificate of the practiced occupation. When allocating living space, the following were given preference:

  • Victims of National Socialism and especially survivors of the concentration camps
  • Then disabled and physically handicapped people, old people and large families
  • Finally skilled workers, if there was a shortage of skilled workers on site.

Preferential treatment based on social or financial position was prohibited, and foreigners were not allowed to be disadvantaged compared to Germans.

The German military government was able to declare certain places to be hot spots for housing. As a result, moving to these locations was prohibited and moving out of these locations was made much easier. This should prevent individual housing authorities from being overwhelmed.

Violations of the Control Council Act No. 18 constituted offenses that could be punished with imprisonment for up to one year.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Arnold, Nico B. Rottke, Ralph Winter: Residential real estate: life cycle, strategy, transaction . Springer Verlag, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 3658053682 , p. 58f
  2. ↑ Irmgard Zündorf: The price of the market economy: state price policy and standard of living in West Germany 1948 to 1963 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Potsdam 2006, ISBN 351508861X , p. 39f
  3. ^ Arnold / Rottke / Winter, p. 60

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