Oberamt (Württemberg)
Oberamt was the name of a Württemberg administrative unit introduced in 1758 instead of Amt , which was in use until 1934. After the Nazi seizure of power , the top positions were with the Württemberg district regulations in circles renamed and their number in 1938 significantly reduced through mergers.
history
Duchy
The division of the Duchy of Württemberg (to 1495 county) in offices called administrative units reflected the gradual growth of the territory in its diversity. In addition to the secular offices, which made up most of the country, there were monastery, rent chamber and chamber clerk offices. As a rule, a secular office consisted of the eponymous official town and the surrounding villages as official places or administrative districts , but the districts differed considerably in terms of area and population, and the map was characterized by complicated border lines with many exclaves . Some larger offices, such as the Office Urach, were divided into several sub- offices . For the sake of clarity, the offices themselves have been referred to as Oberamt since 1758, without structural reforms being associated with this renaming. The ducal official, traditionally called Vogt , who headed the administrative business at official level, held the title of Oberamtmann from 1759 . From that day onwards, all and every secondary title with the bailiff should stop immediately and only the senior official name should be valid. He was responsible for implementing government measures in his district, for example by publishing new laws, receiving complaints from subjects and forwarding them to the appropriate higher authorities. He also warned people who broke the law only slightly. In the official assembly , representatives of the official city and the official locations discussed common issues. For example, it was decided here how the road construction in the upper administrative district should be financed. The official assembly also elected its deputies for the so-called " landscape ".
kingdom
After the territories that fell to the House of Württemberg as a result of the upheavals of the Napoleonic period from 1803 were administered separately as " Neuwürttemberg ", the organizational edict of 1806 - Württemberg had risen to become a kingdom - initiated the creation of uniform structures. In the following years the letter of intent was
- An appropriate division and unification of the senior and staff offices [...] will gradually be made.
put into practice and the whole country, regardless of historical and confessional circumstances, was newly divided into almost equally large offices, the number of which was reduced to 64 by 1810, and in 1819 with the abolition of the Albeck office to 63. The royal seat of Stuttgart played a special role , where the city administration performed the relevant tasks.
The higher offices were subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior and were responsible for all essential areas of state administration, only the finance department had been with the camera offices since 1806 . Since 1814, every senior office was given a public health officer under the name of senior doctor. In accordance with the understanding of the state at that time, administration and administration of justice were not separate: the senior bailiff presided over the high court in personal union. Local self-government and the right of the state estates to have a say, which were already temporarily restricted under Duke Carl Eugen , were suspended by King Friedrich .
King Wilhelm I took office in 1816 and immediately began extensive reforms that led to the constitution of 1819 and thus converted Württemberg from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy . The edicts issued on December 31, 1818 regulated various aspects of the restored local self-government:
- The mayor's offices ( municipalities ) became self-governing bodies .
- The municipalities of an upper office together formed the official body , a regional body with its own parliament (official assembly) and its own assets (administration).
- This resulted in a double function of the senior bailiff, who was not only a state civil servant as before, but also functioned as an organ of the official body.
- Administration and justice were separated from each other at the senior level.
Chapter V of the constitution contained detailed information on the administrative structure and the rights of the municipalities and official bodies. In particular, Section 64 stipulated that upper office boundaries could only be changed by law, i.e. with the consent of Parliament. This option was used very sparingly; only in 1842 were major changes made, affecting around thirty communities. A draft submitted by the government in 1911 to simplify administration in the interests of cost savings only provided for 42 higher offices , but was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies.
People's State
In 1919 there were renewed considerations to reduce the number of senior offices and to restore the uniformity that had been lost due to the different population trends. After the state parliament had approved the abolition of the Cannstatt Upper Office on October 1, 1923, the government tried to dissolve the Blaubeuren, Brackenheim, Neresheim, Spaichingen, Sulz, Weinsberg and Welzheim regional offices on April 1, 1924 by means of an emergency ordinance, covered by an enabling law. The resulting protests led to the resignation of the government, the emergency ordinance was withdrawn and as a result only the Oberamt Weinsberg (on April 1, 1926) was repealed.
Nazi dictatorship
In 1933 the organs of local self-government were dissolved. After the chief magistrate had been called district administrator based on the Prussian model since 1928, the district regulations of 1934 replaced the designations of the district authority with district and administrative body with district association , but did not yet include any change in the boundaries. Only with the district reform of 1938 were 27 of the remaining 61 districts repealed.
Upper office descriptions
From 1824 to 1886 all administrative offices were statistically processed and their history, their communities, population numbers and the characteristics of their residents were described in detail. On behalf of the government, the Royal Statistical-Topographical Bureau published some very detailed descriptions of the Oberamts , see foreword to the Oberamtsbeschreibung Ellwangen . They are still a very important source for historians today. By royal decree, all archives in the country, including those of the aristocrats, of the former imperial cities and monasteries, were to be made accessible to the authors for these works.
The description of the predominantly Catholic Neuwuerttemberg areas, z. B. in Upper Swabia from the perspective of the old Württemberg / Protestant bureaucracy in Stuttgart (quote from the description of the Oberamt Ravensburg, p. 29: “The character of the inhabitants is generally more praised than in other neighboring districts, it is described as simple and trusting . " )
The Oberamt descriptions are now sought-after and dearly paid collector's items; in the 1970s, therefore, all volumes were reprinted. Most of them are now also out of stock. All are now available in digital form, see Wikisource .
Today's traces of the upper office boundaries
In the former Württemberg area of Baden-Württemberg, district courts are often located in the former regional authorities.
The ecclesiastical administrative structures of the Evangelical Regional Church in Württemberg also largely reflect the former senior offices . In most of the former Oberamtsstadt there is still the seat of a deanery, whose area of responsibility coincides with the former Oberamt. There are deviations from this mainly in the predominantly Catholic areas and where new deaneries have been established due to the increase in membership (e.g. Ditzingen or Bernhausen).
List of upper offices in Württemberg (1811 to 1934)
Since a different numbering is used in the list, a listing of the matching numbers according to the map can be found under administrative structure from 1924 .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Duke Karl von Württemberg: General rescript on the title and rank of the Oberamtmen from February 1, 1759 . In: Zeller (Hrsg.): Collection of the Württemberg government laws . tape III . Tübingen 1843, p. 778 .
- ^ Organizational edict of March 18, 1806
- ↑ Royal Manifesto, concerning the new division of the kingdom, of October 27, 1810 (PDF; 2.9 MB)
- ↑ Royal Württemberg State and Government Gazette (ed.): General Ordinance, the Organization of the Medical Constitution in the Kingdom of 14./22. March 1814, . No. 15 . Stuttgart 1814, p. 121-136 .
- ^ Zoeppritz: The Upper Office Act of 1912 . In: Medical correspondence sheet for Württemberg . tape 25 . Stuttgart 1925, p. 377 .
- ^ Constitutional charter of September 25, 1819
- ↑ Law on amendments in the delimitation of the administrative districts of July 6, 1842, effective September 1, 1842 (RegBl 1842/385)
- ↑ Law on the division of the Cannstatt District Office (RegBl 1923/385)
- ↑ Ordinance of the State Ministry on changes to the judicial and administrative districts (RegBl 1924/138, repealed in RegBl 1924/357)
- ↑ Law on the division of the district of Weinsberg (RegBl 1926/89)
- ↑ Law on the Provisional Representation of Official Bodies of April 25, 1933
- ↑ District regulations of January 29, 1934
- ^ Law on Land Division of April 25, 1938
- ↑ 1819 merged with the Oberamt Ulm .
- ↑ 1819 renamed Oberamt Welzheim .
- ↑ Before that, the Grüningen office (until 1718 and from 1722 to 1758), which continued to exist from 1758 with a reduced district as the Oberamt Markgröningen and in 1806 was divided between the Oberamt Ludwigsburg and Vaihingen an der Enz.
- ↑ 1842 renamed Oberamt Laupheim .
literature
- Walter Grube: Bailiffs, offices, districts in Baden-Württemberg . Stuttgart 1975, ISBN 3-17-002445-0
- Historical atlas of Baden-Württemberg , maps VII, 4 and VII, 5 with an epithet. Stuttgart 1976
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