Oldenburg State Parliament

The Oldenburg State Parliament was the parliament of the State of Oldenburg from 1848 to 1933 .

Grand Duchy of Oldenburg

prehistory

There were no estates in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg . Even if the German Federal Act, in Article 13, obliged the Grand Duke to enact a state constitution, this obligation had not been fulfilled in Oldenburg.

The 34th Assembly

The March Revolution also shook the parts of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. As in the other German states, the Grand Ducal Government reacted to the civil protests with the promise of liberal reforms, a constitution and the introduction of a parliament. With a Grand Ducal patent dated March 10, 1848, the convening of a constituent assembly was ordered . This pre-parliament (called the “Assembly of 34” after the number of members) was subject to severe criticism from the start.

First of all, the exclaves of the Principality of Birkenfeld and the Principality of Lübeck demanded the establishment of their own constitutions and their own state parliaments. The protests escalated in Birkenfeld in particular, so that the elections for the MPs could only take place with a delay.

In addition, the grand ducal patent fell short of the standards of the time: the state parliament was not elected, but was funded by the cities and municipalities.

The Duchy of Oldenburg nominated 28 members, whereby only the cities of Oldenburg , Jever and Delmenhorst were allowed to nominate their own candidates. The smaller cities nominated the candidates together with the municipalities at the office level. MPs could only be elected in their own constituency. The elections took place between March 22nd and 31st. 14 lawyers, 10 landowners, 2 Catholic. Clergy, 1 employee and 1 auctioneer elected.

There were 3 MPs each from the Principality of Lübeck and Birkenfeld. The elections in Birkenfeld could only take place on April 18th and 20th.

The grand-ducal government submitted a draft constitution for discussion in the Chamber on April 6, which was heavily criticized. The main points of criticism were Article 15, which granted the future state parliament no budget right, but only the right to approve new taxes, and Article 18, according to which Parliament should not have any right of initiative for laws.

On April 27, the pre-parliament was constituted in the Oldenburg town hall and elected Hofrat Ludwig Völckers as president. The constitutional deliberations lasted until May 13, 1848. The constitution was not adopted and the mandate of the 34 ended.

Constituent Parliament

On May 17, a government commission resumed its work and on June 5, 1848, a new draft constitution was submitted. This was based on the Hessian constitution of 1831 .

The constituent state parliament existed from September 1, 1848 to 1849 (also known as the unifying state parliament). After an election on January 17, 1849, Lambert Pancratz was President until February 14, 1849. On February 18, 1849, after 106 sessions of the constitution, the state parliament approves the “ constitutional state law of February 18 ”.

Similar to the Paulskirche parliament, the members of parliament organized themselves into parliamentary groups or clubs, which were named after the meeting place. The left, that is, the liberal democrats, met in the Butjadinger Hof, while the conservatives, constitutionals and supporters of the ministry were known as the casino party.

Oldenburg State Parliament

The state parliament had budget rights and the right to legislate. International treaties also had to be approved. He was called every three years by the Grand Duke , who could freely adjourn or dissolve him. If the Grand Duke dissolved the Landtag, the new Landtag had to be convened within 5 months at the latest.

The state parliament consisted of a chamber with 34 members appointed by indirect elections:

The newly elected state parliament was dissolved on September 2, 1849, after it had not approved Oldenburg's accession to the Three Kings Alliance with a narrow majority. The second elected state parliament (as well as the March government under Johann Heinrich Jakob Schloifer ) also had a short lifespan for the same reason. On December 3, 1849, he had rejected the government bill 22 to 19. In the third state parliament in 1850, it was the rejection of the budget that led to the dissolution of the state parliament. On April 4, 1851, the 4th Landtag rejected the supplementary funds for the cavalry. Here, too, the result was the dissolution of the state parliament.

With the constitutional amendment to the “Revised Basic Law for the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg” on November 22, 1852, the role of the state parliament was weakened. The change in voting rights also reflected the spirit of the reaction era. According to the new state election law, the three-class voting right was introduced.

The election took place in indirect voting in 9 constituencies , including 7 constituencies in Oldenburg, 1 in Birkenfeld and 1 for Lübeck. One voter was elected for every 300 inhabitants and one deputy for every 6000 inhabitants. The new right to vote had an effect. While the Democrats each received a majority in the first four state parliaments, they only made up a third of the representatives in the fifth state parliaments. The government now mostly had stable majorities.

Landtag trip to the Principality of Lübeck (1907)

The Oldenburg state parliament no longer played an essential role in state politics. The voter turnout was also very low from the beginning at less than 20%, which was an expression of the low importance. Even if the MPs could increasingly be assigned to parties, the formation of parliamentary groups was not common. The state parliament's rules of procedure also did not provide for any parliamentary groups. The Catholic MPs worked together on an informal level. It was only with the rise of the Social Democrats that the first formal parliamentary group was formed, which was initially called parliamentary group Hug after its chairman Paul Hug , but was then generally perceived as the SPD parliamentary group in the 20th century.

On January 1, 1868, a new state election law came into force, with which the three-class suffrage was again abolished. This change in electoral law continued to provide for 9 constituencies. One voter was elected for every 500 inhabitants and one member for every 10,000 inhabitants. These provisions reflected the population growth and were intended to reduce the number of MPs again. The three-tier voting rights were replaced by the same electoral restrictions as in 1848.

The electoral reform of 1909

SPD parliamentary group in the Oldenburg state parliament, 1916

The indirect election of members of the state parliament was abolished by the election law of April 17, 1909 (see also the right to vote in the individual German states until 1918 # Oldenburg ). The Landtag was directly elected for the first time in 1911.

The MP Johann Ahlhorn ( FVP ) submitted a motion for direct election on January 20, 1903. After the state parliament voted 32 to 7 for this proposal on October 7, 1904, a government commission was set up. After lengthy negotiations, on April 17, 1909, the “Law for the Grand Duchy, Regarding the Election of Members of Parliament” was published. According to this law, the election took place immediately and secretly. Men aged 25 and over had the right to vote. A special feature was the rule that voters over 40 years of age had a second vote. The right to vote was adopted with 35 to 9 votes in the state parliament against the votes of the SPD and the left-wing liberals.

The parties that rejected the electoral reform became the big winners of the new regulation. The 1908 state parliament consisted of 14 liberals, 18 agrarians, 8 representatives from the center and 4 members of the SPD. In 1911, 26 of 45 seats fell to the SPD and FVP , the NLP and farmers won 10 seats, the center 9, the FVP 14 and the SPD 12.

Provincial parliaments and councils

The state constitution of Oldenburg of 1849 had set up provincial parliaments for the three parts of the country as representatives of the people at the provincial level. These consisted of the members of the state parliament who had been elected in the respective parts of the country. With the constitutional revision of 1852, these provincial parliaments were abolished. In their place there was a provincial councilor each for the regions of Lübeck and Birkenfeld, with 11 seats in the Principality of Lübeck and 15 in the Principality of Birkenfeld.

Free State of Oldenburg

**Oldenburg State Parliament**
Country flag	State coat of arms

Basic data
Seat:	Oldenburg
Elective system :	Proportional election with closed lists
Number of votes:	1
Calculation method:	Hare-Niemeyer method
Number of constituencies :	3 (Oldenburg, Lübeck and Birkenfeld)
Eligible voters :	around 293,000 (1919) to 368,000 (1933)
Legislative period :	3 years
First session:	February 20, 1919

During the time of the Weimar Republic , the state parliament of the Free State of Oldenburg was elected for a three-year term according to the democratic principle. The respective state elections took place in 1919, 1920, 1923, 1925, 1928, 1931, 1932 and 1933. The last session of the state parliament was held in 1933 before it was dissolved by the National Socialists.

Legal basis and structure

According to Section 6 of the Constitution of the Free State of Oldenburg of June 17, 1919, the state parliament consisted of a maximum of 48 members (39 from Oldenburg, 4 from Lübeck, 5 from Birkenfeld), who were elected for a term of three years according to the principle of proportional representation . The minimum age for the active right to vote was 21 years and for the passive right to vote 25 years.

Its tasks were the legislative, the supervision of the state leadership and administration, the exercise of the budget right, the choice of the state ministry and, if necessary, the ministerial indictment.

The legal basis for the election of the state parliament was the state election law of January 30, 1919.

With the law on the rebuilding of the Reich of January 30, 1934, the state parliament was dissolved. After the Second World War , the State of Lower Saxony was established in place of the State of Oldenburg . Its Landtag took over the functions of the Landtag of the predecessor countries.

State elections

State election 1919

Election to the constituent state assembly

Turnout: 66.55%

%

40

30th

20th

10

0

33.44%

31.08%

21.97%

11.38%

2.13%

On February 23, 1919 (or March 9, 1919 for the Birkenfeld part of the country), the election for the constituent state assembly took place.

State election 1919
Political party	Voting share in%	Seats	Change (seats)
SPD	33.44%	16 seats
DDP	31.08%	15 seats
center	21.97%	11 seats
German People's Party	11.38%	5 seats
DNVP	2.13%	1 seats