Original copies of the Frankfurt Imperial Constitution
The Frankfurt constitution of March 28, 1849 was made out in three original copies . These three copies of the first print were signed by members of the Frankfurt National Assembly : the "Berliner", the "Kasseler" and a third, which is considered lost.
In the Reichsgesetzblatt (16th issue) the Reich constitution appeared with a list of 400 members who have signed the constitution. A comparison with the Berlin copy showed that the Berlin copy lists five additional MPs. (The total number of all MPs ever elected was far higher.)
Berlin copy
The Berlin copy is considered an original document. Almost all MPs have signed. It is possible that the emperor's deputation carried it with him to present it to the Prussian king. It was printed on sheets of parchment 36 centimeters high and 25.5 centimeters wide. The front of the title page shows an imperial eagle and the inscription "Reichstag library". The printer was C. Krebs-Schmitt in Frankfurt am Main . Many signatures are barely legible. The precious binding suggests that a restorer worked in the 20th century.
Like other files, the copy initially remained in the possession of Friedrich Siegmund Jucho , the administrator of the National Assembly. He tried in vain to store the copy in the city archive or the city library in Frankfurt . While in 1852 he had to hand over the files to the Frankfurt police office and the Bundestag, he kept the constitutional document.
Jucho was put under pressure with fines because he had long since had the copy brought to a friend in Manchester , UK . Jucho received it again in 1866 and presented it to Eduard Simson, President of the North German Reichstag , in March 1870 . Although the Reichstag is not the legal successor to the National Assembly, it is nevertheless the legal representative of the greater part of the German people.
After that it remained in the office of the President of the Reichstag in Berlin and since 1924 in the Reichstag library. It was stolen in a burglary in 1930 but was soon retrieved. It was only after the Reichstag fire in 1933 that the Reich Archives succeeded in obtaining the copy in March 1933.
During the Second World War , in January 1944, the collection of laws in the Reich Archives was relocated to the Staßfurt potash pits. Then the track is lost. By chance, a certain Klaus Trieglaff discovered the certificate in 1951 in a heap of rubble in the New Garden of Potsdam . The seventeen year old sought advice from a former history teacher. This referred him to the Museum of German History in Berlin.
Kassel copy
The Kassel copy is in the Kassel State Library (2 ° Ms. hist. 62 in the manuscript department). The 26 leaves are in a binding, which is adorned with a double-headed eagle. The leaves are gilt edged. So it is the more luxurious copy.
It is unknown why the Kassel librarian Karl Bernhardi received it. He was a member of parliament and collected 207 signatures in the hustle and bustle of the day. A member of parliament ( Johannes Zeltner ) accidentally signed twice. Then there were two more signatures. Seven of the signatures are missing in the Berlin copy. On June 4, 1849, Bernhardi gave the Kassel copy to the electoral state library.
literature
- The Frankfurt Reich Constitution: Reproduction of the Kassel original supplemented by the signatures of the members of the Berlin original and the names from the Reichs-Gesetz-Blatt dated April 28, 1849 , edited and introduced by Franz Neumann with contributions to the document history by Hartmut Broszinski and Judith Uhlig. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1989 (Kassel Semester Books, Pretiosa Cassellana 3)
Web links
Digitized version of the Kassel copy
supporting documents
- ↑ Christian Jansen: Unity, Power and Freedom. The Paulskirche left and German politics in the post-revolutionary epoch 1849-1867. Droste, Düsseldorf 2000, p. 69.