Presidential Cabinet

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The presidential cabinets are commonly referred to as the last three imperial governments of the Weimar Republic under Heinrich Brüning ( center ), Franz von Papen (non-party) and Kurt von Schleicher (non-party). Sometimes there is also talk of a presidential dictatorship , but sometimes a distinction is made between a presidential government and a presidential dictatorship , referring to the difference between the former and the latter two of the three cabinets (see below).

According to Article 53 of the Weimar Constitution , each Reich Cabinet was appointed by the Reich President . The decisive difference to previous minority governments and characteristic of this last phase of the Weimar Republic was that Reich President Paul von Hindenburg had to support the Reich government in a special way: He made use of Article 48 of the constitution, according to which the Reich President was allowed to issue emergency ordinances with the force of law. Even if the Reichstag was able to repeal these emergency ordinances with a simple majority, the legislative activities of the parliament could be circumvented.

Reasons for Hindenburg to use this means, besides the inability of the wing parties to compromise in the dispute over unemployment insurance, were his declared intention to force the SPD out of government responsibility. This led to the break of the grand coalition under Chancellor Hermann Müller on March 27, 1930 ( Müller II cabinet ). Subsequently, the SPD, the Center Party , the Bavarian People's Party and the German Democratic Party would have still had a majority even without the compromise-reluctant German People's Party , but the bourgeois parties preferred to support the new Chancellor Heinrich Brüning from the Center. In the Reichstag elections on September 14, 1930 , the pro-republic parties lost; the NSDAP received 18.3 percent of the vote.

The Brüning I and Brüning II cabinets were bourgeois minority cabinets . In contrast to the KPD, DNVP and NSDAP, the SPD, which was not represented in the government, tolerated these cabinets, although the budget of the Brüning I cabinet had meanwhile been rejected by the SPD, which Hindenburg replied by dissolving the Reichstag. After Brüning von Hindenburg was dismissed in May 1932, this changed: the SPD was not prepared to tolerate Brüning's successor, Papen, and after the new elections on July 31, the KPD and NSDAP had a negative majority in the Reichstag even without the SPD . Even the regular meeting of the Reichstag was a threat to the government, as their resignation was immediately demanded. By dissolving the newly elected Reichstag at its first session, in accordance with a decree from Hindenburg, the Papen government gained some breathing space. But Reich President von Hindenburg did not want to continue the unstable presidential cabinet and instead wanted to see a cabinet on a parliamentary basis again. After Papen's successor Kurt von Schleicher had also failed, he agreed to Hitler’s coalition government , which took office on January 30, 1933. It was formed by the NSDAP and DNVP with the participation of Papens and only received a parliamentary majority after the Reichstag was again dissolved and the new elections on March 5 .

Moderate presidential cabinets: Brüning

Establishment

As early as the spring of 1929, Schleicher had spoken to Brüning about a planned "Hindenburg government" that would govern with the help of emergency ordinances. Both met again on December 26th, this time also Reichswehr Minister Wilhelm Groener , the former DNVP deputy Gottfried Treviranus and Hindenburg's State Secretary Otto Meissner ; they all tried to persuade Briining to take over the leadership of a government based on Article 48 after the Youngplan laws were passed in March 1930. Briining still hesitated. In January 1930, Meissner discussed with Kuno von Westarp , the parliamentary group leader of the German National People's Party , the possibility of installing an “ anti-parliamentary and anti-Marxist ” government after the Young Plan had been passed , which would do without the support of the SPD and without the confidence of the Reichstag. On March 1, 1930, Brüning agreed to Hindenburg to form a cabinet without the SPD. He was already considering new elections, which he wanted to schedule for the summer of 1930.

On March 27, 1930, the grand coalition under Hermann Müller ( SPD ) failed in the dispute over half a percent contribution to unemployment insurance after the Reich President refused, contrary to his previous promise, to grant this cabinet the powers of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution.

Just three days later, Hindenburg appointed Heinrich Brüning as the new Chancellor. The new cabinet consisted of members of the previous government factions with the exception of the Social Democrats and was expanded to include representatives from Hindenburg's former conservative wing of the DNVP. As a result, Schleicher and the Reich President had a decisive influence on the government - according to the Berlin historian Henning Köhler , the Reich Chancellor was only their “junior partner for handling current business”. According to the ideas of the Reich President and his advisors, the new government should turn right. Although she did not have a majority in the Reichstag, she passed motions of no confidence on the part of the SPD and the KPD, as parts of the German Nationalists initially supported her against Alfred Hugenberg's will . But after just a few weeks, the SPD, KPD, NSDAP and now parts of the DNVP voted against a proposal by Brüning to cover the Reich budget. This contained tax increases and restrictions on unemployment insurance benefits. Brüning initially negotiated with the SPD in order to reach a compromise, but gave up on his own initiative early because he feared that he would lose the support of the moderate right-wing parties if he made an agreement with the SPD. After the Reichstag had rejected the cover bill, it was put into effect in the form of two emergency ordinances by Hindenburg. The Reich President (Hindenburg) relied on Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution , the Emergency Act. Such emergency ordinances could, however, be canceled by the Reichstag at any time. And that is exactly what happened to the two emergency ordinances two days later - with a narrow majority they were overruled at the request of the Social Democrats. Brüning's proposal for cover seemed to have finally failed. But immediately after this vote, which suspended the two emergency laws, Brüning read a decree of the Reich President in the Reichstag that dissolved the Reichstag. Eight days later, the government (through the Reich President, who supported them) reinstated the two emergency ordinances in a more stringent form - only this time there was no Reichstag that could have declared them null and void again.

The new elections for the Reichstag on September 14, 1930 , due to the Hindenburg resolution, took place against the backdrop of the global economic crisis that had started in Germany in the spring of 1930. The Frankfurter Zeitung described them as "bitterness". The result was fatal: The NSDAP was able to increase its number of seats from 12 to 107 and was suddenly the second largest party. Hindenburg let it be known that he would dissolve the Reichstag immediately if it were to reject the emergency ordinances again - new elections would only be of advantage for the KPD and especially for the NSDAP. Therefore, caught in this dilemma, the SPD decided to tolerate Brüning's policy. With the votes of the Social Democrats, the motions of no confidence by the DNVP, the NSDAP and the KPD against the Brüning government were henceforth rejected. The SPD now had to support a policy on which it had no influence.

mechanism

Now the mechanism of the moderate presidential government set in : If a government bill did not find a majority in the Reichstag, the Reich President put it into effect in the form of an emergency ordinance , although the constitution only provided these emergency ordinances for emergency situations. The constitution (Art. 48) did not specify how an emergency situation was to be defined and who could identify it. It said only "The details are regulated by a Reich law". However, such a law has never been passed.

If the Reichstag exercised the right to demand the repeal of the emergency ordinance from the Reich President, or if the Reich Chancellor expressed his distrust, the Reich President dissolved parliament in accordance with Article 25 of the Constitution. According to the constitution, new elections had to be held after sixty days at the latest, and the elected Reichstag had to meet after another 30 days at the latest.

During these ninety days the cabinet was able to rule with emergency decrees issued by the Reich President. Both the executive and the legislative now lay with the Reich President and the Reich Chancellor, who had to countersign the emergency ordinances. The separation of powers was thus largely abolished. In 1931 there were only 34 laws passed by the Reichstag , but 44 emergency ordinances.

This relatively stable "Brüning system" was based on the parliamentary tolerance of the government by the SPD: the Reichstag could have overruled the emergency ordinances with a majority. The SPD, however, which saw Brüning as the lesser evil in comparison to the communists and national socialists, prevented this. Furthermore, the Reichstag could have passed a referendum on the removal of the Reich President by a two-thirds majority (Art. 43) or indict the Reich President at the State Court of Justice for the German Reich (Art. 59).

fail

With the tolerance by the SPD, Brüning was able to rule relatively stable until May 1932, although he was decried as a “hunger dictator”: His sharp austerity and deflation policy exacerbated the global economic crisis and impoverished large sections of the population. This practice contradicted his original mandate, namely to govern “anti-Marxist”. The contradiction came to a head when Hindenburg was re-elected in the spring of 1932 . Opposing candidates were the communist Ernst Thälmann and Adolf Hitler . Again the SPD agreed to support the lesser evil, and with their help Hindenburg was re-elected, but resented the Chancellor for making him dependent on the Bismarck enemies, the Catholics and the Social Democrats.

The ban on the SA and SS of April 13, 1932, seemed to move the Reich government even further to the left. This contradicted the plans of the camarilla around Hindenburg, because Schleicher intended to involve the SA in the illegal rearmament of the Reichswehr that he was planning. This was intended to introduce the NSDAP to the state and thereby “tame” it. The SA ban had to interfere. As a result, Groener had to resign as Reichswehr Minister . Another reason for Brüning's overthrow was the Osthilfe ordinance , which was heavily criticized by the East Prussian landowners - including the Reich President himself. When Hindenburg then declared that he would no longer sign Briining's emergency decree, the entire cabinet resigned on May 30; the foreign policy successes, such as the deferral of reparations payments for one year (June 20, 1931, Hoover moratorium ) were no longer of any use. The time of the moderate presidential cabinets, which was still characterized by an albeit rudimentary co-responsibility of Parliament, was over. The era of pure presidential cabinets began, ruling without or even against the Reichstag, or, in Karl Dietrich Bracher's terminology , the “phase of the loss of power” under Brüning was followed by the “phase of the power vacuum” among his successors.

Pure presidential cabinets: Papen and Schleicher

The next Chancellor was Franz von Papen from the extreme right wing of the Center Party. Because of the "Cabinet of Barons" he formed, he was expelled from the party. On May 8, 1932, Schleicher had agreed with Adolf Hitler that the NSDAP would tolerate the new government; In return, Schleicher had promised to lift the SA ban and to dissolve the Reichstag. Papen kept this promise, as a result of which there were civil war-like clashes between the re-admitted SA and their opponents. The NSDAP used the outcome of the Lausanne conference , where Papen had not been able to push through the hoped-for total cancellation of the reparations, in order to cancel the promise of tolerance in July.

In the Reichstag elections of July 31, 1932 , the NSDAP was the strongest party with 37.3 percent of the votes cast. Together with the communists, who received 14.3 percent, they had a negative majority in parliament: the Reichstag was paralyzed. On September 12, the Papen government suffered an unprecedented defeat when the Reichstag cast its mistrust with 512 votes to just 42. Papen had already come to the session with Hindenburg's dissolution order, but the President of the Reichstag, Hermann Goering, had deliberately ignored him. New elections were now scheduled for November 6, 1932. Papen had tried to persuade Hindenburg not to set an election date, but the Reich President shrank from this obvious breach of the constitution.

The Reichstag elections of November 6, 1932 resulted in a lower number of votes for the NSDAP (33.1 instead of 37.3%), but did nothing to change the messy situation that the two parties that radically rejected the Weimar Republic had a joint majority. Nevertheless, Hindenburg once again entrusted Papen with the formation of the government, who now openly pleaded for a state of emergency to be declared: the incapacitated Reichstag should be dissolved again and the new elections suspended until the political radicalism subsided as the global economic crisis subsided. Until then, one must rule against the constitution with the support of the Reichswehr . Schleicher prevented this project by commissioning his subordinate Eugen Ott to run a simulation game that showed that in the event of a civil war, the Reichswehr would be inferior to the armed forces of the National Socialists and the Communists.

Papen then resigned and Hindenburg appointed Schleicher Chancellor on December 3, 1932. After his plan for a cross-front of all socially oriented forces from the free trade unions to the workers' wing of the center to the left wing of the NSDAP around Gregor Strasser had failed, he also pleaded for a coup d'état : the Reichstag should be dissolved without setting a date for new elections. When Hindenburg again refused, Schleicher resigned on January 28, 1933.

Legislative practice among the presidential governments

In the course of the presidential cabinets there has been a clear shift in weight away from the legislative competence of the Reichstag towards the presidential cabinets, which governed with presidential emergency ordinances, as Karl Dietrich Bracher pointed out:

1930 1931 1932
Laws passed by the Reichstag 98 34 5
Presidential emergency ordinances 5 44 66
Session days of the Reichstag 94 41 13

Transition to the National Socialist dictatorship: Hitler

On November 23, 1932, Adolf Hitler had applied to the State Secretary Otto Meißner to run a presidential cabinet, but Reich President Hindenburg rejected this application on November 24, 1932, fearing that a presidential cabinet led by Hitler would inevitably become one Party dictatorship with all its consequences for an extraordinary intensification of the differences in the German people would develop ”, which he (Hindenburg)“ could not answer in front of his oath and his conscience. ”

On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed the new Reich Chancellor by Hindenburg, after he had succeeded with von Papen's help in putting together a coalition government, the so-called “Cabinet of National Concentration”, which with 41.4% (NSDAP 33.1 %, DNVP 8.3%) did not have a majority in the Reichstag. Hitler's “Cabinet of National Concentration” was initially (see below) still a presidential cabinet. Franz von Papen became Hitler's vice chancellor . The appointment of Hitler was covered by Section 53 of the Weimar Constitution . Hitler seemed to be in continuity with his predecessors, but in contrast to his predecessors, he had a mass base.

Hitler's “presidential cabinet time” ended in March with the Reichstag election in 1933 : now his cabinet also had a parliamentary majority: NSDAP 43.9%, DNVP 8.0%. The governing parties were no longer threatened by a vote of no confidence and had a majority for Reich laws, so that the emergency decrees of the Reich President were no longer necessary.

Nevertheless, to secure his power, Hitler worked towards an enabling law . Such a law allowed the government to issue statutory ordinances during the Weimar period. This was considered permissible if the Reichstag passed a two-thirds majority. Hitler's Enabling Act of March 24, 1933 went far beyond that: the government has even been allowed to pass laws since then, completely disregarding the Reich constitution.

Lessons from the Presidential Cabinets

The fathers and mothers of the Basic Law 1948/1949 wanted to learn from the actual or supposed errors of the Weimar constitution. That is why they have weakened the position of the Federal President . He usually only fulfills representative and state notarial tasks. Although he is entrusted with the countersignature and execution of new federal laws (which is what makes them valid), he can only refuse to do so in very limited cases (e.g. if they are obviously unconstitutional). In particular, he has no material veto right .

In special exceptional situations (no governable majority in the Bundestag ), the Federal President can dissolve parliament. However, as a legislative emergency, it can only resolve to disempower the Bundestag in a complicated way at the request of the Federal Government and with the consent of the Bundesrat . The Bundestag has been dissolved three times in the history of the Federal Republic: 1972, 1982 and 2005. They were deliberately brought about by the Chancellor and the majority of the Bundestag in order to achieve the desired new elections. The disempowerment due to a legislative emergency, however, has never occurred.

One reaction to the Imperial Constitution was the five percent hurdle in the federal electoral law : only those parties can enter parliament that receive at least five percent of the valid second votes cast . The regulation is intended to prevent small parties from complicating parliamentary work or making it impossible. In the Weimar Republic, the number of parties in the Reichstag was relatively high, especially in the fourth and fifth legislative periods ( 1928 to 1930 and 1930 to 1932 ). It is assumed that a five percent hurdle would have benefited the traditional parties, so that stable parliamentary majorities could have emerged more easily.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For example Peter Longerich : Germany 1918-1933 , p. 325.
  2. ^ Johannes Hürter : Wilhelm Groener. Reichswehr Minister at the end of the Weimar Republic (1928–1932) . Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, p. 241 ff.
  3. ^ Karl Dietrich Bracher : The dissolution of the Weimar Republic. A study on the problem of the decline in power in a democracy . Paperback edition, Droste, Düsseldorf 1984, p. 288 f.
  4. ↑ Philipp Heyde: The end of the reparations. Germany, France and the Youngplan. Schöningh, Paderborn 1998, p. 73 f.
  5. ^ Hans Mommsen : Rise and Fall of the Weimar Republic 1918–1933 . Ullstein, Berlin 1997, pp. 347-356.
  6. ^ Henning Köhler: Germany on the way to itself. A history of the century . Hohenheim-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, p. 221.
  7. ^ Gerhard Schulz : From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= between democracy and dictatorship. Constitutional policy and imperial reform in the Weimar Republic. Vol. 3). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, pp. 24-120.
  8. ↑ Gabor Steingart : The question of power. Views of a non-voter. Piper, Munich 2009, p. 112.
  9. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber : Expansion, protection and fall of the Weimar Republic (= German constitutional history since 1789 , vol. VII), Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1984, p. 778 ff .; Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= between democracy and dictatorship. Constitutional policy and imperial reform in the Weimar Republic. Vol. 3). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, pp. 121-125 and 202-207.
  10. ↑ Also on the following Ernst Rudolf Huber: Expansion, protection and fall of the Weimar Republic (= German constitutional history since 1789 , vol. VII), Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1984, pp. 810–817 and others; Philipp Heyde: The end of the reparations. Germany, France and the Youngplan. Schöningh, Paderborn 1998, p. 97 f; Henning Köhler: Germany on the way to itself. A story of the century . Hohenheim-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, p. 236 ff.
  11. ↑ The term originally comes from the right-wing extremist polemics against Brüning, see Eduard Stadtler : Brüning does it? Berlin 1931, p. 29; see. Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= between democracy and dictatorship. Constitutional policy and imperial reform in the Weimar Republic. Vol. 3). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, p. 241.
  12. ↑ Philipp Heyde: The end of the reparations. Germany, France and the Youngplan. Schöningh, Paderborn 1998, p. 179.
  13. ^ Henning Köhler: Germany on the way to itself. A history of the century . Hohenheim-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, p. 249 f.
  14. ↑ Eberhard Kolb : The Weimar Republic. Oldenbourg, Munich 1988, p. 134.
  15. ^ Johannes Hürter: Wilhelm Groener. Reichswehr Minister at the end of the Weimar Republic (1928–1932) . Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, pp. 328-352.
  16. ^ Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= between democracy and dictatorship. Constitutional policy and imperial reform in the Weimar Republic. Vol. 3). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, pp. 800-865.
  17. ^ Henning Köhler: Germany on the way to itself. A history of the century . Hohenheim-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, p. 260.
  18. ^ Karl Dietrich Bracher : The dissolution of the Weimar Republic. A study on the problem of the decline in power in a democracy . Paperback edition, Droste, Düsseldorf 1984, pp. 255 and 463.
  19. ↑ Gotthard Jasper : The failed taming. Paths to Hitler's seizure of power 1930–1934 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1986, pp. 88-93.
  20. ↑ Philipp Heyde: The end of the reparations. Germany, France and the Youngplan. Schöningh, Paderborn 1998, p. 444.
  21. ↑ Eberhard Kolb: The Weimar Republic. Oldenbourg, Munich 1988, p. 134; Richard J. Evans : The Third Reich, Vol. I: Rise . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Munich 2004, p. 394 ff.
  22. ^ Hagen Schulze : Weimar. Germany 1917–1933 . Siedler, Berlin 1994, p. 384 ff.
  23. ↑ Eberhard Kolb: The Weimar Republic. Oldenbourg, Munich 1988, p. 136.
  24. ↑ Eberhard Kolb: The Weimar Republic. Oldenbourg, Munich 1988, pp. 136 and 253.
  25. ^ Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= between democracy and dictatorship. Constitutional policy and imperial reform in the Weimar Republic. Vol. 3). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, pp. 1028 ff .; Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar. The history of the first German democracy . Beck, Munich 1993, p. 581 f.
  26. ^ Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= between democracy and dictatorship. Constitutional policy and imperial reform in the Weimar Republic. Vol. 3). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, pp. 1034-1044.
  27. ↑ Quoted from Karl Dietrich Bracher: Democracy and Power Vacuum. On the problem of the party state in the dissolution of the Weimar Republic. In: the same (ed.): Weimar - self-disclosure of a democracy. Düsseldorf 1980, p. 129.
  28. ↑ Federal Archives: No. 226 Adolf Hitler to State Secretary Meissner, November 23, 1932
  29. ^ Federal Archives: No. 227, State Secretary Meissner to Adolf Hitler. November 24, 1932

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