Prussian State Council (1921-1933)
The Prussian State Council was the second chamber in the Free State of Prussia from 1921 to 1933, alongside the Prussian Landtag , as laid down in Article 31 of the Prussian Constitution of 1920 .
prehistory
The State Council in the Kingdom of Prussia until 1848 was an important institution within the Prussian executive , but its importance waned with the development of constitutionalism . The State Council prepared reports and made recommendations. The decision-making power lay solely with the King and Cabinet .
With the increasing constitutionalization and the associated demand for the separation of powers , the continued existence of the State Council was called into question. The Prussian constitution of 1850 no longer provided for the State Council. With the decree of January 12, 1852, a revival was attempted. In the constitutional state, however, the Council of State found no proper place. The resuscitation attempt made in 1884 and the transfer of the chairmanship to Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm also had no notable success. He finally fell asleep.
Free State of Prussia
General
With the adoption of the Prussian Constitution on November 30, 1920 , Article 31 established the Council of State as an organ for the participation of the provinces in legislation . Although the Free State of Prussia formed a unitary state , i.e. its provinces were not member states , a federal element was added to the state structure in this way .
As the upper house of the Prussian Parliament, the State Council met in the former Prussian mansion on Leipziger Strasse in Berlin .
The Council of State was made up of members sent by the provincial parliaments. Any citizen over 25 years of age could be elected. The number of envoys in a province depended on the size of the population, each province generally sent at least 3 representatives (exception: Hohenzollern Lands : 1 representative), otherwise each 500,000 inhabitants had one vote, and a remainder of at least 250,000 inhabitants had another vote .
Like the Reichsrat in the Reich, the State Council only had the right to object to the Landtag . His objection could be rejected with a two-thirds majority in the state parliament. He also had an indirect right of initiative: Proposals were sent to the state ministry , which had to pass them on to the state parliament. All state expenditures that exceeded the budget required the approval of the State Council. The Council of State had the right to comment on all matters relating to the Landtag and thus to legislation. He had the right to information from the State Ministry.
The State Council was convened by the chairman, the President, at the request of all representatives of a province, one fifth of all members or the State Ministry.
The office of the President of the State Council was held from 1921 to 1933 by the Lord Mayor of Cologne , Konrad Adenauer ( center ).
Representative of the provinces in the Prussian State Council
About a month after the dates of the provincial state elections, the elections of the members of the Prussian State Council took place by the provincial parliaments (on different election dates). In the following list the election days for the provincial state elections are given.
| election day | number | AG 1 | SPD | Z | USPD | DDP | KPD | DHP | WP | NSDAP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 21, 1921 | 79 | 26th | 20th | 20th | 6th | 3 | 3 | 1 | ||
| 10/16/1921 | 79 | 26th | 21st | 20th | 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | ||
| 11/19/1922 | 77 | 26th | 20th | 19th | 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | ||
| 11/29/1925 | 81 | 32 | 24 | 17th | 2 | 5 | 1 | |||
| 11/17/1929 | 81 | 28 | 22nd | 19th | 3 | 6th | 3 | |||
| 3/12/1933 | 80 | 6th | 8th | 12 | 54 |
1 AG: Prussian working group in the State Council: DNVP , DVP and other civil and right-wing parties
The deputy and full members of the State Council can be found in the list of members of the Prussian State Council (1921–1933) .
State Council versus State Ministry
Article 31 of the Prussian Constitution of 1920 stated: “A State Council is formed to represent the provinces in the legislative and administrative process of the state.” The President of the State Council, Konrad Adenauer , was said to have had separatist aspirations and, as a central politician , had considerable reserves from the Prussian state government , always took the view to Prime Minister Otto Braun that the state government's dealings with the State Council did not take sufficient account of its constitutional position. Since Braun and the entire State Ministry were of a different opinion (Braun feared interference with his policy-making authority as Prime Minister, the other ministers, including those of the center, feared a possible watering down of the democratic reforms by the conservative East Elbe provinces), a rivalry developed between the two politicians and its state organs, which led to a blockade of the State Council until the early 1930s. Adenauer brought his case to the State Court for the German Reich as early as 1922 . This finally brought about a settlement in 1923 after Adenauer had withdrawn most of his claims.
Adenauer's “small war” against Braun is likely to have at least weakened the Prussian state government, if not even damaged it.
Political end in 1932 and rededication in 1933
The state election of April 24, 1932 , which did not result in a government majority, also largely deprived the State Council of its ability to act. Statutory and budget resolutions could no longer be implemented. The " Preussenschlag " of July 20, 1932 , in which the national-conservative Reich government based on Hindenburg, largely without a party - based on an emergency decree of the Reich President (who was a clear opponent of Otto Braun's policy) - took over executive law in Prussia , also left the State Council hardly any action space. After the state government and two parliamentary groups brought an action before the State Court of Justice for the German Reich , the latter decided: The emergency ordinance should not have deprived the state government led by Otto Braun of the representation of Prussia in the Reichsrat or otherwise in relation to the Reich or Prussian state parliament, but it was constitutional insofar as it was appointed the Reich Chancellor as Reich Commissioner for Prussia and empowered him to temporarily withdraw official powers from Prussian state ministers and to take over these powers himself or to transfer them to other Reich commissioners.
On February 4, 1933 requested Landtagspräsident Hanns Kerrl ( NSDAP ) from making political interest in an early state election a self-dissolution of the Diet , the democratic from the remaining members of parliament ( SPD , German Center Party , DStP ) was denied and the lack of majority did not materialize. The three-man college of state parliament, ministerial and state council presidents, necessary for the dissolution , understandably did not take such a resolution either, since a new election would most likely have deprived Braun and, in the long term, Adenauer of their offices and Kerrl therefore did not achieve a majority for his application. Kerrl then turned to Reich President Hindenburg , who illegally deprived Braun of his remaining powers with an emergency ordinance on February 6, 1933 and replaced him with the Reich Commissioner for Prussia, Franz von Papen . Adenauer stayed in office. When the three-man college met again, Adenauer left the room before the vote, probably convinced that this had made a decision legally impossible. Papen and Kerrl, on the other hand, interpreted Adenauer's action as an abstention in the interests of their objectives and resolved to dissolve the state parliament; There are considerable doubts about the legality of this procedure. In the new election on March 5, which took place parallel to the Reichstag elections, the NSDAP obtained the majority required to pass a Prussian Enabling Act that gave the Reich Chancellor any authority over the country. The Council of State was thus finally stripped of its colegislative and co-executive functions. In the elections to the provincial parliaments that took place in the same month, the NSDAP was also able to secure a majority of the seats in the State Council. On April 26, the committee elected Robert Ley , the head of the Reich organization of the NSDAP, to succeed Adenauer. With the Prussian "Law on the State Council" of July 8, 1933, the State Council was dissolved in its previous function.
Simultaneously with the dissolution of the old State Council, a new institution of the same name was created. The Council of State now consisted of members by virtue of office and those appointed by Hermann Göring in his function as Prussian Prime Minister in order to award them the title of Council of State.
Re-use of the building
The building (to this day still referred to as the “mansion”) was used from 1934 by the Prussian House Foundation under Hermann Göring to promote the historical continuity of Prussianism and National Socialism . The newly established People's Court used the office space for a short time . Then the building served as the house of the aviators and housed some of Göring's subordinate departments and offices. In the plenary hall meets only since 2000, a parliament after the Federal Council had taken his seat in Berlin.
Members
The members are listed in the list of members of the Prussian State Council (1921–1933) .
literature
- Joachim Lilla : The Prussian State Council 1921–1933. A biographical manual. With a documentation of the State Councilors appointed in the “Third Reich” (= manuals on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 13). Droste, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-7700-5271-4 .
- Hans Schneider : The Prussian State Council 1817–1918. A contribution to the constitutional and legal history of Prussia. CH Beck, Munich 1952 (at the same time: Berlin, Business School, Habil.-Schr., 1939/1940).
- Friedrich Giese : Staatsrat , in: Kurt Jagow , Paul Herre : Political Concise Dictionary . Koehler, Leipzig 1923, Volume 2, pp. 701 f.