Provincial Parliament of the Province of West Prussia

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State House of the Province of West Prussia in Danzig, seat of the Provincial Parliament

The Provincial Parliament of the Province of West Prussia was the highest parliament in the Prussian Province of West Prussia with its seat in Danzig . It was located below the Prussian state parliament and existed between 1878 and 1919 in the province of West Prussia.

history

prehistory

In 1823 King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Provincial parishes in all Prussian provinces . However, no separate provincial parliaments were set up for the provinces of West Prussia and East Prussia. Instead, a joint provincial parliament of the Province of Prussia was established . The request of the provincial assembly to set up municipal assemblies below it was not fulfilled. In 1824 the first provincial parliament of the united province of Prussia took place in Königsberg . The provincial parliaments changed annually between Gdansk and Königsberg. In 1829 the two old Prussian provinces were united into one province of Prussia.

history

With the provincial order of January 22, 1875 this structure was abandoned and separate provincial parliaments were formed for both provinces. A joint state parliament met for the last time on June 5, 1877. On March 19, 1878, the first session of the new Provincial Parliament of the Province of West Prussia was held. The royal commissioner was President Heinrich von Achenbach .

The provincial assembly consisted of representatives from the city and rural districts. In the cities, the deputies were elected by the city councils. These were elected according to the Prussian city order of 1853 according to the three-class suffrage. The district councils elected the representatives of the districts. These were chosen from 3 electoral associations: large landowners, representatives of the cities, and representatives of the rural communities.

His tasks were varied. This included, among other things: road construction, small railways, amelioration and agricultural funding as well as welfare and cultural funding. In 1918 the province of West Prussia operated 3 provincial sanatoriums and nursing homes (lunatic), 2 institutions for the deaf and dumb, a reformatory and rural poor institution, an institution for the blind, a provincial midwifery training institution and a women's clinic. In the 1890s, rural poor support was added to the tasks. While the transport infrastructure still consumed 65% of the budget at the beginning of the 1880s, this proportion fell to 26.2% by 1919. Conversely, social spending increased accordingly.

The provincial parliament elected the provincial committee. This led the business between the state parliaments. The provincial directors (since 1896 title governor) were elected as heads of the provincial administration .

After the end of the First World War , large parts of the province of West Prussia were annexed by Poland or, as the Free City of Danzig, separated from the Reich against the will of the population. This ended the history of the Province of West Prussia and that of the Provincial Parliament. The eastern part of the remainder of the province in Germany became the administrative district West Prussia of the province East Prussia , the western part of the new province Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia . The provincial parliaments there were thus the successors of the provincial parliaments of the Province of West Prussia. In the Free City of Danzig, the People's Day was set up to represent the people.

tasks

The most important task was the budget right over the budget of the Provincial Association of West Prussia. This resulted in the provincial blind institution, the three provincial lunatic asylums ( provincial lunatic asylum Schwetz , provincial lunatic asylum Neustadt in West Prussia and provincial lunatic asylum Conradstein near Pr. Stargard ), the provincial educational institution in Tempelburg near Danzig, the reformatory and rural poor institution in Konitz financed the welfare education of minors, the control of animal diseases and the construction and maintenance of the provincial highways.

Seat

Plan of the State House of the Province of West Prussia, Gdansk

In 1880, the provincial parliament decided to build its own state house. In 1882-1885 the Provincial House of West Prussia was built in Danzig as the seat of the Provincial Parliament. The architects were Hermann Ende and Wilhelm Böckmann . In 1896 the ballroom was decorated with statues of Frederick the Great and Emperor Wilhelm I and the house was officially opened.

people

Chair of the Provincial Parliament

Chairman Provincial Committee

State directors / governors

literature

  • Klaus von der Groeben: Province of West Prussia; in: Gerd Heinrich, Friedrich-Wilhelm Henning, Kurt GA Jeserich: Administrative history of East Germany 1815-1945; 1992, ISBN 3-17-011338-0 , pp. 355-357, pp. 286-292
  • Wolfgang Neugebauer: Political Change in the East: East and West Prussia from the old estates to constitutionalism, 1992, ISBN 3-515-06127-4
  • Hans-Peter Schneider, Wolfgang Zeh (Eds.): Parliamentary Law and Parliamentary Practice in the Federal Republic of Germany: A Manual, 1989, ISBN 978-3-11-089322-9 , p. 1853, online