Reichsland solution
The Reichsland solution of 1928 was intended to reorganize the relations between the Reich and the Länder. It had been proposed by the Federation for the Renewal of the Reich (Lutherbund) as part of the Reich reform movement , as a compromise between the Unitarian North Germans and the federal South Germans.
According to this , a Reichsland should emerge in Northern Germany , at least out of Prussia . This Reichsland would have been administered directly by the Reich. In southern Germany there would still have been countries.
plan
A memorandum dated October 7, 1928 described how the dualism of Reich and Prussia should be overcome. Accordingly, Prussia was to become an empire. The other north German and some central German states would also have come to the Reichsland. The rest of the previous member states, namely Bavaria , Saxony , Württemberg and Baden , were to continue to be German member states , with their own state governments and state administrations . This met the need of the southern German states for independence.
The Reichsland would have had the Reich organs as organs : the Reich President , the Reich Government and the Reichstag . This corresponded to the centralistic ideas that were widespread in northern Germany. The Reichsland would have consisted of provinces that were supposed to have somewhat more powers than the previous Prussian provinces. A Reichsland province would have received a Reich Ober- President who would have been installed by the Reich President. In addition, there would have been a governor who was to be elected by the provincial parliament.
In the Reichsrat the Reichsland-Provinces would have led the corresponding votes. The memorandum also promised that the Reichsrat could get more rights in order to counteract a unitarization. The Reichsrat would have become a second chamber of parliament.
Rejection
The Prussian state government was not ready for such a far-reaching solution. She wanted to keep the Prussian state and at best would have admitted that the provinces had developed more in the direction of countries of a new kind. But there would have been no more Prussian government. Bavaria, in turn, wanted to transfer powers from the Reich level to the state level and see the Reichsrat strengthened. Bavaria feared that a solution to the Reichsland or some other form of new kind of Land in Northern Germany would only have paved the way for centralism. As a result, the old countries in the south would also lose their independence. Without Bavaria, however, there was no chance of realizing an imperial reform.
classification
In the discussion about a reform of the empire, reference has repeatedly been made to the Bismarckian era. The southern German states had only joined the North German Confederation in 1870 . In doing so, they were given so-called reservation rights, such as their own postal system. In northern Germany, however, Prussia annexed several opponents of the war such as Hanover after the German War in 1866 . Prussian liberals even thought that Prussia should simply annex all the states of northern Germany (comparable to the unification efforts in Italy).
The development after 1928 had certain similarities with the Reichsland solution of the Lutherbund. In the summer of 1932, the assumed national government Papen Prussia a Reichskommissar ( Prussian coup ). The national government Hitler led 1933 Act of 7 April Reichsstatthalter one of the German states. The Reichsstatthalter were appointed by the Reich President, in Prussia the Reich Chancellor himself was Reichsstatthalter. This appointed and dismissed the state government.
After the Second World War , the dualism between Reich and Prussia was ended when the Allies founded new states on Prussian territory. In 1947 Prussia was formally dissolved.
The Reichsland solution would have resembled the situation in today's United Kingdom . Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have regional parliaments there, but not England, where more than 80% of the total population live. This creates the so-called West Lothian question : Scottish citizens decide on their members in the Scottish Parliament on the Scottish school system. The decisions about the English school system, however, are made by the state parliament in Westminister. In this Parliament for the whole of Great Britain, however, there are not only English MEPs, but also MEPs from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
supporting documents
- ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber : German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume VII: Expansion, Protection and Fall of the Weimar Republic. Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1984, p. 675 f.
- ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789 , Vol. VII, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1984, p. 679.