Constitution Day (Weimar Republic)
The constitution day on August 11 was the national holiday of the Weimar Republic from 1921 to 1932 .
The original intention of the National Assembly in 1919 to make May 1st a national holiday had not been pursued. It was not until two years later that August 11, the day the constitution of the German Reich was signed, on the initiative of the SPD , DDP and the Center, became a national holiday on which the constitution of the republic was to be honored.
Holiday status and character
A curiosity is the fact that the Constitutional Day was a national holiday, but not a national public holiday , although in the following years repeatedly unsuccessful efforts were made to give it this status by means of a Reich law. It was left to the individual countries of the empire whether they made the constitution day a public holiday, so that the regulations remained inconsistent. In the Republic of Baden and in the People's State of Hesse , the public holiday status came about, in the Free State of Bavaria not.
The official Constitution Day celebrations were initially sober, inconspicuous and reserved, which, together with the inconsistent holiday regulations, contributed to the fact that the national holiday never became popular and could not become a symbol of democratic self-image. The later, more lavish celebrations could no longer make up for this initial shortcoming; Efforts to give the Constitution Day, which was celebrated in a rather cool and academic manner with distanced official events, popular, were unsuccessful.
From 1921 to 1933, the artistic design of the constitutional days was in the hands of the Reichskunstwart Edwin Redslob , who in this function was also responsible for all questions of state symbolism. He aimed for a staging in which a joint celebration "created a connection between the government and its guests and the whole of the people", a "celebration of advertising power", a "form of joint commitment to the construction of the new state". For this purpose z. B. opened the doors during the official celebration in the Reichstag and at the same time there was a folk festival with military music on the square in front of the Reichstag, which was adorned by two huge masts with black, red and gold flags, at which the Reich President walked off an honorary company. Redslob found these celebrations successful.
Celebration in the Reichstag in 1932
Reich President Friedrich Ebert and Reich Chancellor Cuno at the celebration in front of the Reichstag in 1923
Celebration in front of the Reichstag in 1923 with Reich President Ebert
The former Minister President Scheidemann in 1929 at the celebration of Reichsbanner front of the Berlin City Palace
Celebration in the Reichstag in 1928
The constitution day and the Reichsbanner black-red-gold
The Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , founded in Magdeburg in 1924, played an important role in the organization of the celebrations on August 11th , which had integrated the festival day into its own holiday calendar.
This republic protection organization , which was supported by the three parties of the Weimar coalition SPD , Zentrum and DDP , played an active role on August 11th wherever it had local groups and gave the day with parades, marches with black, red and gold flags and a cultural framework program partly in cooperation with the local authorities, partly against them, a worthy stamp.
literature
- Jörg Koch: Constitution Day , in: Ders. So that you don't forget history - national commemorative and public holidays from 1871 to today. Wbg Academic, Darmstadt 2019, ISBN 978-3-534-40186-4 , pp. 73-88.
- Nadine Rossol: Performing the Nation in Interwar Germany. Sport, Spectacle and Political Symbolism, 1926-1936 . Palgrave Macmillan 2010, ISBN 978-0-230-21793-5
- Christoph Gusy: The Weimar Imperial Constitution . Mohr Siebeck, 1997, ISBN 3-16-146818-X .
- Ralf Poscher: The Constitution Day . Nomos-Verlags-Gesellschaft, 1999, ISBN 3-7890-6334-7 .
- Edwin Redslob: The state celebrations of the imperial government. In: Edwin Redslob: Confession to Berlin. Speeches and essays. Stapp Verlag, Berlin 1964, pp. 12-17.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Nadine Rossol: Rossol, Nadine: Performing the Nation in Interwar Germany. Sport, Spectacle and Political Symbolism 1926-36. Houndmills, Basingstoke, et al. a., ISBN 978-0-230-21793-5 .
- ^ Edwin Redslob : The state celebrations of the imperial government . In: Edwin Redslob: Confession to Berlin. Speeches and essays . Stapp Verlag, Berlin 1964, pp. 12-17.
- ^ Christian Welzbacher: Edwin Redslob. Biography of an incorrigible idealist. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-88221-734-6 , pp. 197-199.
- ↑ Marcel Böhles: In lockstep for the republic: the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold in the southwest, 1924 to 1933 . ISBN 978-3-8375-1485-8 .
- ^ Nadine Rossol: Performing the Nation: Sports, Spectacles, and Aesthetics in Germany, 1926-1936 . In: Central European History . tape 43 , no. 4 , December 2010, ISSN 0008-9389 , p. 616-638 , doi : 10.1017 / s0008938910000737 .