The Constitution of the German Reich from 11th August 1919 as the democratic legal basis of the totalitarian state
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/SIT.2014.018Keywords
The Constitution of the German Reich from 11th August 1919, German Reich, Weimar Republic, Third Reich, democratic constitution and make-law-totalitarian, law in Weimar Republic and law in Third Reich, German system 1919–1939, regime changesAbstract
The Constitution of the German Reich from 11th August 1919 introduced new democratic standards which was complete novelty. In Article 1 Constitution specified political system of the state as a republic, in which nation were sovereign. This principle was the basis of all other provisions of the Constitution. Legislative and executive body and others organs generally were chosen by a majority of the citizens – so we can could specify Weimar Republic as a state of representative democracy with strong plebiscite elements. Moreover this constitutional act introduced a wide catalog of rights and freedoms too. We can say that Weimar Constitution rules might be found in every contemporary constitution. Unfortunately, the practice did not reflect in these assumptions – very quickly found out that the situation of the then Germany did not raise to the regulations of the Constitution. Between 1919 and 1933 many of them were “the dead letter of the law” and from 1933 they were radically limited although the Constitution formally was in force till the fall Third Reich. As a result these laws have to wait ad feliciora tempora. The problem of the differences between theory and practice and reasons for this is very complicated, but interesting. This most democratic German constitution (before the II world war) allowed the system of totalitarian rule and her modern standards did not function in old reality. So was Weimar Constitution bad constitution or just was ahead her time? We can take this second opinion, because some rules was included to the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. Here is one more question – how regulations of the Weimar Constitution and constitutional practice can be a message for the present legislator?
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