Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution
바이마르 헌법 제48조
The article of the Weimar Constitution that gave the Reich president emergency powers. When public security and order were seriously disturbed or endangered, the president could take the necessary measures, if need be with armed force, and temporarily suspend seven articles of basic rights covering personal liberty, the home, the privacy of communications, expression, assembly, association and property. The Reichstag could demand that the measures be revoked. It became the means by which the presidential cabinets of 1930–1932 governed without parliament, and the basis of the Reichstag Fire Decree of February 1933.
In depth
The framers meant the article to give the parliamentary republic a strong executive that could bypass the slower legislative process in a crisis. It reads:
Article 48. If a state does not fulfil the obligations incumbent on it under the Reich Constitution or the laws of the Reich, the Reich President may compel it to do so with the help of the armed forces.
If public security and order in the German Reich are seriously disturbed or endangered, the Reich President may take the measures necessary to restore public security and order, intervening if need be with the help of the armed forces. For this purpose he may temporarily suspend, in whole or in part, the fundamental rights laid down in Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153.
The Reich President must inform the Reichstag without delay of all measures taken under paragraph 1 or paragraph 2 of this article. The measures are to be revoked at the demand of the Reichstag.
Where delay would be dangerous, a state government may take provisional measures of the kind described in paragraph 2 for its own territory. The measures are to be revoked at the demand of the Reich President or the Reichstag.
Details are to be regulated by a law of the Reich.
Artikel 48. Wenn ein Land die ihm nach der Reichsverfassung oder den Reichsgesetzen obliegenden Pflichten nicht erfüllt, kann der Reichspräsident es dazu mit Hilfe der bewaffneten Macht anhalten.
Der Reichspräsident kann, wenn im Deutschen Reiche die öffentliche Sicherheit und Ordnung erheblich gestört oder gefährdet wird, die zur Wiederherstellung der öffentlichen Sicherheit und Ordnung nötigen Maßnahmen treffen, erforderlichenfalls mit Hilfe der bewaffneten Macht einschreiten. Zu diesem Zwecke darf er vorübergehend die in den Artikeln 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 und 153 festgesetzten Grundrechte ganz oder zum Teil außer Kraft setzen.
Von allen gemäß Abs. 1 oder Abs. 2 dieses Artikels getroffenen Maßnahmen hat der Reichspräsident unverzüglich dem Reichstag Kenntnis zu geben. Die Maßnahmen sind auf Verlangen des Reichstags außer Kraft zu setzen.
Bei Gefahr im Verzuge kann die Landesregierung für ihr Gebiet einstweilige Maßnahmen der in Abs. 2 bezeichneten Art treffen. Die Maßnahmen sind auf Verlangen des Reichspräsidenten oder des Reichstags außer Kraft zu setzen.
Das Nähere bestimmt ein Reichsgesetz.
Because Article 50 required the president's orders to be countersigned by the chancellor or the competent minister, using Article 48 needed agreement between president and chancellor. The implementing law announced in the last paragraph was never passed. The text did not expressly grant a power to legislate by decree, but such a power was taken to be implied because the Reichstag could annul a decree by simple majority; if it did, the president could answer by dissolving it under Article 25.
Friedrich Ebert, the first president, used the article 136 times amid reparations, the Ruhr occupation and hyperinflation. In October 1923 he used a Reichsexekution to send troops into Saxony and Thuringia and remove the Communists who had entered their Social Democratic governments; he gave Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno wide latitude against inflation, and the Emminger reform of 4 January 1924 abolished the jury system.
Under President Paul von Hindenburg Article 48 became a way of governing around a fractured parliament. When the Reichstag rejected Chancellor Heinrich Brüning's financial reform bill in July 1930, Hindenburg promulgated it as an emergency decree. The Reichstag annulled the decree by 236 to 221 on 18 July, Brüning had it dissolved, and the September election greatly strengthened the Communists and the Nazis. Under Brüning and then Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher, Hindenburg invoked the article 109 times between 1930 and 1932.
The Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 rested on Article 48 and suspended the seven articles of basic rights listed in it, and thousands of Hitler's decrees were based on that decree and so on Article 48. The post-war Basic Law sharply reduced the president's powers and introduced the constructive vote of no confidence, and Article 16 of the French Constitution of 1958 drew on Article 48 while adding stronger safeguards.