Weimar Constitution
바이마르 헌법
The constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic, officially "The Constitution of the German Reich" (Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs). The National Assembly meeting at Weimar adopted it on 31 July 1919; President Friedrich Ebert signed it on 11 August and it took effect on the 14th. It created a federal republic with a Reichstag elected by proportional representation, a Reichsrat representing the states and a popularly elected president with extensive emergency powers, and set out a long list of basic and social rights. Set aside de facto by the Enabling Act of 1933, it was never formally repealed.
In depth
The National Assembly was elected on 19 January 1919, the first election in which women voted on equal terms with men, and because Berlin was unsettled the delegates met at Weimar. The draft was written by the liberal lawyer Hugo Preuss, head of the Interior Ministry, largely on the basis of the Frankfurt Constitution of 1849. In July the Assembly moved quickly through it without public debate and adopted it on 31 July by 262 to 75 with one abstention. The constitution had two main parts and 181 articles, and its title was the same as that of the imperial constitution it replaced; the state's official name remained German Reich (Deutsches Reich) until 1949.
The first part set out the organisation of the Reich. The Reichstag was elected by all Germans over 20 by equal and secret ballot under proportional representation, and the Reichsrat represented the states. The president, elected for seven years and re-eligible once, held supreme command of the military and appointed and dismissed the chancellor, while the chancellor and ministers had to resign on a Reichstag vote of no confidence. Article 48 let the president take emergency measures and suspend basic rights, and under Article 50 his orders needed the countersignature of the chancellor or the competent minister. Amendments required a law passed with two-thirds of members present and two-thirds of those present in favour.
The second part listed the basic rights and duties of Germans. Economic life (Articles 151 to 165) was to conform to principles of justice guaranteeing a dignified life for all, and property carried obligations (Article 153). The Reich could transfer private enterprises suitable for socialisation to public ownership, and workers were guaranteed the right to organise and representation on factory workers' councils (Articles 156 and 165).
The weaknesses usually cited are a president who acted as a "replacement monarch" able to appoint and dismiss chancellors regardless of parliament, proportional representation without a threshold (14 parties won seats in the July 1932 election), and the emergency decree power of Article 48. The Reichstag Fire Decree of February 1933 used Article 48 to suspend seven articles of basic rights, and the Enabling Act, passed on 23 March by 441 to 94 after the 81 Communist deputies had been excluded, made the rest a dead letter. The constitution was never formally repealed, and Hitler used its appearance of legality even as he abolished the Reichsrat and took over the president's powers in 1934. Allied Control Council Law No. 1 of 20 September 1945 repealed the Enabling Act, and in 1949 the Basic Law of the Federal Republic and the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic replaced the Weimar Constitution.