| Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe Freistaat Schaumburg-Lippe (German) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State ofGermany | |||||||||
| 1918–1946 | |||||||||
 Flag  Coat of arms | |||||||||
.svg) The Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe (red) within theWeimar Republic | |||||||||
 | |||||||||
| Capital | Bückeburg | ||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
• 1939 | 340 km2 (130 sq mi) | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• 1939 | 53,277 | ||||||||
| Government | |||||||||
| • Type | Republic | ||||||||
| State Councillor | |||||||||
• 1918(first) | Friedrich von Feilitzsch [de] | ||||||||
• 1933–1945 | Karl Dreier [de]a | ||||||||
• 1945–1946(last) | Heinrich Drake | ||||||||
| Reichsstatthalter | |||||||||
• 1933–1945 | Alfred Meyer | ||||||||
| Historical era | Interwar · World War II | ||||||||
| 15 November 1918 | |||||||||
• Disestablished | 1 November 1946 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Germany | ||||||||
| a. As State President. | |||||||||
TheFree State of Schaumburg-Lippe (German:Freistaat Schaumburg-Lippe) was created following theabdication of PrinceAdolf II of thePrincipality of Schaumburg-Lippe on 15 November 1918, following the German Revolution. It was a state in Germany during theWeimar Republic andNazi Germany. The democratic government was suppressed duringNazi rule. At the end of theSecond World War, the British militaryoccupation government decreed on 1 November 1946 the union of Schaumburg-Lippe,Hannover,Braunschweig andOldenburg to form the new state ofLower Saxony.
The state parliament consisted of aLandtag of 15 members elected for a term of three years byuniversal suffrage. The state administration, headed by aStaatsrat (State Councillor), was responsible to theLandtag and could be removed by a vote of no confidence.[1] For most of the Weimar period, the statecoalition governments usually were headed by aSocial Democrat or anon-partisan technocrat.[2]
Following theirseizure of power at the national level, the Nazi government embarked on a policy ofGleichschaltung (coordination) by which they intended to eliminate any potential sources of opposition in the states. On 8 March 1933, Reich Interior MinisterWilhelm Frick appointedKurt Matthaei as the NaziReichskommissar to take direct control of police functions in Schaumburg-Lippe.[3] This provoked the resignation of theSPD-led coalition government.[2]
The Reich government next enacted the "Provisional Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich" on 31 March 1933. This mandated that all the sitting stateLandtage be dissolved and reconstituted on the basis of the recent5 MarchReichstag election results. By this means, theNazi Party secured a working majority in the Schaumburg-LippeLandtag and installedHans-Joachim Riecke as the head of government on 1 April. On 7 April, the Reich government enacted the "Second Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich" that established more direct control over the states by means of the new powerful position ofReichsstatthalter (Reich Governor).Alfred Meyer, the Nazi PartyGauleiter forGau Westphalia-North, was installed in this new post for both Schaumburg-Lippe andLippe on 16 May 1933.[4]
By the provisions of the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich" of 31 January 1934, all stateLandtage were abolished and the sovereignty of the states was passed to the Reich government. With that, Schaumburg-Lippe effectively lost its rights as a federal state, though it continued to exist as an administrative unit of the Reich until the fall of the Nazi regime.
After the war, Schaumburg-Lippe was part of theBritish occupation zone. It lost its status as a separate German state when it was merged into the newly founded state ofLower Saxony on 1 November 1946, which subsequently became a part ofWest Germany upon its establishment in May 1949.
| Name | Took office | Left office | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minister of State | ||||
| 1 | Friedrich von Feilitzsch [de] | 15 November 1918 | 3 December 1918 | |
| Chairman of the State Council | ||||
| 2 | Heinrich Lorenz [de] | 4 December 1918 | 14 March 1919 | SPD |
| State Councillors | ||||
| 3 | Otto Bömers [de] | 14 March 1919 | 22 May 1922 | Ind. |
| 4 | Konrad Wippermann [de] | 22 May 1922 | 28 May 1925 | Ind. |
| 5 | Erich Steinbrecher [de] | 28 May 1925 | 7 October 1927 | SPD |
| – | Heinrich Lorenz | 7 October 1927 | 7 March 1933 | SPD |
| 6 | Hans-Joachim Riecke | 1 April 1933 | 23 May 1933 | NSDAP |
| Reichsstatthalter | ||||
| Alfred Meyer | 16 May 1933 | 11 April 1945 | NSDAP | |
| State President | ||||
| 7 | Karl Dreier [de] | 25 May 1933 | 8 April 1945 | NSDAP |
| State Councillors | ||||
| 8 | Heinrich Bövers [de] | May 1945 | 15 June 1945 | Ind. |
| 9 | Heinrich Drake | 15 June 1945 | 30 April 1946 | SPD |
| – | Heinrich Bövers | 30 April 1946 | 9 December 1946 | Ind. |
States of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) | |||||||
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| Until 1920 |
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| Unrecognized separatist movements | |||||||
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