Thestates of the Weimar Republic were the first-level administrative divisions and constituent states of theWeimar Republic. The states were established in 1918–1920 following theGerman Empire's defeat inWorld War I and theterritorial losses that came with it. They were based on the22 states and three city-states of the German Empire. During therevolution of 1918–1919, the states abolished their local monarchies and adopted republican constitutions.
Several attempts were made to reorganize the states under the Weimar Republic, particularly because ofPrussia's disproportionately large size and influence, but the attempts were unsuccessful. The one significant change was the formation ofThuringia from a number of smaller states.
TheWeimar Constitution created a federal republic with certain basic powers reserved for the federal government, some powers shared between the central government and the states, and the remainder in the hands of the states. The federal government was given the power inArticle 48 of the Constitution to use its armed forces against states that did not fulfill their obligations under Germany's laws. The power was used four times during the life of the Republic. In its early years, the Weimar Republic also saw a number of separatist movements and attempts to set upsoviet-style governments, but all of them were short lived.
TheGerman Empire (1871–1918) was a federal monarchy made up in 1918 of25 constituent states (4 kingdoms, 6 grand duchies, 5 duchies, 7 principalities, 3 free cities) and one imperial territory. Its federal structure reflected its formation in 1871 under the leadership of theKingdom of Prussia from the combination of the loosely federalNorth German Confederation withSaxony,Bavaria,Württemberg,Baden and the southern part ofHesse.[1]
Following the German Empire's defeat inWorld War I, the victoriousAllied powers in theTreaty of Versailles reduced Germany's size by 65,000 sq km (25,000 sq mi), or about 13% of its former territory. The areas that were lost had about 7 million inhabitants, or 12% of imperial Germany's population.[2] The affected regions, with the exception ofDanzig[3] and theSaar, all had significant non-German speaking populations (primarily Polish, French and Danish).
TheSaar Basin was occupied and governed jointly by the United Kingdom and France from 1920 to 1935 under aLeague of Nations mandate.[4] After aplebiscite was held in January 1935, the region was returned to Germany.[5]
In accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, the city of Danzig (nowGdańsk,Poland) was detached from Germany on 15 November 1920 and turned into a semi-autonomous city-state under the protection of theLeague of Nations.[6][7] The Treaty stated that it was to remain separate from both Germany and the newly independentPoland, but it was not a sovereign state.[8]
The22 ruling dynasties of Germany's constituent states (excluding the city-states, which had no monarchs) were driven out during theGerman revolution of 1918–1919 and all royalty abolished by the newWeimar Constitution (Article 109). The states themselves nevertheless initially all survived into theWeimar Republic. The only exception wasAlsace–Lorraine, an imperial territory (Reichsland) rather than a formal state, which was returned to France from which it had been taken following Prussia's victory in the 1870–1871Franco-Prussian War.[9]
TheCouncil of the People's Deputies, Germany's immediate post-war revolutionary government, commissioned the liberal political theorist and legal expertHugo Preuss to draft a new constitution for Germany.[10] Since there was considerable concern about the dominating size of Prussia, which had two-thirds of Germany's area and three-fifths of its population,[11] Preuss suggested that Germany be restructured into 14 constituent states of more equal sizes (one of which wasGerman-Austria, which wished to become part of Germany after the collapse of theAustro-Hungarian Empire[12]). All would have had at least two million inhabitants, and onlyBaden would have remained completely unchanged. Preuss' reform proposal failed in theWeimar National Assembly, which adopted theWeimar Constitution. Objections came primarily from the states that would have been renamed. Many Germans still felt strong ties to their home states.[13]
Two additional reform proposals were discussed and rejected during constitutional deliberations. One would have done away with the states altogether – in Preuss' words it would create a "decentralised unitary state with strengthened self-governing bodies". The other reform proposed that theBundesrat, the Empire's parliamentary body with members appointed by the state governments to represent their interests, be modified to have popularly elected representatives on the model of theU.S. Senate.[14] After that proposal also failed to pass the National Assembly, it decided that the members of the Weimar Republic'sReichsrat would continue to be appointed by the state governments, although the body had fewer powers overall than the imperial Bundesrat.[15]
For the text of the constitutional articles, seeWeimar_constitution – viaWikisource.
The Weimar Constitution indirectly fixed the boundaries of the states in their unchanged locations through the statement in Article 2 that "the territory of the Reich consists of the territories of the German states". The article also allowed for new states to be incorporated into Germany – providing an opening for German-Austria – "by virtue of the right of self-determination". Article 18 set the conditions for changes to state boundaries. If such a change was made by means of a law passed altering the constitution (which required a two-thirds majority vote in the Reichstag), it could be accomplished without the consent of the affected state governments or populations. If the state governments involved agreed to a boundary change, it could become effective by the passage of an ordinary national law (i.e. with a simple majority vote in the Reichstag). Alternatively, a popular referendum could change state boundaries if it was approved by three-fifths of the votes cast and at least half of those eligible to vote, The high bar for changing the configuration of the states reflected the level of resistance to such alterations. Article 18 was suspended for two years after the constitution was approved and came into force only on 10 July 1922.[13]
Every state was required to have a republican constitution (Article 17) with a representative body "elected by universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage of all German citizens of either sex, according to the principles of proportional representation". As at the national level, the state ministry had to have the confidence of the representative body.
Article 12 granted the states the power of legislation in all areas in which the federal government did not make use of its own powers. Within that limitation, national laws took precedence over state laws (Article 13). The seven areas in which the federal government had sole power of legislation (such as national defence and foreign relations) were enumerated in Article 6, while Article 7 listed twenty additional areas in which it could legislate (including civil and criminal law, judicial procedure, the press, the right of assembly, commerce and a number of social issues such as "poor relief" and public health). The federal government could also legislate on taxes and revenue "in so far as they are claimed in whole or in part for its purposes" (Article 8). In July 1919, however, Finance MinisterMatthias Erzberger pushed through a financial reform package that permanently strengthened the federal government at the expense of the states by giving it exclusive financial sovereignty and thus freeing it from dependence on the states as had been the case under the Empire.[16]
A Supreme Judicial Court would handle constitutional disagreements between the national and state governments and between individual state governments (Articles 13 and 19).
TheReichsrat, the upper house of the German parliament, represented the interests of the states at the federal level. It could introduce legislation, and its agreement was required on laws passed by the Reichstag. Members of the Reichsrat were appointed by the state government and when they voted were bound by its instructions (imperative mandate). The number of representatives that a state had in the Reichsrat was determined by population, with every state having at least one representative but none more than 40% of the total. The latter clause limited Prussia's influence, since over 60% of the German population lived in Prussia.[17]
In the controversialArticle 48 of the Weimar Constitution, the president of Germany was given broad emergency powers, including the ability to call in the military against a state in breach of federal laws:
§1 In the event of a State not fulfilling the obligations imposed upon it by the Reich Constitution or by the laws of the Reich, the president of the Reich may make use of the armed forces to compel it to do so.
The power of the president to use military force against a state was known as aReich execution and was used four times during the Weimar Republic:
Four changes in state boundaries occurred following the implementation of the Weimar Constitution on 14 August 1919:[13]
The Weimar Republic also saw three popular referendums that would have changed state boundaries. All of them failed:[13]
In addition,Hamburg's government made several unsuccessful attempts in the 1920s to expand the growing city-state by incorporating immediately surrounding areas that were part of Prussia. It was not until theGreater Hamburg Act of 1937, under theNazi regime, that Hamburg was expanded to encompass the full urbanized area.[22]
During the turbulent early years of the Weimar Republic, there were a number of short-lived attempts to set upsoviet-style republics:
Separatist movements in theRhine Province of Prussia led to two short-lived republics during theOccupation of the Ruhr. Both received material and propaganda support from France:[23]
Finally, there was theFree State of Bottleneck (Freistaat Flaschenhals) (10 January 1919 – 25 February 1923), a bottleneck-shaped area formed during theOccupation of the Rhineland by the near convergence of the semi-circular bridgeheads east of the Rhine aroundKoblenz andMainz.[25]
| State | Capital | Area in km² | Population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Anhalt | Dessau | 2,314 | 351,000 |
.svg) | Baden | Karlsruhe | 15,070 | 2,312,000 |
.svg) | Bavaria | Munich | 75,996 | 7,380,000 |
 | Bremen | Bremen | 258 | 339,000 |
 | Brunswick | Brunswick | 3,672 | 502,000 |
.svg) | Coburg[a] | Coburg | 562 | 74,000 |
 | Hamburg | Hamburg | 415 | 1,153,000 |
 | Hesse | Darmstadt | 7,692 | 1,347,000 |
 | Lippe | Detmold | 1,215 | 164,000 |
 | Lübeck | Lübeck | 298 | 128,000 |
 | Mecklenburg-Schwerin | Schwerin | 13,127 | 674,000 |
| Mecklenburg-Strelitz | Neustrelitz | 2,930 | 110,000 |
 | Oldenburg | Oldenburg | 6,427 | 545,000 |
.svg) | Prussia | Berlin | 291,700 | 38,120,000 |
 | Saxony | Dresden | 14,986 | 4,994,000 |
 | Schaumburg-Lippe | Bückeburg | 340 | 48,000 |
 | Thuringia[b] | Weimar | 11,763 | 1,607,000 |
.svg) | Waldeck-Pyrmont[c] | Arolsen | 1,055 | 56,000 |
 | Württemberg | Stuttgart | 19,508 | 2,580,000 |
| State | Capital | Area in km² | Population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Reuss | Gera | 1,143 | 211,000 |
.svg) | Saxe-Altenburg | Altenburg | 1,323 | 210,000 |
| Saxe-Gotha | Gotha | 1,415 | 189,000 |
| Saxe-Meiningen | Meiningen | 2,468 | 275,000 |
.svg) | Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach | Weimar | 3,610 | 430,000 |
 | Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt | Rudolstadt | 941 | 98,000 |
| Schwarzburg-Sondershausen | Sondershausen | 862 | 93,000 |
The states of the Weimar Republic were effectively abolished after the establishment ofNazi Germany in 1933 by a series of laws and decrees between 1933 and 1935, and autonomy was replaced by direct rule of theNational Socialist German Workers' Party in theGleichschaltung process. The states continued to formally exist asde jure bodies but from 1934 were superseded byde facto Nazi Party administrative units calledGaue. Many of the states were formally dissolved at the end ofWorld War II by theAllies, and ultimately re-organised into the modernstates of Germany.
States of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| States | | ||||||
| City-states | |||||||
| Until 1920 |
| ||||||
| Unrecognized separatist movements | |||||||