German National Assembly Deutsche Nationalversammlung | |
|---|---|
| Constituent assembly ofGermany | |
.svg) | |
| Type | |
| Type | |
| History | |
| Established | 6 February 1919 |
| Disbanded | 21 May 1920 |
| Preceded by | Imperial Reichstag |
| Succeeded by | Weimar Reichstag |
| Seats | 423 (at dissolution) |
| Elections | |
| Party-list proportional representation | |
Last election | 19 January 1919 |
| Meeting place | |
 | |
| Deutsches Nationaltheater,Weimar | |
TheWeimar National Assembly (German:Weimarer Nationalversammlung), officially theGerman National Constitutional Assembly (Verfassunggebende Deutsche Nationalversammlung), was the popularly elected constitutional convention and de facto parliament of Germany from 6 February 1919 to 21 May 1920. As part of its duties as the interim government, it debated and reluctantly approved theTreaty of Versailles that codified the peace terms between Germany and the victoriousAllies of World War I. The Assembly drew up and approved theWeimar Constitution that was in force from 1919 to 1933 (and technically until the end ofNazi rule in 1945). With its work completed, the National Assembly was dissolved on 21 May 1920. Following theelection of 6 June 1920, the new Reichstag met for the first time on 24 June 1920, taking the place of the Assembly.
Because the National Assembly convened inWeimar rather than in politically restive Berlin, the period in German history became known as theWeimar Republic.
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At the end ofWorld War I, following the outbreak of theGerman Revolution of 1918–1919, state power lay with theCouncil of the People's Deputies. It was formed on 10 November by revolutionaryworkers' and soldiers' councils in Berlin and headed byFriedrich Ebert of theSocial Democratic Party (SPD). He had been appointed German chancellor on 9 November byMaximilian von Baden, the last chancellor under theGerman Empire. Both von Baden and the Social Democrats called for the speedy election of a National Assembly to establish a new government for Germany. The Council decided on 30 November to hold the election on 19 January 1919. On 19 December theReich Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils also approved the decree by a clear majority.
Because of theSpartacist uprising, a general strike and the accompanying armed struggles that roiled the Reich capital from 5 to 12 January 1919, it was agreed that the National Assembly should not initially meet in Berlin. Four possible locations –Bayreuth,Nuremberg,Jena andWeimar – were considered. Friedrich Ebert favored Weimar because he wanted the victorious Allies to be reminded ofWeimar Classicism, which included the writersGoethe andSchiller, while they were deliberating the terms of the peace treaty.[1] On 14 January 1919 the choice fell to Weimar.[2]
Theelections for the National Assembly were the first held in Germany after the introduction of women's suffrage[3] and the lowering of the legal voting age from 25 to 20 years. Together the changes raised the number of eligible voters by around 20 million.[4] The turnout was 83%,[3] a slightly lower percentage than in the lastReichstag elections in 1912, but a much greater absolute turnout due to the expanded suffrage.[4] Among women the turnout was 90%.[5] TheCommunist Party of Germany (KPD), founded in December 1918, boycotted the elections.
The election for the National Assembly resulted in the SPD receiving the most votes at 38%, followed by the CatholicCentre Party (which in this election ran as the Christian People's Party) with 20%, the liberalGerman Democratic Party (DDP) 19%, the national-conservativeGerman National People's Party (DNVP) 10% and the more leftist and antiwar breakaway from the SPD, theIndependent Social Democratic Party (USPD), 8%. Numerous small parties made up the remainder.[6] Out of a total of 416 delegates 36 were women, although this increased to 41 during the term of the Assembly.[7] If the latter number is taken, at 10% women, the Weimar National Assembly was one of the most female parliaments of its time.[8][9]
On 10 February the Assembly passed the "Law on Provisional Reich Power" (Gesetz über die vorläufige Reichsgewalt)[10] to go into effect the following day. It regulated the government's powers during the transitional phase from theGerman Empire to the Weimar Republic. The National Assembly was to adopt a constitution and "urgently needed" Reich laws, thus allowing it to act as an interim parliament. A States' Committee served in the place of the laterReichsrat to represent the interests of the German states. The "business of the Reich" was to be conducted by a Reich president. His function was somewhat like that of the former emperor but with the restrictions that had been made to theconstitution in October 1918, notably that war and peace were to be decided by Reich law, not by the head of state. The ministers appointed by the Reich president required the confidence of the National Assembly.
The National Assembly convened at theGerman National Theater in Weimar on 6 February 1919. It elected the SPD politicianEduard David as its president, but because of an inter-party agreement he stepped down after just four days.[11] On 14 February 1919 the National Assembly electedConstantin Fehrenbach, a Centre Party deputy and former vice president, as his successor.
On 11 February the National Assembly elected the previous head of government, Friedrich Ebert (SPD), as provisional Reich president. He askedPhilipp Scheidemann of the SPD to form a government. The three party coalition of the SPD, the Centre Party and the DDP that he brought together in theScheidemann cabinet came to be known as theWeimar Coalition.
On 12 May 1919 the National Assembly met in Berlin for the first time. There it heard and then debated a statement by Minister President Philipp Scheidemann on the peace terms of theVersailles Treaty. In his speech Scheidemann, to great applause from all parties, called theEntente Powers' terms a "dictated" or "enforced" peace (Gewaltfrieden) intended to strangle the German people. The territorial, economic and political demands would deprive Germany of the air to breathe. The conditions were unacceptable, he said, and were in stark contrast to the assurances given by U.S. PresidentWoodrow Wilson. The Reich government could not agree to the conditions and would make counterproposals based on Wilson's14-point program. Prussian Minister PresidentPaul Hirsch assured the Reich government of full support on behalf of the constituent states of the German Reich and also sharply criticized the Entente's conditions. Speakers from all parties, from the USPD to the DNVP, also declared the Entente's demands unacceptable. The chairman of the liberalGerman People's Party (DVP) and later Reich Foreign MinisterGustav Stresemann described the peace terms of the victorious powers as "an outpouring of political sadism". OnlyHugo Haase, chairman of the USPD, combined his rejection of the Entente's demands with sharp attacks on the Reich government, accusing it of having caused the current situation in the first place through its policy of enforcing atruce between political parties (Burgfriedenspolitik) during the war.
Following the Entente's rejection of its counterproposals, the Scheidemann cabinet resigned on 20 June 1919 because it was unwilling to give its assent to the Treaty of Versailles.[12] The new Minister President,Gustav Bauer (SPD), who headed a government of the SPD and the Centre, promoted the signing of the treaty but continued to criticize individual provisions, especially those concerning the extradition of Germans to the Entente and the imposition of war guilt on Germany alone. He combined his call for approval with the comment that it would be impossible for the German Reich to fulfill all the economic conditions of the treaty and regretted that it had not been possible to extract further concessions from the Entente.
Speakers from the SPD and the Centre,Paul Löbe and Adolf Gröber, also condemned the treaty. They objected in particular to the statement in the Entente draft treaty that Germany was solely to blame for the war. On behalf of their parliamentary groups, however, they spoke in favor of acceptance, since the only alternative was the resumption of hostilities, which would lead to even worse consequences.Eugen Schiffer, the former Reich Finance Minister, spoke on behalf of the majority of German Democratic Party deputies against accepting the treaty. He reminded the two governing parties of Philipp Scheidemann's 12 May warning that the hand that signed the treaty would wither.[13] He did not see that the situation had changed since then. The DNVP and DVP were also strongly opposed to the treaty. The USPD was the only opposition party to endorse its acceptance. Hugo Haase called the issue at stake a terrible dilemma for the National Assembly. Although he too sharply criticized the treaty, he pointed out, as had the representatives of the governing parties, the consequences if the treaty were rejected.
In a 22 June roll call, 237 deputies voted in favor of signing the peace treaty, 138 against, and five abstained. Of the major parties, the SPD, Centre and USPD approved, while the DDP, DNVP and DVP rejected the treaty, on both sides by large majorities of the delegates.[14]
The Reich government informed the Entente the same day that it would sign the treaty but with reservations as to the provisions on war guilt and the extradition of Germans to the victorious countries. French Prime MinisterGeorges Clemenceau replied that evening on behalf of the Allied Powers that the treaty could only be accepted or rejected in its entirety.
At the meeting of the National Assembly on 23 June, Minister President Bauer informed the plenum of the Entente's position and stated that the government no longer had a choice; it had to sign the treaty:
Let us sign, that is the proposal I have to make to you on behalf of the entire cabinet. The reasons that compel us to make the proposal are the same as yesterday, only now we are separated by a period of barely four hours before the resumption of hostilities. We could not justify a new war even if we had weapons. We are defenseless, but without defense does not mean without honor (wehrlos ist aber nicht ehrlos). Certainly, our enemies want to take away our honor, there is no doubt about that, but that this attempt at cutting away our honor will one day fall back on the originators, that it is not our honor that will perish in this world tragedy, that is my belief until my last breath.[15]
Eugen Schiffer (DDP) andRudolf Heinze (DVP), whose parties had rejected the treaty the day before, explicitly stated in their speeches that the supporters of the treaty would act exclusively out of "patriotic sentiment and conviction" (Schiffer), even if they had different opinions about the right path forward. The DNVP speaker Georg Schultz, however, did not make his opinion on the issue clear.
Ratification of the treaty through the "Law on the Conclusion of Peace between Germany and the Allied and Associated Powers" (Gesetz über den Friedensschluß zwischen Deutschland und den alliierten und den assoziierten Mächten)[16] finally took place on 9 July 1919 with results similar to the 22 June vote. The only exception was that the majority of the deputies of theBavarian Peasants' League, who had abstained from the first vote, now approved the ratification law.
In part as a response to the treaty, and particularlyArticle 231 that assigned sole responsibility for the war to Germany, the Assembly established aninquiry into guilt for the war on 20 August 1919. Its four subcommittees were tasked with examining the causes of the war, what brought about its loss, what missed opportunities for peace had presented themselves, and if international laws had been broken.[17][18] The inquiry continued for thirteen years, until the Nazi Party victory in theelection of July 1932. The inquiry's findings were hampered by lack of cooperation from both the government and the military and were in general watered down and deflected blame away from Germany.
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On 15 November 1918 Friedrich Ebert had appointedHugo Preuß to the Reich Office of the Interior and charged him with drafting a Reich constitution. Preuß, a teacher of constitutional law and one of the founders of the German Democratic Party, based his draft of the Weimar Constitution in large part on theFrankfurt Constitution of 1849 which was written after theGerman revolutions of 1848–1849 and intended for a unified Germany that did not come to pass at the time. He was influenced as well byRobert Redslob's theory of parliamentarianism, which called for a balance between the executive and legislative branches under either a monarch or the people as sovereign.[19] After the National Assembly was seated, Preuß became a member of the constitutional committee, which was chaired by the Assembly's vice president,Conrad Haußmann of the DDP. Preuß later became known as the father of the Weimar Constitution.
During July of 1919, the Assembly moved quickly through the draft constitution with most debates concluded within a single session. On 31 July the Assembly passed the revised committee proposal for the constitution by a vote of 262 to 75, with USPD, DNVP and DVP against.
Key topics of debate were as follows:
| Date | Topic | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| 2 July | National name | 'Deutsches Reich' |
| National structure | Retain federal states | |
| Flag and colors | Black-red-gold | |
| 4 July | Reich president | Adopted a semi-presidential system with power divided between president, cabinet and parliament. The president was to rule in conjunction with the Reichstag. Emergency powers to be used only in exceptional circumstances. |
| 7 July | Reich administration | Germany unified as an economic territory; legislative responsibility for tax law to be with the Reich. Unified postal and railroad systems |
| 10 July | Justice | Established a system of administrative courts and a high or constitutional court. Restricted military jurisdiction to wartime. Independence of courts incorporated into the constitution. |
| 11 July | Fundamental rights | Constitution to include expanded list of fundamental rights as in draft version. |
| 15 July | Equality of the sexes | Adopted what became Article 109: "(1) All Germans are equal before the law. Men and women shall fundamentally have the same civic rights and duties. (2) Public and legal privileges or disadvantages of birth or status shall be abolished." |
| 16 July | Death penalty | Rejected draft constitution's proposal to abolish the death penalty. |
| Censorship | Guaranteed freedom of expression in speech, print, or “pictorially”. Censorship forbidden except in “cinematographs”, “indecent and obscene literature”, and for “protection of youth”. | |
| Illegitimacy | Illegitimate children to have the same rights as legitimate. | |
| 17 July | Right to assemble | Guaranteed right to assemble peaceably without any special permission needed. |
| Church and state | Guaranteed freedom of religion and separation of church and state. | |
| 18 July | Education | Universal public education ensured to age 18. |
| 21 July | Economic Life | Right to property, patent protection, and unionization guaranteed. |
On 13 January 1920, while the National Assembly was negotiating the Works Councils Act, which created an obligation for companies with twenty or more employees to have works councils, a demonstration against the law took place in front of theReichstag building. The left-wing opposition parties USPD and Communist Party, among others, had called for the demonstration because they felt the councils would lack sufficient worker representation. About 100,000 people gathered for the demonstration. Prussian security police fired into the crowd leaving 42 people dead and over 100 wounded. TheReichstag Bloodbath was the deadliest demonstration in German history.[20]
Beginning on 30 September 1919, the National Assembly met in the renovated Reichstag building in Berlin. During theKapp Putsch it briefly moved toStuttgart and met there on 18 March 1920.
The National Assembly dissolved on 21 May 1920. After theReichstag election on 6 June 1920, the Republic's first Reichstag took the place of the National Assembly.
| Name | Party | Entered office | Left office | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eduard David | SPD | 7 February 1919 | 13 February 1919 | |
| Conrad Haußmann (acting) | 13 February 1919 | 14 February 1919 | ||
| Constantin Fehrenbach | Centre | 14 February 1919 | 21 June 1920 | |
