Germany -- History -- Revolution, 1918; Germany -- Politics and government -- 1918-1933
The general effect of the Constitution combined with present political
conditions is that there will be no change of any importance in the
composition of the countries constituting the Realm. See also Art. 167
suspending operation of pars. 3 to 6 of this article for two years.
[19] ART. 20.--In the first draft the Sovereign Reichstag consisted,
not, as here, of the popular Chamber only, but of the Volkshaus--the
popular Chamber, and the Staatenhaus--the representatives of the States.
The latter, now known as the Reichsrat (see Art. 60), is no longer part
of the sovereign body and has merely a suspensory veto against it (see
Art. 74).
[20] ART. 25.--The President's power of dissolution was unrestricted in
the early drafts.
[21] ART. 34.--This article, a late addition, constitutionalises a
procedure that strengthens democracy as against bureaucracy.
[22] ART. 35.--The institution of a permanent Committee on Foreign
Affairs for which our advocates of democratic diplomacy have laboured in
vain for twenty years has been commented on above, see p. 253.
[23] ART. 48.--It was in virtue of the article corresponding to this in
the provisional constitution that Berlin attacked and suppressed the
Council Governments set up in Munich, Brunswick, Bremen, and elsewhere.
[24] Art. 55.--The Chancellor is consequently no longer the sole
responsible Minister, but merely as elsewhere in democratic
constitutions _primus inter pares_, the Premier. Moreover, he has, of
course, lost his special authority from the Crown and his special
association with Prussia. It would have been better in the circumstances
to have dropped the title of Chancellor.
[25] Art. 60.--The Reichsrat is the much reduced remains of the
Bundesrat. (See p. 252 and Arts. 1 and 20.)
[26] Art. 61.--For the importance of this restriction in respect of
Prussia, see p. 251.
[27] This clause as to German Austria was objected to by the Supreme
Council at Paris as contrary to Art. 80 of the Treaty of Versailles:
"Germany acknowledges and will respect strictly the independence of
Austria.... She agrees that this independence shall be inalienable
except with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations." The
exchange of notes on the subject is not worth appending, as it expresses
an ephemeral phase of diplomacy and not any essential principle of
international law. In so far as the German Constitution is concerned,
the objection seems unimportant in view of Art. 178, par. 2.
[28] Art. 63.--A compromise between the former Bundesrat, where the
delegates were plenipotentiaries representing semi-sovereign States, and
the centralising draft of Preuss, where they were no more than
politicians chosen on party, not on particularist, grounds.
[29] Art. 71.--A curious little example of provincial jealousy, which
substituted "capital" for "Berlin."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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