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Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Bd. 1: Vom Feudalismus des Alten Reiches bis zur Defensiven Modernisierung der Reformära 1700–1815, 1987; Bd. 2: Von der Reformära bis zur industriellen und politischen „Deutschen Doppelrevolution“ 1815–1845/49, 1987; Bd. 3: Von der „Deutschen Doppelrevolution“ bis zum Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges 1849–1914, 1995; Bd. 4: Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges bis zur Gründung der beiden deutschen Staaten 1914–1949, 2003.
Bernd Wunder, Geschichte der Bürokratie in Deutschland seit 1780, 1986.
G. Abstract
| 1. | Hobsbawm’s metaphor of a “long 19th century” fits the central issue of this study quite well. From the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era to the total breakdown of 1918, monarchy alone and not the Crown-in-Parliament was the political decisive factor. Within that order, governments and administrations reacted to structural change in disparate ways and showed different approaches to similar problems (par. 1). |
| 2. | Until the Vienna Congress of 1815 and its new order for Europe and Germany, German territories were more or less integrated into Napoleon’s French Empire. Up to nine de-concentrated départements in the West and North were entirely oriented towards Paris. French satellite states like the new Kingdom of Westphalia looked towards France as well. The other states seemed sovereign, but most of them were bound by Napoleon’s Federation of the Rhine. Its foundation in 1806 coincided with the inglorious end of the Holy Roman Empire, which was pressured to dissolve and redistribute territories in its Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803. Only Prussia remained in 1806 and, defeated by France, lost half of its territory. Yet this was a period of massive reforms in Germany, whether following the Parisian model or independently conceived. Bavaria was the first state to admit its high officials to irrevocable office (Berufsbeamtentum), thus aiming to provide a counterpart against ministers. Both Bavaria and Prussia organised their governments into the five classic sectoral ministries (Fachministerien). Whereas Bavaria centralised its whole administration and included the local level, Prussia favoured an independent local government structure for its cities (Selbstverwaltung) (par. 3 et seqq.). |
| 3. | Premodern city republics survived even after 1815 in the three Hanseatic cities and the Free City of Frankfurt. In their senates, it was once again the life-time members who made decisions, while a small group of wealthy burghers held some participation rights in their quasi-parliaments, and ordinary people were marginalised. In general, legitimate power was believed to reside solely in the ancestral monarch, and the new system of 1815 restored some but not all pre-revolutionary states. The German Confederation expected constitutions to be ‚landständisch’, based on traditional orders such as lords and noblemen, the church, and cities rather than on modern representation. In 1820, it also defined a conservative ‚principle of monarchy’ (monarchisches Prinzip). This posed a central problem: the political chain of authorities led to the sovereign as head of government, and the separate military one to him as supreme commander, but there was no institutional coordination between these powers except in the person of the monarch. His cabinets of civil and military advisors worked strictly separately until 1918. Another central issue was the monarch’s right to discharge higher administrators at will. Prussian kings had never abandoned this idea, and in the counter-revolution, it became a written law in 1849/52. Men in higher posts were in any moment at the king’s discretion, because they were supposed to act, in the king’s interest, as an opposition to Parliament and free press – very different from the counterpart to ministers argument in Bavaria in 1805. This status of politischer Beamter is a fixed and far-reaching instrument of personnel policy to the present day. Only Bavaria has retained its original position of 1805 that neither king nor government may remove a state official unless an independent judge has ruled accordingly (par. 21 et seqq.). |
| 4. | A discussion about the functions of state arose both in scholarship and in certain fields of administrative action, such as policing or organising revenues. Future high officials were socialised in their professions by means of intensive academic and practical training. Administrative organisation varied between collegial bodies and bureaucratic hierarchies. In day-to-day practices, oral communication was reduced, as its written equivalent became more essential for keeping records. Their function was to document the entire decision-making process in early institutional memory. Regarding the scopes of action, there seemed to be no clear dividing line between the governing and executive power. Instead, lower-level administrators performed a piecemeal process of implementation, sometimes giving constant feedback to their superiors (par. 45 et seqq.). |
| 5. | The three wars between 1864 and 1871 had a dramatic influence on the new national superstructure. In 1866/67, Prussia enlarged its territory and population, integrating the defeated states. There was a phase of dictatorship without participation of the Prussian parliament. Some harsh measures were adopted, removing especially the higher officials and replacing them with Prussian ones. The status of politische Beamte was introduced in a widely extended scale. Integration also brought about basic reforms in local government, especially with a real Selbstverwaltung on the provincial level with generous state endowments, a reform model for all of Prussia in 1875. The Empire had a federal structure, but Prussia’s dominance was overwhelming. And the now German, formerly French Alsace-Lorraine was treated as an inferior and dependent state, and the people were generally regarded as unreliable. The influence of the army was decisive here, and the region remained a problem area. Generally, a new type of administration arose involving essential services to society and economy (Daseinsvorsorge), such as mail, railways, and telephone. They were public enterprises, and their employees were lower public servants, with a strictly blocked union movement. German social security was the first such system worldwide. Using a mix of existing public administrations, it showed that the state (and its political leaders) took social risks seriously. Mayors in metropolitan cities and their administration were outstanding centres of innovation. They founded a university, invented effective town-planning, and cared for networks supplying gas, water, and electricity. The big challenge to the whole system came with the Great War in 1914. The state of war transferred all powers to army commanders, and their action was rather incoherent due to a lack of coordination. In a strange act of self-disempowerment, the German parliament transferred all social and economic legislative and regulatory powers to the executive branch. The old tensions between the executive branch and the military increased, and at the end of 1918, it seemed inevitable that cities and production would go dark at nightfall, as the navy persistently claimed all stocks of lamp-oil for its submarine warfare, but then the unexpected call for an armistice complicated further decision-making (par. 63 et seqq.). |
| 6. | Max Weber’s writings are considered foundational to the understanding of bureaucracies as extremely rational organisations, but a reconstruction of different versions of his work also shows a very pessimistic view, which evokes a future dependency on inanimate mechanisms and administrative structures of obedience (par. 85 et seq.). |
Martin Otto
§ 3 Verwaltung in der Weimarer Republik
A. „Verfassungsrecht vergeht – Verwaltungsrecht besteht“1, 2
B. Verwaltung und Reichsverfassung3 – 6
