Hugo Preuß
Hugo Preuß | |
---|---|
Reich Minister of the Interior Weimar Republic | |
In office 13 February 1919 – 20 June 1919 | |
Chancellor | Philipp Scheidemann |
Preceded by | Friedrich Ebert (Council of the People's Deputies) |
Succeeded by | Eduard David |
Personal details | |
Born | University of Heidelberg | 28 October 1860
Hugo Preuß (Preuss) (28 October 1860 – 9 October 1925) was a German lawyer and liberal politician. He was the author of the draft version of the constitution that was passed by the Weimar National Assembly and came into force in August 1919. He based it on three principles: all political authority belongs to the people; that the state should be organized on a federal basis; and that the Reich should form a democratic Rechtsstaat (state based in law) within the international community.[1]
Early life and academic career
Hugo Preuß was born in Berlin on 28 October 1860 as the only child of Levin Preuß (1820 or 1821–62), a Jewish owner of a lithographic business, and his wife Minna (née Israel, 1826–99). Hugo's father died in 1862 and in 1863 his mother married her husband's brother, Leopold Preuß (1827–1905), a well-off
In 1889, Preuß also married Else Liebermann, daughter of
In 1895, he became a member of the municipal parliament in Charlottenburg, Berlin. Only in 1906 did Preuß become a full professor, at the Berliner Handelshochschule newly founded by local merchants. He taught there until 1918, when he also was Rektor. His main focus was on constitutional law and on autonomous municipal administration (kommunale Selbstverwaltung). In 1906, the first volume of Die Entwicklung des deutschen Städtewesens was published. From 1910-18 he was honorary city councillor for the FVP.[2] In this capacity he contributed to the project that what would later become the Greater Berlin Act.[3] In 1912, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Reichstag. In his widely read publication Das deutsche Volk und die Politik of 1915 he forcefully argued for a transformation of the Obrigkeitsstaat into a Volksstaat.[3]
Revolution, political career and Weimar Constitution
Only a few days after the abdication of
On 13 February 1919, Preuß became Reichsinnenminister (Interior Minister) in the
The final version of the constitution naturally was different from his original draft in various ways. Preuß' ideas were notably rejected concerning the reorganisation of the individual territories of the Reich—blocked by the new governments of the States. He also was unable to put into practice his idea of a very narrow definition of fundamental rights, limited to the classical freedoms, which he wanted to codify in just three articles of the constitution. Moreover, his attempt to change the nature of the second parliamentary chamber (made up of delegates from the individual State governments) proved impossible. However, some parts of the Weimar Constitution (on the role of parliament, government and Reichspräsident), considered especially problematic in hindsight, were strongly shaped by his ideas. In particular, the powerful position of the head of state, the Reichspräsident, who was given authority to dissolve the Reichstag with no effective limitations and who had considerable emergency powers under
Later life
From 1919 to 1925 Preuß was a member first of the Verfassunggebende Preußische Landesversammlung (1919/20), the equivalent of the National Assembly for the
The Jewish background of the main author of its constitution was one reason why the Weimar Republic was referred to as Judenrepublik ("Jews' Republic") by its detractors on the right.[6]
Works
- Franz Lieber, ein Bürger zweier Welten. Habel, Berlin 1886 (Digital version)
- Gemeinde, Staat, Reich, 1889
- Das städtische Amtsrecht in Preußen, 1902
- Die Entwicklung des deutschen Städtewesens. Vol. 1: Entwicklungsgeschichte der deutschen Städteverfassung, 1906
- Stadt und Staat, 1909
- Zur preussischen Verwaltungsreform, 1910
- Das deutsche Volk und die Politik, 1915
- Deutschlands republikanische Reichsverfassung, 1921
- Vom Obrigkeitsstaat zum Volksstaat, 1921
- Um die Weimarer Reichsverfassung, 1924
- Staat, Recht und Freiheit. Aus vierzig Jahren deutscher Politik und Geschichte, 1926 (Collected works, collected by Theodor Heuss)
- Verfassungspolitische Entwicklungen in Deutschland und Westeuropa, ed. by Hedwig Hintze, Berlin 1927
- Reich und Länder. Bruchstücke eines Kommentars zur Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches, ed. by Gerhard Anschütz, Berlin 1928
- Gesammelte Schriften. Im Auftrag der Hugo-Preuß-Gesellschaft e.V. 5 Volumes (4 published so far), ed. by Detlef Lehnert, Tübingen 2007-, Vol. 1: Politik und Gesellschaft im Kaiserreich, 2007; Vol. 2: Öffentliches Recht und Rechtsphilosophie im Kaiserreich, 2009; Vol. 3: Verfassungsentwürfe, Verfassungskommentare, Verfassungtheorie [not yet published]; Vol. 4: Politik und Verfassung in der Weimarer Republik, 2008; Vol. 5: Kommunalwissenschaft und Kommunalpolitik, 2012.
See also
References
- ^ Peter Stirk, "Hugo Preuss, German political thought and the Weimar constitution." History of Political Thought (2002) 23#3 pp: 497-516.
- ^ a b c d e f "Biografie Hugo Preuß (German)". Deutsches Historisches Museum. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f "Biografie Hugo Preuß (German)". Bayerische Nationalbibliothek. Retrieved 2 August 2013.
- ^ Preuss denounces demand of allies, The New York Times, 14 September 1919
- ^ "Ehrengrabstätten des Landes Berlin, Juli 2012 (German)" (PDF). Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt Berlin. Retrieved 2 August 2013.
- ^ Rosenstock, Werner (June 1976), "Two significant anniversaries: Robert Weltsch and the LBI Yearbook" (PDF), AJR Information, XXXI (6): 2, archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04, retrieved 2013-08-03. Review of LBI Yearbook vol. 20, edited by Robert Weltsch.
Further reading
- Schmitt, Carl, and Ellen Kennedy. The crisis of parliamentary democracy (MIT Press, 1988)
- Stirk, Peter. "Hugo Preuss, German political thought and the Weimar constitution." History of Political Thought (2002) 23#3 pp: 497-516.