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HOW SIMILAR WERE THE POLITICAL SYSTEMS IN EAST AND WEST GERMANY
HOW SIMILAR WERE THE POLITICAL SYSTEMS IN EAST AND WEST GERMANY?
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: people are elected to represent a group of people
BASIC LAW: temporary constitution
Joint economic administration required some coordinated political control so from the summer of 1949 a new constitution for a democratically elected government was drawn up in West Germany
Following free elections Konrad Adenauer took power
KONRAD ADENAUER
EARLY POLITICAL CAREER AND BELIEFS
Member of the Centre Party in the pre-First World War period.
Refused to co-operate with Nazis despite being persecuted
His anti-communist beliefs led him to work with the Western powers to stop the spread of communism
Strong Christian beliefs explain his role in co-founding the Christian Democrats in 1945
ROLE IN WEST GERMANY
1948- elected president of the parliamentary council, which drew up the constitution of West Germany.
1949- elected to the Bundestag and became the new Republic’s first chancellor.
Opposed to socialist ideas and rejected the notion of an egalitarian mass society.
SUCCESS IN ROLE
He won four elections between 1949 and his resignation in 1963
Brought stability and prosperity to the country
OPPOSITION
Opponents criticised him for being the ‘Chancellor of the Allies’ and his refusal to believe in reunification
WHAT ISSUES DID THE ALLIES AND THE GERMANS HAVE IN SETTING UP A NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM?
Many in Germany were not committed democrats an associated the old republic with instability and chaos
Although Germans went on to play a key role in drawing up the new constitution, they were closely supervised by the Allies to ensure their concerns about the failure of the Weimar Republic and the emerging threat of communism were taken notice of.
It might be seen by some as if the new system had been imposed on them by an occupying force
HOW DID THE ALLIES ENSURE THEIR CONCERNS WERE MITIGATED SO THAT THE RISE OF HITLER COULD NOT HAPPEN AGAIN?
Ensure that the democratically elected elites would retain control and could not be effectively replaced by a dictator
It was a ‘representative’ democracy rather than a ‘participatory’ one that was established in which the public selected who would rule for them
WHAT WERE THE BENEFITS OF THE CONSTITUTION?
Ensure that basic freedoms, such as freedom of expression, assembly, association and movement, were guaranteed
Restored the federal nature of the state after Nazi centralisation
Individual states, or Lander, with elected representatives, regained their power over regional issues, while at a national level they were represented in the Upper Chamber, or Bundesrat.
In the new state, a complex system was introduced, which combined proportional representation with first past the post to elect people to the Lower Chamber, now known as the Bundestag.
Potential for extremist or small parties to gain a foothold was further reduced by a later amendment that added that parties had to gain 5% of the vote before they were represented
In order to prevent threats to democracy, parties had to agree to uphold the constitution and extremist parties that were not committed to it were banned
HOW WAS PR REFORMED SO THAT SMALLER/ANTI-DEMOCRATIC PARTIES COULD NOT TAKE POWER?
In the new state, a complex system was introduced, which combined proportional representation with first past the post to elect people to the Lower Chamber, now known as the Bundestag.
Potential for extremist or small parties to gain a foothold was further reduced by a later amendment that added that parties had to gain 5% of the vote before they were represented
In order to prevent threats to democracy, parties had to agree to uphold the constitution and extremist parties that were not committed to it were banned
WHAT WAS THIS SYSTEM KNOWN AS?
Representative democracy
WHAT OTHER 2 RESTRICTIONS WERE IMPOSED?
The president was not directly elected, but instead were chosen by a representative convention made up of all the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of members elected by the Lander parliaments
This prevented the possibility of anti-democratic leader coming into power
Presidential powers were more limited than they had been in the Weimar Republic as the office was largely formal and symbolic with no opportunity for rule by emergency decree
Although the chancellor was appointed by the president, the appointment needed the support and approval of parliament.
Chancellor could not be dismissed unless a new chancellor was voted in, which prevented the president from dismissing a chancellor at will
The new chancellor also had to be able to secure parliamentary support and, if that was not possible, new elections had to be called
WHY WAS THE CONSTITUTION KNOWN AS A ‘BASIC LAW’?
To indicate that it was temporary until Germany was united
It committed West Germany to work for unity, and all German citizens who were living in former German lands that were now under either Polish or Soviet rule were entitled to citizenship
CHANCELLOR: policy making power- has to have majority in Bundestag
PRESIDENT: proposes CHANCELLOR, only has power in a state of emergency
FEDERAL CONVENTION: both BUNDESTAG + STATE LEGISLATURES send members to the CONVENTION to choose a PRESIDENT
BUNDESTAG: directly elected representatives of the people, elected every 4 years
BUNDERAT: represents the 16 Lander, members delegated by Lander governments
STATE LEGISLATURE: elected state governments – its makeup is reflected in BUNDESRAT
STATE GOVERNMENT:
APPOINTED MEMBERS
STATE LEGISLATURE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
CHANCELLOR
FEDERAL CABINET
PRESIDENT
BUNDESTAG
FEDERAL CONVENTION
BUNDESRAT
SIMILARITIES | DIFFERENCES |
|---|---|
Claimed to be temporary, creating a provisonary state waiting for reunification The constitution established a parliament, Volkskammer, which it claimed represented the peopleThere was also an Upper House, Landerkammer, which represented the five regions or LanderA president, who was the formal head of state, was put in place initially | Based on democratic centralism (Marxist-Lennist view that decisions are made in the centre and passed down. Grass root opinions influenced by the Communist Party)It was not totally democratically elected as the number of seats for each party was allocated before each electionwas replaced by the Council of State in 1960Power remained with the Communist Party and its General SecretaryParty gained further control by the creation of a ‘state within a state’ with the establishment of the State Security Service, or Stasi, in 1950Supported by the ‘People’s Police in Barracks’, which became the ‘National People’s Army’ in 1956, and the regular police and border guardThreat of Soviet tanks and troops, which had remained stationed in the country since the end of WW11DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM: decisions were taken at the centre and passed down and implemented below, was very different from that in the West |
The allies had fixed the issues that had plagued the Weimar in their zone, however there was still the issues surrounding nationalism and division in the entirity of Germany- as the East had tried to mirror the democracy of the West- however is allowed to run their own zone completely without the democratic rule seen in the West. Their restrictions in their zone were greatly effective in preventing the possibility of extremist parties rising- however, it prevented any new ideas from appearing so created a dictatorship. Furthermore, in the government, all parties had to gain 5% of the vote and therefore had to uphold the constitution or else they would be banned.