Basic Law For The Federal Republic of Germany - Drafting Process

Drafting Process

Between February and the June 1948 a common conference of the three western occupying powers (USA, United Kingdom, France) and the three Western neighbours of Germany (Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg) was debating the political future of the three western occupation zones of Germany. The negotiations ended with the common conclusion, that a democratic and federal West German state was to be established.

As an immediate consequence of the London conference 1948 the representatives of the three western occupations powers on the 1st of July convoked the Ministerpräsidenten (minister-presidents) of the West German Länder in Frankfurt/Main and committed to them the socalled Frankfurt Documents (Frankfurter Dokumente). These papers - amongst other points - summoned the Ministerpräsidenten to arrange a constitutional assembly, that should work out a democratic and federal constitution for a West German state. According to Frankfurt Document No 1, the constitution should specify a central Power of German government, but nevertheless respect the administration of the Länder and it should contain provisions and guarantees of individual freedom and individual rights of the German people in respect to their government. With the specific request of a federal structure of a future German state the Western Powers followed German constitutional tradition since the foundation of the Reich in 1871.

The Ministerpräsidenten were reluctant to fulfill what was expected from them, as they anticipated, that the formal foundation of a West German state would mean a permanent disruption of the fatherland. A few days later they convened a conference of their own on Rittersturz ridge near Koblenz. They decided that any of the Frankfurt requirements should only be implemented in a formally provisional way. So the constitutional assembly was to be called Parlamentarischer Rat (lit. parliamentary council) and the constitution given the name of Grundgesetz (basic law) instead of calling it a "constitution". By these provisions they made clear, that any West German state was not a definite state for the German people and the future German self- determination and the reunification of Germany still was on their agenda. The Ministerpräsidenten prevailed and the Western Powers gave in concerning this highly symbolic question.

The draft was prepared at the preliminary Herrenchiemsee convention (10 – 23 August 1948) on the Herreninsel in the Chiemsee, a lake in southeastern Bavaria. The delegates at the Convention were appointed by the leaders of the newly formed (or newly reconstituted) Länder (states).

Beginning from 1 September 1948 the Parlamentarische Rat was working out the definite text of the Grundgesetz. The 65 members of the Parlamentarischer Rat were elected by the Parliaments of the German Länder with one deputy representing about 750.000 people. After being passed by the Parliamentary Council assembled at the Museum Koenig in Bonn on 8 May 1949 — the Museum was the only intact building in Bonn large enough to house the assembly — and after being approved by the occupying powers on 12 May 1949, it was ratified by the parliaments of all the Länder with the exception of Bavaria (Bayern). The Landtag of Bavaria rejected the Basic Law mainly because it was seen as not granting sufficient powers to the individual Länder, but at the same time decided that it would still come into force in Bavaria if two-thirds of the other Länder ratified it. On 23 May 1949, the German Basic Law was promulgated and came into force a day later. The time of legal nonentity ended, as the new West German state, the Federal Republic of Germany, came into being, although still under Western occupation.