Vorspann
Die deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert kennt tiefe Zäsuren, die durch Weimar, Bonn und Berlin markiert werden. Weimar steht für das Scheitern einer parlamentarischen Demokratie, Bonn für das erfolgreiche Modell einer wehrhaften Demokratie und Berlin für die Bewährung dieser Demokratie, deren rechtliches Fundament, das Grundgesetz, auch die Überwindung der deutschen Teilung ermöglichte. Heinrich August Winkler, einer der führenden deutschen Zeithistoriker, diskutiert den historischen Ort des Grundgesetzes in der deutschen Geschichte und geht dabei auch auf die Gefahren ein, die der demokratischen Legitimität der Bundesrepublik durch die Verselbständigung der Exekutivgewalt im europäischen Einigungsprozess drohen.
Abstract
German constitutional history is marked by a process of non-simultaneous democratisation: Germany gained universal and equal male suffrage for Reichstag elections early on during the unification of the Reich by Bismarck, but only got parliamentary government after losing the First World War. During the state crisis of the Weimar Republic since 1930, Hitler benefited from this non-simultaneous democratisation: He successfully appealed to widespread prejudices against supposedly un-German democracy and simultaneously pointed to the people´s right of sharing in power, which was guaranteed by universal suffrage, but was mostly ineffectual during the period of the presidential governments.
In 1948/49, the Parlamentarische Rat drew drastic lessons from the failure of the Weimar Republic: The fortified democracy of the Bonn Grundgesetz or Basic Constitutional Law provides for limits to majority rule which probably surpass those in any other democratic constitution. Given the circumstances, the accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany was the only realistic path to transcend the division of Germany in 1990. The growing independence of executive power within the European process of unification can become a danger to the democratic legitimacy of the Federal Republic. There is only one countermeasure: Strengthening representative democracy on the national as well as the European level.
© by Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, München, Germany