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East Germany Constitution of 1949
East Germany's present Constitution is very different from
the one adopted in October 1949 when the state was founded. The
first constitution, based largely on an SED draft of September
1946 and intended for a united Germany, originated before the
Soviet Union had decided to establish a socialist republic in its
zone of occupation. The constitution both resembled and differed
from Western parliamentary-democratic systems in various
respects. With regard to state organization, the 1949
constitution resembled, at least superficially, the Basic Law
(Grundgesetz) of the Federal Republic of Germany (West
Germany). As in other parliamentary-democratic systems, provision
was also made for two legislative assemblies, the States Chamber
(Länderkammer) and the People's Chamber (Volkskammer), and the
election of a president (Ministerpresident) by the party with the
largest mandate in the People's Chamber. The president of East
Germany, like the president of West Germany, had a very limited
vote and was removable by a joint two-thirds majority vote in
both houses. Lawmaking was essentially the job of the People's
Chamber rather than the States Chamber, but the latter could
propose draft laws to the former. The legislative process also
exhibited important differences from the West German model; the
East German States Chamber, for example, which represented the
interests of the individual states, occupied a much weaker
position than its West German counterpart. Article 51 stated that
the members of the People's Chamber were to be elected in
universal, equal, and secret elections based on the relative
majority principle. Another important difference concerned the
role of political parties in the government. According to Article
92, parties with at least 40 seats in the People's Chamber, which
then had a total of 400 members, had the right to representation
in the government. This policy was consistent with the SED's
Marxist Alliance Policy, which stipulated that in order to
achieve its aims, the party of the working class must initially
work with and through other parties. It also ensured that if the
SED was ever demoted to a minority position, its continued
influence in the government would be safeguarded by the provision
that any parliamentary party that commanded at least 10 percent
of the total number of votes had a guaranteed share in the
government. A set of basic human rights, including the right to
strike (Article 14) and to emigrate (Article 10) retained
features of a liberal Rechtstaat and formally guaranteed that
sovereignty would remain vested in the people.
The 1949 constitution was a compromise; it could have served
either as a basis for building socialism or as the basis for a
democratic all-German republic. Critics have pointed out that the
absence of a genuinely independent constitutional judiciary
rendered the document virtually meaningless, however. And, in
fact, as time progressed, the authorities ignored most of its
formal provisions and permitted the emergence of a centralized
political order under the control of the SED.
Several important amendments were made at the initiative of
the SED in the eighteen years in which the constitution was in
force. An amendment of August 1950 eliminated state parliaments
and called for the election of parliamentary deputies through the
creation of a joint platform and lists organized by the National
Front, the umbrella organization of all political parties and
mass organizations. A 1952 decision replaced the five states
(Länder) with fifteen administrative districts
(Bezirke) that were tied more directly to the central
government. (The United States, Britain, and France do not
recognize East Berlin as an administrative district.) This step
created the necessary legal precedent for eliminating the States
Chamber, which eventually was dissolved by a constitutional
amendment in December 1985. A series of amendments known as the
Law Toward the Completion of the Constitution were passed by the
People's Chamber in March 1954, when the country was formally
granted sovereignty by the Soviet Union. These amendments
delineated the features of the country's new sovereignty and a
formal military structure, which prepared the ground for the
obligatory military service clause of 1955. And finally, upon the
death of Wilhelm Pieck, a constitutional amendment of 1960
replaced the office of president with the Council of State, whose
chairman became Ulbricht, first secretary of the SED.
Data as of July 1987
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