Member of the German Parliament () is the official name given to a deputy in the German Bundestag. ''Member of Parliament'' refers to the elected members of the federal Bundestag Parliament at the Reichstag building in Berlin. In German a member is called ' (Member of the Federal Diet) or officially ' (Member of the German Federal Diet), abbreviated ''MdB'' and attached. Unofficially the term ''Abgeordneter'' (literally: "delegate", i.e. of a certain electorate) is also common (abbreviated ''Abg.'', never follows the name but precedes it). However, Members of the Bundestag are more commonly referred to as ''Bundestagsabgeordneter'' if the Member of the Bundestag is male or ''Bundestagsabgeordnete'' if the member is female. These terms literally translate to "deputy/delegate of the Bundestag". From 1871 to 1918, legislators were known as Member of the Reichstag and sat in the Reichstag of the German Empire. In accordance with article 38 of the

Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany () is the constitution of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. The West German Constitution was approved in Bonn on 8 May 1949 and came into effect on 23 May after having been approved b ...

, which is the German constitution, " mbers of the German Bundestag shall be elected in general, direct, free, equal, and secret elections. They shall be representatives of the whole people, not bound by orders or instructions, and responsible only to their conscience." An important though not constitutionally required feature of German parliamentarianism is a slightly modified proportional representation. The 16 federal

States of Germany The Federal Republic of Germany is a federation and consists of sixteen partly sovereign ''states''. Of the sixteen states, thirteen are so-called area-states ('Flächenländer'); in these, below the level of the state government, there is a ...

(''Länder'') are represented by the Bundesrat at the former Prussian House of Lords, whose members are representatives of the respective ''Länders'' governments and not directly elected by the people. The 2021 German federal election resulted in the most MdBs elected in history, 736.

References

{{Authority control Members of the Bundestag Parliamentary titles Organisation of the Bundestag

See also

References