Historical background
Until 1848 the State Council in theFree State of Prussia in the Weimar Republic
Constitutional form
The Prussian Constitution of 1920, implemented after the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the fall of the Hohenzollern monarchy, established a State Council in Section IV, Article 31 as a body for the participation of the provinces in the legislative process. It provided the Free State with a federal element, although Prussia otherwise remained a unitary state whoseProvincial representatives
About one month after the provincial parliamentary elections, the elections for the members of the Prussian State Council were held by the provincial parliaments. The results by election date and party were as follows: 1 AG: (Prussian Working Group): DNVP, DVP and other middle-class and conservative partiesConflict between the State Council and the State Ministry
Konrad Adenauer, the president of the State Council, had significant reservations about the state government and its ministers. He thought that under Minister President Otto Braun of the Social Democrats (SPD), it was not treating the State Council with the importance that it deserved under the constitution. Braun and the rest of the government viewed the situation differently. He feared encroachment on his policy-making authority as minister president, and the other ministers, including those from Adenauer's Centre Party, were apprehensive of a possible dilution of democratic reforms by the conservative provinces east of the Elbe River. A rivalry thus developed between the two politicians and their respective state bodies which led the State Council to take a blockading stance towards the and its actions until the early 1930s. Adenauer took his case to the State Court for the German Reich in 1922. The court reached a settlement in 1923 after Adenauer had withdrawn a large part of his demands.Political end in 1932 and Nazi transformation
The Prussian state elections of 24 April 1932, which gave the Nazi Party the most seats but not enough to form a viable coalition with any other parties, also largely deprived the State Council of its ability to function. Legislative and budgetary decisions could no longer be implemented. In the Prussian coup d'état of 20 July 1932, the national conservative Reich government of President Paul von Hindenburg and Chancellor Franz von Papen issued an emergency decree to put executive power in Prussia into von Papen's hands as '' Reichskommissar''. The decree left Braun's cabinet in place as an all but meaningless caretaker government and the State Council with little room to act. In a move towards dissolving the , Reich President Hindenburg by emergency decree unlawfully stripped Braun of his remaining powers on 6 February 1933 and replaced him with von Papen. Adenauer remained in office. A meeting of the three-man body that was necessary to dissolve the took place shortly afterwards. It consisted of the president of the Hanns Kerrl of the Nazi Party, Prussian minister president von Papen and Adenauer as president of the Council of State''.'' Adenauer left the room before the vote, probably convinced that he had made it legally impossible to pass a resolution. Papen and Kerrl interpreted Adenauer's action as an abstention and decided to dissolve the . The legality of the procedure was highly questionable. In the Prussian election on 5 March 1933, held in parallel with the national Reichstag election, the Nazi Party achieved the necessary majority to pass a Prussian enabling act which gave the Reich chancellor full authority over the state. The State Council was thereby definitively deprived of its co-legislative and co-executive functions. Following the elections to the provincial parliaments held the same month, the Nazis secured a majority of seats in the State Council. On 26 April the body elected Robert Ley, the Party's Reich organization leader, to succeed Adenauer. The Prussian "Law on the State Council" of 8 July 1933 dissolved the State Council in its previous form. Simultaneously with the dissolution of the old State Council, a new institution of the same name was created. The State Council of Nazi Germany then consisted of those who were members by virtue of their office (the Prussian ministers and certain other holders of public office) and those awarded the title of state councilor () by Prussian minister president Hermann Göring.Meeting place
The Prussian State Council met between 1921 and 1933 in the '' Herrenhaus'' on Leipziger Straße in Berlin. After World War II, the building housed part of the East German Academy of Sciences. Since 2000, the building, renovated and again with an assembly chamber, has served as the seat of theSee also
* List of presidents of the State Council of Prussia *References
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Berlin Defunct upper houses Legislative buildings in Europe 1920 establishments in Germany 1933 disestablishments in Germany Politics of Free State of Prussia