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137-737: In German history , a Reichsexekution (sometimes "Reich execution" in English) was an imperial or federal intervention against a member state, using military force if necessary. The instrument of the Reichsexekution was constitutionally available to the central governments of the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806), the German Empire of 1848–1849, the German Empire of 1871–1918, the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). Under

274-460: A Bundesexekution was distinct from a Bundeskrieg (federal war), which was waged by the confederation as a whole against an external enemy, and a Bundesintervention (federal intervention), which was an intervention by the confederation on behalf of a member state to maintain order. The following Bundesexekutionen took place under the Confederation: The same right of Bundesexekution

411-525: A federal state that resembled a confederation of states. The state sovereign was to be the individual states united in the Bundesrat as a whole, not a personal sovereign (i.e. an emperor). The federal chancellor, who was appointed by the king of Prussia, presided over the Bundesrat and directed its business. All of the king's orders and decrees had to be countersigned by the chancellor so that he assumed responsibility for them (Articles 15 and 17). The Reichstag

548-804: A large Roman force in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . Consequently, Rome resolved to permanently establish the Rhine/Danube border and refrain from further territorial advance into Germania. By AD 100 the frontier along the Rhine and the Danube and the Limes Germanicus was firmly established. Several Germanic tribes lived under Roman rule south and west of the border, as described in Tacitus 's Germania . Austria formed

685-458: A limited degree of political autonomy. Beginning with an agreement of the cities of Lübeck and Hamburg , guilds cooperated in order to strengthen and combine their economic assets, like securing trading routes and tax privileges, to control prices and better protect and market their local commodities. Important centers of commerce within the empire, such as Cologne on the Rhine river and Bremen on

822-574: A military contingent across and into the territories of the local Germanic tribes. After several days and having made no contact with Germanic troops (who had retreated inland) Caesar returned to the west of the river. By 60 BC, the Suebi tribe under chieftain Ariovistus , had conquered lands of the Gallic Aedui tribe to the west of the Rhine. Consequent plans to populate the region with Germanic settlers from

959-610: A naval arms race . Germany led the Central Powers in World War I , but was defeated, partly occupied, forced to pay war reparations , and stripped of its colonies and significant territory along its borders. The German Revolution of 1918–1919 ended the German Empire with the abdication of Wilhelm II in 1918 and established the Weimar Republic , an ultimately unstable parliamentary democracy. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler , leader of

1096-643: A solid economy, the order steadily expanded the Teutonic state during the following 150 years, engaging in several land disputes with its neighbors. Permanent conflicts with the Kingdom of Poland , the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , and the Novgorod Republic , eventually led to military defeat and containment by the mid-15th century. The last Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg converted to Lutheranism in 1525 and turned

1233-517: A still rebellious Gaul. Forts and commercial centers were established along the rivers. Some tribes, such as the Ubii consequently allied with Rome and readily adopted advanced Roman culture. During the 1st century CE Roman legions conducted extended campaigns into Germania magna , the area north of the Upper Danube and east of the Rhine, attempting to subdue the various tribes. Roman ideas of administration,

1370-765: A tribal confederacy in the Middle Rhine-Weser region, among the territory soon to be called Austrasia (the "eastern land"), the northeastern portion of the future Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks . As a whole, Austrasia comprised parts of present-day France , Germany , Belgium , Luxembourg and the Netherlands . Unlike the Alamanni to their south in Swabia , they absorbed large swaths of former Roman territory as they spread west into Gaul , beginning in 250. Clovis I of

1507-526: A two-thirds majority to change the Constitution (Article 78). The allocation of votes by state was laid out in Article 6. <== The individual states were required to vote collectively (Prussia, for example, had to cast all 17 of its votes either yea or nay), and the vote could be cast only as decided by the government of the state (Article 7). The Bundesrat participated in legislation on an equal footing with

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1644-509: A well known pilgrimage destination . By 1288 the city had secured its independence from the archbishop (who relocated to Bonn), and was ruled by its burghers . Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen wrote several influential theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and arguably the oldest surviving morality play , Ordo Virtutum , while supervising brilliant miniature Illuminations . About 100 years later, Walther von der Vogelweide became

1781-594: Is found in Article 19 of the North German Constitution of 26 June 1867. German history The concept of Germany as a distinct region in Central Europe can be traced to Julius Caesar , who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania , thus distinguishing it from Gaul . The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ( AD 9) prevented annexation by

1918-686: Is obvious that a steady process" occurred during the Nordic Bronze Age , or at the latest during the Pre-Roman Iron Age (Jastorf culture). From their homes in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany the tribes began expanding south, east and west during the 1st century BC, and came into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul , as well as with Iranic , Baltic , and Slavic cultures in Central / Eastern Europe . Factual and detailed knowledge about

2055-620: The limes and the Danube frontier. Several large tribes – the Visigoths , Ostrogoths , Vandals , Burgundians , Lombards , Saxons and Franks – migrated and played their part in the decline of the Roman Empire and the transformation of the old Western Roman Empire . By the end of the 4th century the Huns invaded eastern and central Europe, establishing the Hunnic Empire . The event triggered

2192-555: The Aurignacian culture. Between 12,900 and 11,700 years ago, north-central Germany was part of the Ahrensburg culture (named for Ahrensburg ). The first groups of early farmers different from the indigenous hunter-gatherers to migrate into Europe came from a population in western Anatolia at the beginning of the Neolithic period between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. Central Germany

2329-555: The Battle of Legnano in 1176. The following year a reconciliation was reached between the emperor and Pope Alexander III in the Treaty of Venice . The 1183 Peace of Constance eventually settled that the Italian cities remained loyal to the empire but were granted local jurisdiction and full regal rights in their territories. In 1180, Henry the Lion was outlawed, Saxony was divided, and Bavaria

2466-598: The Bismarckian Constitution (1871–1918), a Reichsexekution could be undertaken only with the permission of the Bundesrat (Federal Council). After 1918, Reichsexekution was provided for by Paragraph 1 of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution . Unused by the empire, it was employed four times between 1919 and 1933 against the following states: The right of Bundesexekution was confirmed by Article 26 of

2603-600: The Final Act of the Viennese Ministerial Conferences on 15 May 1820. This was the treaty that gave the German Confederation its final structure. It permitted the military occupation of a state that was in violation of confederal law, the assumption of executive powers by a Bundeskommissar , the deposition of the ruling prince and the abrogation of all unconstitutional laws. In the German Confederation,

2740-620: The Frankfurt Parliament created a Provisional Central Government for all Germany. Although the act of parliament did not grant this body the right of Reichsexekution , the Frankfurt Constitution that came into effect on 28 March 1849 did grant it to the imperial government (which never in fact came into being). In January 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament passed a law banning casinos and other gaming establishments . It

2877-655: The German Confederation (1815–1866) and the North German Confederation (1867–1871), the same right belonged to the confederal government and is called Bundesexekution . The basis of the Holy Roman Emperor's right to act against an Imperial Estate , by military means if necessary, lay in the imperial reforms enacted by the Diet of Worms in 1495, most importantly the declaration of Eternal Peace within

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3014-716: The Golden Bull stipulated that all future emperors were to be chosen by a college of only seven – four secular and three clerical – electors. The secular electors were the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony , and the Margrave of Brandenburg , the clerical electors were the Archbishops of Mainz , Trier , and Cologne . Between 1347 and 1351 Germany and almost

3151-709: The Guelph party. However, the Margraviate of Austria was separated from Bavaria and turned into the independent Duchy of Austria by virtue of the Privilegium Minus in 1156. Having become wealthy through trade, the confident cities of Northern Italy, supported by the Pope, increasingly opposed Barbarossa's claim of feudal rule (Honor Imperii) over Italy. The cities united in the Lombard League and finally defeated Barbarossa in

3288-955: The Holy Roman Empire , the medieval German state. During the High Middle Ages , the Hanseatic League , dominated by German port cities, established itself along the Baltic and North Seas . The growth of a crusading element within German Christendom led to the State of the Teutonic Order along the Baltic coast in what would later become Prussia . In the Investiture Controversy , the German Emperors resisted Catholic Church authority. In

3425-541: The Investiture Controversy . In 1122, a temporary reconciliation was reached between Henry V and the Pope with the Concordat of Worms . With the conclusion of the dispute the Roman church and the papacy regained supreme control over all religious affairs. Consequently, the imperial Ottonian church system ( Reichskirche ) declined. It also ended the royal/imperial tradition of appointing selected powerful clerical leaders to counter

3562-634: The Late Middle Ages , the regional dukes, princes, and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation within the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern and eastern states became Protestant, while most of the southern and western states remained Catholic. The Thirty Years' War , a civil war from 1618 to 1648 brought tremendous destruction to

3699-619: The Lombards , who posed a permanent threat to the Holy See. Pressed by Liutprand, King of the Lombards , a Papal envoy for help had already been sent to the de facto ruler Charles Martel after his victory in 732 over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of Tours , however a lasting and mutually beneficial alliance would only materialize after Charles' death under his successor Duke of

3836-779: The Merovingian dynasty conquered northern Gaul in 486 and in the Battle of Tolbiac in 496 the Alemanni tribe in Swabia , which eventually became the Duchy of Swabia . By 500, Clovis had united all the Frankish tribes, ruled all of Gaul and was proclaimed King of the Franks between 509 and 511. Clovis, unlike most Germanic rulers of the time, was baptized directly into Roman Catholicism instead of Arianism . His successors would cooperate closely with papal missionaries, among them Saint Boniface . After

3973-728: The Migration Period . Hunnic hegemony over a vast territory in central and eastern Europe lasted until the death of Attila 's son Dengizich in 469. Another pivotal moment in the Migration Period was the Crossing of the Rhine in December of 406 by a large group of tribes including Vandals , Alans and Suebi who settled permanently within the crumbling Western Roman Empire. Stem duchies ( German : Stammesherzogtümer ) in Germany refer to

4110-520: The Nazi Party , used the economic hardships of the Great Depression along with popular resentment over the terms imposed on Germany at the end of World War I to establish a totalitarian regime. This Nazi Germany made racism, especially antisemitism , a central tenet of its policies, and became increasingly aggressive with its territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Germany quickly remilitarized, annexed its German-speaking neighbors and invaded Poland , triggering World War II . During

4247-426: The North Sea joined the union, which resulted in greater diplomatic esteem. Recognized by the various regional princes for the great economic potential, favorable charters for, often exclusive, commercial operations were granted. During its zenith the alliance maintained trading posts and kontors in virtually all cities between London and Edinburgh in the west to Novgorod in the east and Bergen in Norway. By

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4384-464: The Rhine river placed it at the intersection of the major trade routes between east and west and was the basis of Cologne's growth. The economic structures of medieval and early modern Cologne were characterized by the city's status as a major harbor and transport hub upon the Rhine. It was the seat of an archbishop, under whose patronage the vast Cologne Cathedral was built since 1240. The cathedral houses sacred Christian relics and it has since become

4521-421: The Roman Empire , although the Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were established along the Rhine . Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire , the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes . When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charles the Great 's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia . In 962, Otto I became the first Holy Roman Emperor of

4658-416: The Saale and Elbe rivers, such as modern Poland and Silesia and to the south into Bohemia , modern Hungary and Romania during the High Middle Ages from the 11th to the 14th century. The primary purpose of the early imperial military campaigns into the lands to the east during the 10th and 11th century, was to punish and subjugate the local heathen tribes. Conquered territories were mostly lost after

4795-443: The Teutonic Knights launched the Prussian Crusade . The campaign, that was supported by the forces of Polish duke Konrad I of Masovia , initially intended to Christianize the Baltic Old Prussians , succeeded primarily in the conquest of large territories. The order, emboldened by imperial approval , quickly resolved to establish an independent state , without the consent of duke Konrad. Recognizing only papal authority and based on

4932-423: The Transylvanian Saxons in the medieval Hungarian Kingdom (today in Romania) who were called on by Geza II to repopulate the area as part of the Ostsiedlung , having arrived there and founding the city in 1147 [Saxons called these parts of Transylvania "Altland" to distinguish them from later immigrant Saxon settlements established in about 1220 by the Teutonic Order]. In 1230, the Catholic monastic order of

5069-441: The Welfs or Guelphs (in Italian) supported the House of Welf of Henry the Proud, which was the ruling dynasty in the Duchy of Bavaria. The rival faction of the Waiblings or Ghibellines (in Italian) pledged allegiance to the Swabian House of Hohenstaufen. During this early period, the Welfs generally maintained ecclesiastical independence under the papacy and political particularism (the focus on ducal interests against

5206-443: The municipal legal system . Cities such as Cologne , that had acquired the status of Imperial Free Cities , were no longer answerable to the local landlords or bishops, but immediate subjects of the Emperor and enjoyed greater commercial and legal liberties. The towns were ruled by a council of the – usually mercantile – elite, the patricians . Craftsmen formed guilds , governed by strict rules, which sought to obtain control of

5343-465: The Bundesrat, or, if necessary, federal laws, unless the state constitutions had their own regulations (Article 76). Since the Constitution also did not provide for fundamental rights, it left jurisdiction with the individual states, initially to an even greater extent than administrative jurisdiction. In 1869, the Federal Supreme Commercial Court ( Bundesoberhandelsgericht ) was established with its seat in Leipzig . In commercial matters, it replaced

5480-415: The Carolingian empire to be partitioned into three parts by the Treaty of Verdun of 843. Louis the German received the Eastern portion of the kingdom, East Francia , all lands east of the Rhine river and to the north of Italy. This encompassed the territories of the German stem duchies – Franks, Saxons, Swabians , and Bavarians – that were united in a federation under the first non-Frankish king Henry

5617-406: The Celts are related to the Urnfield culture remains disputed. However, Celtic cultural centres developed in central Europe during the late Bronze Age ( c.  1200 BC until 700 BC). Some, like the Heuneburg , the oldest city north of the Alps, grew to become important cultural centres of the Iron Age in Central Europe, that maintained trade routes to the Mediterranean . In the 5th century BC

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5754-419: The Confederation. The individual states retained their statehood, constitutions, succession to the throne and their electoral rights, which were restricted to certain groups of people. The Constitution also left untouched the previous responsibilities of the individual states such as policing, budgetary law, religion, schools and universities. The Constitution did not prohibit the individual states from changing

5891-405: The Danes, the Saxons and the Visigoths. King Chlothar I (558 to 561) ruled the greater part of what is now Germany and undertook military expeditions into Saxony , while the South-east of what is modern Germany remained under the influence of the Ostrogoths . Saxons controlled the area from the northern sea board to the Harz Mountains and the Eichsfeld in the south. The Merovingians placed

6028-485: The Emperor) as officials. Chivalry and the court life flowered, as expressed in the scholastic philosophy of Albertus Magnus and the literature of Wolfram von Eschenbach . Between 1212 and 1250, Frederick II established a modern, professionally administered state from his base in Sicily . He resumed the conquest of Italy, leading to further conflict with the Papacy . In the Empire, extensive sovereign powers were granted to ecclesiastical and secular princes, leading to

6165-418: The Emperor. This precipitated the "Crisis of 1111" as yet another chapter of the long-term Investiture Controversy . In 1137, the prince-electors turned back to the Hohenstaufen family for a candidate, Conrad III . Conrad tried to divest his rival Henry the Proud of his two duchies— Bavaria and Saxony —that led to war in southern Germany as the empire was divided into two powerful factions. The faction of

6302-531: The Fowler , who ruled from 919 to 936. The royal court permanently moved in between a series of strongholds, called Kaiserpfalzen , that developed into economic and cultural centers. Aachen Palace played a central role, as the local Palatine Chapel served as the official site for all royal coronation ceremonies during the entire Medieval period until 1531. In 936, Otto I was crowned German king at Aachen , in 961 King of Italy in Pavia and crowned emperor by Pope John XII in Rome in 962. The tradition of

6439-411: The Franks from 774 to 814) launched a decades-long military campaign against the Franks' heathen rivals, the Saxons and the Avars . The campaigns and insurrections of the Saxon Wars lasted from 772 to 804. The Franks eventually overwhelmed the Saxons and Avars, forcibly converted the people to Christianity , and annexed their lands to the Carolingian Empire . After the death of Frankish king Pepin

6576-407: The Franks, Pepin the Short. In 751 Pippin III , Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian king, himself assumed the title of king and was anointed by the Church. Pope Stephen II bestowed him the hereditary title of Patricius Romanorum as protector of Rome and St. Peter in response to the Donation of Pepin , that guaranteed the sovereignty of the Papal States . Charles the Great (who ruled

6713-419: The German King as protector of the Kingdom of Italy and the Latin Church resulted in the term Holy Roman Empire in the 12th century. The name, that was to identify with Germany continued to be used officially, with the extension added: Nationis Germanicæ (of the German nation) after the last imperial coronation in Rome in 1452 until its dissolution in 1806. Otto strengthened the royal authority by re-asserting

6850-436: The German territories range around 5 to 6 million by the end of Henry III's reign in 1056 and about 7 to 8 million after Friedrich Barbarossa's rule in 1190. The vast majority were farmers, typically in a state of serfdom under feudal lords and monasteries. Towns gradually emerged and in the 12th century many new cities were founded along the trading routes and near imperial strongholds and castles. The towns were subjected to

6987-433: The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a Celtic city at the Danube – Pyrene , that historians attribute to the Heuneburg. Beginning around 700 BC (or later), Germanic peoples (Germanic tribes) from southern Scandinavia and northern Germany expanded south and gradually replaced the Celtic peoples in Central Europe. The ethnogenesis of the Germanic tribes remains debated. However, for author Averil Cameron "it

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7124-407: The Holy Roman Empire. The estates of the empire attained great autonomy in the Peace of Westphalia , the most important being Austria , Prussia , Bavaria and Saxony . With the Napoleonic Wars , feudalism fell away and the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806. Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine as a German puppet state, but after the French defeat, the German Confederation

7261-566: The Imperial secular princes. Between 1095 and 1291 the various campaigns of the crusades to the Holy Land took place. Knightly religious orders were established, including the Knights Templar , the Knights of St John ( Knights Hospitaller ), and the Teutonic Order . The term sacrum imperium (Holy Empire) was first used officially by Friedrich I in 1157, but the words Sacrum Romanum Imperium , Holy Roman Empire, were only combined in July 1180 and would never consistently appear on official documents from 1254 onwards. The Hanseatic League

7398-432: The Middle Ages, with Christian religious structures such as the Aula Palatina of Trier built during the reign of Constantine I ( r.  306–337 ). Rome's Third Century Crisis coincided with the emergence of a number of large West Germanic tribes: the Alamanni , Franks , Bavarii , Chatti , Saxons , Frisii , Sicambri , and Thuringii . By the 3rd century the Germanic speaking peoples began to migrate beyond

7535-435: The Pope reached its peak. However, Rome reacted with the creation of the College of Cardinals and Pope Gregory VII 's series of clerical reforms . Pope Gregory insisted in his Dictatus Papae on absolute papal authority over appointments to ecclesiastical offices. The subsequent conflict in which emperor Henry IV was compelled to submit to the Pope at Canossa in 1077, after having been excommunicated came to be known as

7672-404: The Reichstag (Article 12). The Bundesrat could dissolve the Reichstag by mutual agreement with the king (Article 24). The Reichstag had no general authority to approve international treaties, a limitation that was imposed to allow secret diplomacy (per Article 22, Reichstag meetings were open to the public). The king alone was responsible for concluding all international treaties, but they required

7809-424: The Reichstag could not be prosecuted under civil or criminal law for their statements in the Reichstag (Article 30), nor could journalists who reported on them (Article 22). For a federal bill to be passed, there had to be concurring resolutions from both the Reichstag and the Bundesrat (Article 5), either of which could block the other. In order to end impasses, it was permissible for the Bundesrat, in agreement with

7946-438: The Reichstag with its liberal majority, the Bundesrat, the chancellor and the president of the federal chancellery, Rudolf von Delbrück , were able to create the long-sought unified economic area in just four years. The unresolved opposition between the chancellor, Bundesrat and Reichstag did not come to the fore because of the liberal majority and its successes. It was only later, under the German Empire and its constitution that

8083-422: The Reichstag. No law could enter into force without the consent of the Bundesrat (Article 5). Both the Bundesrat and the Reichstag thus had the implicit right of veto by voting against a proposal. The Bundesrat did not have the right to issue general administrative regulations on federal laws or to determine the organisation of the administrative authorities. It was nevertheless able to exercise general control over

8220-415: The Saxons in support of the Neustrians . In 743 his son Carloman in his role as Mayor of the Palace renewed the war against the Saxons, who had allied with and aided the duke Odilo of Bavaria . The Catholic Franks, who by 750 controlled a vast territory in Gaul, north-western Germany, Swabia, Burgundy and western Switzerland , that included the alpine passes allied with the Curia in Rome against

8357-448: The Short in 768, his oldest son " Charlemagne " ("Charles the Great") consolidated his power over and expanded the Kingdom . Charlemagne ended 200 years of Royal Lombard rule with the Siege of Pavia , and in 774 he installed himself as King of the Lombards . Loyal Frankish nobles replaced the old Lombard aristocracy following a rebellion in 776. The next 30 years of his reign were spent ruthlessly strengthening his power in Francia and on

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8494-462: The Urnfield culture of central Europe. The Hallstatt culture , which had developed from the Urnfield culture, was the predominant Western and Central European culture from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and during the early Iron Age (8th to 6th centuries BC). It was followed by the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC). The people who had adopted these cultural characteristics in central and southern Germany are regarded as Celts . How and if

8631-437: The abbots and bishops he appointed, Otto actually turned these bishops into "princes of the Empire" ( Reichsfürsten ). In this way, Otto was able to establish a national church. Outside threats to the kingdom were contained with the decisive defeat of the Hungarian Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. The Slavs between the Elbe and the Oder rivers were also subjugated. Otto marched on Rome and drove John XII from

8768-404: The approval of both the Bundesrat and the Reichstag if their content was subject to federal legislation (Article 11). The Reichstag could neither elect nor remove the government (i.e. ministers). Bismarck wanted to avoid a government because he feared that it would become accountable to the Reichstag. He also disliked the model of the collegial Prussian Council of Ministers because it did not give

8905-546: The borderlands into hereditary fiefs and install a civilian administration. There is no discernible chronology of the immigration process as it took place in many individual efforts and stages, often even encouraged by the Slavic regional lords. However, the new communities were subjected to German law and customs. Total numbers of settlers were generally rather low and, depending on who held a numerical majority, populations usually assimilated into each other. In many regions only enclaves would persist, like Hermannstadt , founded by

9042-399: The bounds of the empire. Against those who broke the peace, the emperor could obtain a ruling from the Imperial Chamber Court or the Imperial Aulic Council and then issue a Reichsexekution against the offending estate. Often, the imperial execution would be delegated to one or several other estates belong to the same Imperial Circle as the offender. When this was insufficient, it fell to

9179-400: The central imperial authority). The Waiblings, on the other hand, championed strict control of the church and a strong central imperial government. During the reign of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa), an accommodation was reached in 1156 between the two factions. The Duchy of Bavaria was returned to Henry the Proud's son Henry the Lion , duke of Saxony , who represented

9316-402: The conquest of the Slavs and Pannonian Avars in the east and all tribes , such as the Saxons and the Bavarians . On Christmas Day , 800 AD, Charlemagne was crowned Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans) in Rome by Pope Leo III . Fighting among Charlemagne's three grandsons over the continuation of the custom of partible inheritance or the introduction of primogeniture caused

9453-490: The constituent Reichstag on 4 March 1867. The Reichstag then made significant changes to the founding governments' draft. Under the final form of the Constitution, the constituent states sent representatives to a Bundesrat (Federal Council), which participated in legislation on an equal footing with the Reichstag . Prussia was entitled to 17 out of 43 votes, which secured it a hegemonic position. No constitutional amendment could be passed against Prussia's will, since it required

9590-416: The constituent states retained their independence except where Constitution provided for restrictions. The clause in Article 2 stating that "within the federal territory, the Confederation shall exercise the right of legislation in accordance with the content of this Constitution" suggested the inverse conclusion that the constituent states retained the right to legislate insofar as the right was not assigned to

9727-444: The continued existence of the individual states and the aristocracies that still ruled in them. The Prussian government made itself an advocate of the unification movement in order to preserve the Prussian, anti-democratic state and social order. Prussia's victory over Austria in the Austro-Prussian War , which ended on 22 July 1866 with the Treaty of Prague , dissolved the German Confederation and allowed Prussia to annex many of

9864-529: The costs of the navy alone (Article 53). The budget period was normally for one year (Article 71), and the king was required to render an annual account of expenditures to the Reichsrat and Reichstag (Article 72). The North German Constitution did not provide for federal courts. Disputes between individual states were to be settled by the Bundesrat. For internal state constitutional disputes, the federal constitution provided for expert recommendations or settlements by

10001-677: The custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns , which were then buried in fields. The first usage of the name occurred in publications over grave sites in southern Germany in the late 19th century. Over much of Europe, the Urnfield culture followed the Tumulus culture and was succeeded by the Hallstatt culture . The Italic peoples , including the Latins , from which the Romans emerged, come from

10138-591: The death of Clovis in 511, his four sons partitioned his kingdom including Austrasia . Authority over Austrasia passed back and forth from autonomy to royal subjugation, as successive Merovingian kings alternately united and subdivided the Frankish lands. During the 5th and 6th centuries the Merovingian kings conquered the Thuringii (531 to 532), the Kingdom of the Burgundians and the principality of Metz and defeated

10275-702: The earliest apes to walk on two legs prior to other species and genera such as Australopithecus . The discovery of the Homo heidelbergensis mandible in 1907 affirms archaic human presence in Germany by at least 600,000 years ago, so stone tools were dated as far back as 1.33 million years ago. The oldest complete set of hunting weapons ever found anywhere in the world was excavated from a coal mine in Schöningen , Lower Saxony . Between 1994 and 1998, eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins between 1.82 and 2.25 m (5.97 and 7.38 ft) in length were eventually unearthed. One of

10412-574: The early 2010s, Germany played a critical role in trying to resolve the escalating euro crisis, especially concerning Greece and other Southern European nations. In 2015, Germany faced the European migrant crisis as the main receiver of asylum seekers from Syria and other troubled regions. Germany opposed Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and decided to strengthen its armed forces . Pre-human apes such as Danuvius guggenmosi , who were present in Germany over 11 million years ago, are theorized to be among

10549-522: The early history of the Germanic tribes is rare. Researchers have to be content with the recordings of the tribes' affairs with the Romans , linguistic conclusions, archaeological discoveries and the rather new yet auspicious results of archaeogenetic study. In the mid-1st century BC, Republican Roman statesman Julius Caesar erected the first known bridges across the Rhine during his campaign in Gaul and led

10686-520: The east were vehemently opposed by Caesar, who had already launched his ambitious campaign to subjugate all Gaul. Julius Caesar defeated the Suebi forces in 58 BC in the Battle of Vosges and forced Ariovistus to retreat across the Rhine. Augustus , first Roman emperor , considered conquest beyond the Rhine and the Danube not only regular foreign policy but also necessary to counter Germanic incursions into

10823-508: The electoral law of the 1848 revolution. The governments of the states of the new North German Confederation were then to submit a draft constitution to the assembly for final approval. Maximilian Duncker, a liberal member of the Prussian House of Representatives , produced a draft constitution at the request of Prussian minister president Otto von Bismarck in September 1866. He considered

10960-638: The empire as a whole and the Reichsarmee (imperial army) to enforce the verdict of the court, resulting in a full Reichskrieg (imperial war), which may be known as a Reichsexekutionskrieg or Exekutionskrieg . This final escalation required the approval of the Imperial Diet after 1648. There were numerous Reichsexekutionen in the Holy Roman Empire: During the German revolutions of 1848–1849 ,

11097-574: The entire European continent were consumed by the most severe outbreak of the Black Death pandemic . Estimated to have caused the abrupt death of 30 to 60% of Europe's population, it led to widespread social and economic disruption and deep religious disaffection and fanaticism. Minority groups, and Jews in particular were blamed, singled out and attacked . As a consequence, many Jews fled and resettled in Eastern Europe. Total population estimates of

11234-464: The federal administration. Each individual state was authorised to make proposals for the exercise of federal supervision, to represent them and to have them discussed in plenary session (Article 7). The orders and decrees concerning the federal administration were not issued by the Bundesrat but by the king of Prussia (Article 17). The Constitution did not explicitly say who was the holder of overall state power (the sovereign). Bismarck wanted to create

11371-704: The fertile plains of Central Europe during the Late Neolithic were of Indo-European ancestry. The Indo-Europeans had, via mass-migration, arrived into the heartland of Europe around 4,500 years ago. By the late Bronze Age , the Urnfield culture ( c.  1300 BC  – c.  750 BC ) had replaced the Bell Beaker , Unetice and Tumulus cultures in central Europe, whilst the Nordic Bronze Age had developed in Scandinavia and northern Germany. The name comes from

11508-519: The heart of the future Prussia ), and the Billung March . In the south, the marches included Carniola , Styria , and the March of Austria that would become Austria . The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 with the deposition of Romulus Augustus by the Germanic foederati leader Odoacer , who became the first King of Italy . Afterwards, the Franks, like other post-Roman Western Europeans, emerged as

11645-472: The highest court with jurisdiction under the laws of the individual state. The introduction of a federal court jurisdiction was the most important constitutional amendment during the time of the North German Confederation, although the constitutional text did not provide for federal jurisdiction over the constitution of the courts (Article 4, section 13). There was no general clause stating that

11782-527: The imposition of taxes and a legal framework were frustrated by the total absence of an infrastructure. Germanicus 's campaigns , for example, were almost exclusively characterized by frequent massacres of villagers and indiscriminate pillaging. The tribes, however maintained their elusive identities. A coalition of tribes under the Cherusci chieftain Arminius , who was familiar with Roman tactical doctrines, defeated

11919-409: The individual states and the federal administration. He did not issue orders and individual regulations in the name of Prussia but for the North German Confederation. The king of Prussia had no veto right in the legislature, but he could assert his hegemonic claim in the Bundesrat through the seventeen votes Prussia had there. The Prussian votes were instructed by the minister president of Prussia, who

12056-468: The individual states were obliged to make additional levy contributions (Article 70). In cases of "extraordinary need", the federal government was authorized to borrow (Article 73). Until 31 December 1871 (which turned out to be beyond the life of the North German Confederation), the budget for the army was submitted to the Reichsrat for information only (Article 71). The federal government bore

12193-476: The king of Prussia and the countersigning federal chancellor, to dissolve the Reichstag (Article 24). The king of Prussia was the head of state (referred to in the Constitution as the "presidium") of the North German Confederation (Article 11). As holder of the federal presidency, he had the governmental powers of submitting proposals to the Reichstag and of enacting and executing federal laws (Articles 16 and 17). He

12330-480: The late 14th century the powerful league enforced its interests with military means, if necessary. This culminated in a war with the sovereign Kingdom of Denmark from 1361 to 1370. Principal city of the Hanseatic League remained Lübeck, where in 1356 the first general diet was held and its official structure was announced. The league declined after 1450 due to a number of factors, such as the 15th-century crisis ,

12467-509: The leading minister clear political responsibility. Election to the Reichstag was by universal, equal, direct and secret manhood suffrage (Article 20). The North German Constitution was indirectly based on the Frankfurt Imperial Election Act of 12 April 1849 in which the principles were implemented. Bismarck considered it simple and useful to dispense with the interposition of electors and the three-tier electoral system he

12604-597: The meeting of the Council of Ministers on 13 December, a newly edited draft with 69 articles was prepared with many of Bismarck's amendments, which were removed during the course of the meeting. On 15 December 1866, the cabinet's draft was forwarded to the governments of the North German states. On 12 February 1867, the constituent Reichstag was elected; it convened for its first session on 24 February 1867. The state governments adopted Bismarck's final amendments and submitted them to

12741-406: The monarchical form of government to a republican one or vice versa. The Confederation was not prevented from taking on further powers by amending the Constitution and thus developing further into a unitary state. As members of a federal state, the individual states lost their sovereignty. They could, for example, no longer represent themselves in their dealings with other states; the responsibility

12878-504: The most celebrated of the Minnesänger , who were Middle High German lyric poets. North German Constitution The Constitution bore a strong imprint of the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck , who wanted a loosely organized confederation in which sovereignty rested with the individual states as a whole. The upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, as the body representing the states,

13015-421: The old Carolingian rights over ecclesiastical appointments. Otto wrested from the nobles the powers of appointment of the bishops and abbots, who controlled large land holdings. Additionally, Otto revived the old Carolingian program of appointing missionaries in the border lands. Otto continued to support celibacy for the higher clergy, so ecclesiastical appointments never became hereditary. By granting lands to

13152-606: The oldest buildings in the world and one of the oldest pieces of art was found in Bilzingsleben . In 1856, the fossilized bones of an extinct human species were salvaged from a limestone grotto in the Neander valley near Düsseldorf , North Rhine-Westphalia . The archaic nature of the fossils, now known to be around 40,000 years old, was recognized and the characteristics published in the first-ever paleoanthropologic species description in 1858 by Hermann Schaaffhausen . The species

13289-435: The oldest uncontested works of art and several flutes, made of bird bone and mammoth ivory that are confirmed to be the oldest musical instruments ever found. The 41,000-year-old Löwenmensch figurine represents the oldest uncontested figurative work of art and the 40,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels has been asserted as the oldest uncontested object of human figurative art ever discovered. These artefacts are attributed to

13426-573: The papacy led to the 1338 Declaration at Rhense by six princes of the Imperial Estate to the effect that election by all or the majority of the electors automatically conferred the royal title and rule over the empire, without papal confirmation. As result, the monarch was no longer subject to papal approbation and became increasingly dependent on the favour of the electors. Between 1346 and 1378 Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg , king of Bohemia, sought to restore imperial authority. The 1356 decree of

13563-433: The papal throne and for years controlled the election of the pope, setting a firm precedent for imperial control of the papacy for years to come. Otto I was followed on the throne by his son Otto II (955–983), emperor 973–983, Otto II’s wife Theophanu (955–991), regent 983–991, his own wife Adelaide of Italy (931–999), regent 991–995, and his grandson Otto III (980–1002), emperor 996–1002. Otto III died childless and

13700-419: The prior consent of the Reichstag (Article 31). Members of the Reichstag could not be appointed as heads of the highest federal authorities (Article 21). Per diems were banned (Article 32) with the intention of keeping members of the propertyless classes out of the Reichstag. Except when the subject was either foreign or military policy, the debates of the Reichstag were open to the public.(Article 22). Members of

13837-451: The proposal too cumbersome and centralistic, and as a result it was used as a counter-model and not as the prototype for the Constitution as it developed. After Bismarck made several revisions and corrections, Lothar Bucher , an aide to Bismarck, produced a draft with 65 articles on 8 December 1866, which he revised again on 9 December. The draft went to the Prussian cabinet for approval. For

13974-458: The regular provinces of Noricum and Raetia . The provinces Germania Inferior (with the capital situated at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium , modern Cologne ) and Germania Superior (with its capital at Mogontiacum , modern Mainz ), were formally established in 85 AD, after long campaigns as lasting military control was confined to the lands surrounding the rivers. Christianity was introduced to Roman controlled western Germania before

14111-543: The remaining lands of the order into the secular Duchy of Prussia . Henry V , great-grandson of Conrad II, who had overthrown his father Henry IV became Holy Roman Emperor in 1111. Hoping to gain greater control over the church inside the Empire, Henry V appointed Adalbert of Saarbrücken as the powerful archbishop of Mainz in the same year. Adalbert began to assert the powers of the Church against secular authorities, that is,

14248-498: The rise of independent territorial states. The struggle with the Pope sapped the Empire's strength, as Frederick II was excommunicated three times. After his death, the Hohenstaufen dynasty fell, followed by an interregnum during which there was no Emperor (1250–1273). This interregnum came to an end with the election of a small Swabian count, Rudolf of Habsburg, as emperor. The failure of negotiations between Emperor Louis IV and

14385-464: The smaller German states to form the North German Confederation through the Treaty of 18 August 1866 . On 10 June 1866, four days before the start of the war, the Prussian government had presented the other German states with the outlines of a new federal constitution containing ten articles that formulated its key principles. A Reichstag was to be elected as a constituent assembly according to equal, secret and universal manhood suffrage, which had been

14522-554: The stem duchies as the major divisions of Germany, but they became increasingly obsolete during the early high-medieval period under the Hohenstaufen , and Frederick Barbarossa finally abolished them in 1180 in favour of more numerous territorial duchies. Successive kings of Germany founded a series of border counties or marches in the east and the north. These included Lusatia , the North March (which would become Brandenburg and

14659-406: The supreme command of the king of Prussia as Federal Field Commander ( Bundesfeldherr ). As "chiefs of the troops in their territory", the federal princes were military rulers only at need and without command authority (Article 66). The soldiers still had to take an oath of allegiance to the princes, but it had to include obedience to the king of Prussia as well (Article 64). The peacetime strength

14796-403: The territorial lords' shifting policies towards greater commercial control, the silver crisis and marginalization in the wider Eurasian trade network, among others. The Ostsiedlung (lit. Eastern settlement) is the term for a process of largely uncoordinated immigration and chartering of settlement structures by ethnic Germans into territories, already inhabited by Slavs and Balts east of

14933-566: The throne and electoral rights, although they lost their sovereignty to the Confederation. The North German Constitution remained in force until the short-lived Constitution of the German Confederation , which was based largely on its predecessor, went into effect on 1 January 1871. After the failure of the German revolutions of 1848–49 , the government of Prussia was convinced that the German people would continue to pursue their "redemption from fragmentation and powerlessness" regardless of

15070-465: The towns; a few were open to women. Society had diversified, but was divided into sharply demarcated classes of the clergy , physicians , merchants , various guilds of artisans, unskilled day labourers and peasants . Full citizenship was not available to paupers . Political tensions arose from issues of taxation, public spending, regulation of business, and market supervision, as well as the limits of corporate autonomy. Cologne's central location on

15207-556: The traditional territory of the various Germanic tribes. The concept of such duchies survived especially in the areas which by the 9th century would constitute East Francia , which included the Duchy of Bavaria , the Duchy of Swabia , the Duchy of Saxony , the Duchy of Franconia and the Duchy of Thuringia , unlike further west the County of Burgundy or Lorraine in Middle Francia . The Salian emperors (reigned 1027–1125) retained

15344-479: The troops had retreated, but eventually were incorporated into the empire as marches , fortified borderlands with garrisoned troops in strongholds and castles, who were to ensure military control and enforce the exaction of tributes. Contemporary sources do not support the idea of policies or plans for the organized settlement of civilians. Emperor Lothair II re-established feudal sovereignty over Poland, Denmark and Bohemia from 1135 and appointed margraves to turn

15481-399: The unspecified and therefore unstable balance between the king of Prussia and the chancellor and between the chancellor and the Reichstag, remained hidden in the early years because Bismarck was able to exercise the office at his own political discretion. The Reichstag majority was of the opinion that the Constitution had worked brilliantly. The North German Confederation was successful because

15618-485: The various regions of their Frankish Empire under the control of semi-autonomous dukes – either Franks or local rulers, and followed imperial Roman strategic traditions of social and political integration of the newly conquered territories. While allowed to preserve their own legal systems, the conquered Germanic tribes were pressured to abandon the Arian Christian faith. In 718 Charles Martel waged war against

15755-659: The victorious powers and in the east annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union. Germany spent the entirety of the Cold War era divided into the NATO -aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact -aligned East Germany . Germans also fled from Communist areas into West Germany, which experienced rapid economic expansion , and became the dominant economy in Western Europe. In 1989, the Berlin Wall

15892-783: The war, the Nazis established a systematic genocide program known as the Holocaust which killed 17 million people, including 6 million Jews (representing 2/3rds of the European Jewish population). By 1944, the German Army was pushed back on all fronts until finally collapsing in May 1945. Under occupation by the Allies , denazification efforts took place, large populations under former German-occupied territories were displaced, German territories were split up by

16029-536: Was opened , the Eastern Bloc collapsed, and East and West Germany were reunited in 1990. The Franco-German friendship became the basis for the political integration of Western Europe in the European Union . In 1998–1999, Germany was one of the founding countries of the eurozone . Germany remains one of the economic powerhouses of Europe, contributing about 1/4 of the eurozone's annual gross domestic product . In

16166-622: Was a commercial and defensive alliance of the merchant guilds of towns and cities in northern and central Europe that dominated marine trade in the Baltic Sea , the North Sea and along the connected navigable rivers during the Late Middle Ages ( 12th to 15th centuries ). Each of the affiliated cities retained the legal system of its sovereign and, with the exception of the Free imperial cities , had only

16303-662: Was achieved under the leadership of the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck with the formation of the German Empire in 1871. The new Reichstag , an elected parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government. Germany joined the other powers in colonial expansion in Africa and the Pacific . By 1900, Germany was the dominant power on the European continent and its rapidly expanding industry had surpassed Britain 's while provoking it in

16440-441: Was also chancellor and chairman of the Bundesrat (Article 15). Prussia had a blocking minority for constitutional amendments (Article 78), in military and naval affairs (Article 5) and in customs and excise duties and the associated administrative regulations and administrative authorities (Articles 35 and 37). In the alliance treaty of 18 August 1866, Prussia and the other North German states had agreed that all troops would be under

16577-400: Was also concentrated in the hands of the king because neither the approval of the Reichstag nor the countersignature of the chancellor was required for acts of command and military organisation (Article 63). The most important governmental power of the king was to appoint the federal chancellor (Article 15). He also had the right to supervise the execution of federal laws by the administration of

16714-470: Was commander-in-chief of the federal army (Article 63) and navy (Article 53) and was responsible for declaring war and concluding peace in the name of the Confederation (Article 11). Because of royal rights and the restrictions on the rights of the Reichstag, the North German Confederation was established a semi-constitutional monarchy. As head of state, the king was able to conclude alliances and other foreign policy treaties (Article 11). Foreign policy power

16851-476: Was established under Austrian presidency. The German revolutions of 1848–1849 failed but the Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, leading to rapid urban growth and the emergence of the socialist movement . Prussia, with its capital Berlin , grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science and humanities, while music and art flourished. The unification of Germany

16988-483: Was familiar with. For foreign policy reasons, Bismarck adopted the universal manhood suffrage of the Frankfurt Constitution in his outlines for the new federal constitution. He hoped that Austria and Russia would not draw the attention of their populations to the suffrage withheld from them and would therefore pass over the emergence of a new power in Europe in silence. The prosecution of members of parliament required

17125-638: Was given to Otto of Wittelsbach , who founded the Wittelsbach dynasty , which was to rule Bavaria until 1918. From 1184 to 1186, the empire under Frederick I Barbarossa reached its cultural peak with the Diet of Pentecost held at Mainz and the marriage of his son Henry in Milan to the Norman princess Constance of Sicily . The power of the feudal lords was undermined by the appointment of ministerials (unfree servants of

17262-401: Was head of state and was responsible for executing federal laws passed by the parliament but had no veto right. He was commander-in-chief of the federal army and navy and could declare war and make peace. The Constitution did not provide for federal courts. Disputes between states were to be resolved by the Bundesrat. The individual states retained their statehood, constitutions, successions to

17399-420: Was introduced in all individual states (Article 61), as were Prussian administrative regulations (Article 63). The navy was under Prussian supreme command and was financed exclusively by the federal government (Article 63). Direct taxes, such as income tax, remained with the individual states. The revenue from customs and excise duties went to the federal treasury. If customs and excise duties were not sufficient,

17536-545: Was named Homo neanderthalensis , Neanderthal man in 1864. The oldest traces of homo sapiens in Germany were found in the cave Ilsenhöhle  [ de ] in Ranis , where up to 47,500-year-old remains were discovered, among the oldest in Europe. The remains of Paleolithic early modern human occupation uncovered and documented in several caves in the Swabian Jura include various mammoth ivory sculptures that rank among

17673-695: Was one of the primary areas of the Linear Pottery culture ( c.  5500 BC  – c.  4500 BC ), which was partially contemporary with the Ertebølle culture ( c.  5300 BC  – c.  3950 BC ) of Denmark and northern Germany. The construction of the Central European Neolithic circular enclosures falls in this time period with the best known and oldest being the Goseck circle , constructed c.  4900 BC . Afterwards, Germany

17810-426: Was one per cent of the population (Article 60), and the individual states had to pay an annual contribution of 225 Thaler for each soldier to the Confederation (Article 62). The army was a federal army (Article 63) and therefore uniform in terms of administration, rations, armaments and equipment (Article 63). The king of Prussia appointed the highest commander of a contingent (Article 64). Prussian military legislation

17947-504: Was part of the Rössen culture , Michelsberg culture and Funnelbeaker culture ( c.  4600 BC  – c.  2800 BC ). The oldest traces for the use of wheel and wagon ever found are located at a northern German Funnelbeaker culture site and date to around 3400 BC. The settlers of the Corded Ware culture ( c.  2900 BC  – c.  2350 BC ), that had spread all over

18084-590: Was replaced in May 1871 by the Constitution of the German Empire . It, too, was an only slightly modified version of the North German Constitution. It renamed the Confederation to the German Empire , made the head of state the German emperor and added special clauses for Bavaria and Württemberg . It remained in effect until the end of World War I in November 1918. Weaknesses in the Constitution, such as

18221-748: Was succeeded by his second cousin Henry II , who likewise died childless as the last emperor of the Ottonian dynasty. Henry II was succeeded by Conrad II , a great-great-grandson of Otto I and the first emperor of the Salian dynasty . During the reign of Conrad II's son, Henry III (1039 to 1056), the empire supported the Cluniac reforms of the Church, the Peace of God , prohibition of simony (the purchase of clerical offices), and required celibacy of priests. Imperial authority over

18358-447: Was the democratic body of the North German Confederation, and it participated on an equal footing with the Bundesrat in the Confederation's legislation (Articles 4 and 5). It was not a full parliament, since it was dependent on other state bodies and had no comprehensive rights of control over the government. The Reichstag also did not have the right of self-assembly. Only the king of Prussia was authorised to convene, open, adjourn and close

18495-486: Was thus the Confederation's sovereign. Its members were chosen by the states' governments. The members of the lower house of parliament, the Reichstag , were elected by universal manhood suffrage. The Reichstag participated on an equal footing with the Bundesrat in legislation for the Confederation. The chancellor, who presided over the Bundesrat, was appointed by the king of Prussia and was responsible only to him. The king

18632-433: Was to take effect on 1 May. The Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg demanded compensation for the loss of its lucrative Spielbank Bad Homburg , but this was refused. On 9 March, Hesse-Homburg formally protested the law and on 1 May it had not complied. On 7 May, the provisional government sent a Reichskommissar , Theodor Friedrich Knyn , to Homburg with 700 troops in order to carry out a Reichsexekution . Under Article 19 of

18769-493: Was transferred to the king of Prussia (Article 11). In September 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871), the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership began unification talks with the south German states. The result was the Constitution of the German Confederation , which was based largely on the 1867 North German Constitution and went into effect on 1 January 1871. That constitution

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