The Basic Law, whose 60th anniversary we celebrate today, is not identical with the Constitution that was enacted on 23 May 1949. In the sixty years of its existence, it has been amended fifty-four times. Further amendments are under way. Many amendments concerned more than just one article. A little more than half of the 146 articles of the original text still read as they were framed in 1949. However, twenty-six of these unchanged articles are part of the “Transitional and Concluding Provisions.” A number of them were limited to one singular act of application, such as Art. 136 I (“The Bundesrat [Federal Council] shall convene for the first time on the day the Bundestag [national parliament] first convenes.”), and lost their normative value with the completion of the given act. A little less than half of the original articles, and the Preamble, have been subject to amendments; some of them several times. The forerunner is Art. 106 (apportionment of tax revenue), with six amendments. In addition, forty-seven articles have been added to the original text, some of which were repealed later.