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The German Referendum on the Princes' Property
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
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On June 20, 1926, for the first time in history, a large nation made a trial of direct democracy. On that day the German electors were summoned to the polls to pass judgment upon the question of the expropriation of the property of the ex-rulers. The measure voted upon was worded in an extreme fashion, as the leaders of the Left, who framed it, felt that it was necessary to obtain a clear answer to the exorbitant demands made by the fallen dynasties. Although the princes had been given large indemnities by various states, several of them had brought suits for larger claims and had won. Created as they were by the old régime, the courts had very often refused to distinguish between the private property of the princes and the property of the state. By reason of the court decisions, the German people were in danger of losing not only considerable sums of money but inestimable art treasures as well. It was this situation that gave the Communists and Socialists an opportunity to demand popular support for complete confiscation of the princes' property.
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- Foreign Governments and Politics
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1927
References
35 The text of the referendum was as follows:
“The German people, through popular initiative and referendum, decree the following law:
1. The entire fortune of the princes who have ruled in any one of the German states until the revolution of 1918, as well as the entire fortune of the princely houses, their families and family members, are confiscated without compensation, in the interest of general welfare.
2. The confiscated property is to be used to aid:
(a) The unemployed
(b) The war invalids and the war widows and orphans
(c) Those dependent upon the public
(d) The needy victims of inflation
(e) The agricultural laborers, tenants, and peasants through the creation of free land in confiscated estates.
The castles, residences, and other buildings are to be used for general welfare, cultural and educational purposes, especially for convalescent hospitals for war invalids, war widows and orphans, and for the socially dependent, as well as for children's homes and educational institutions.”
36 Lewinsohn, R., Histoire de l'Inflation (Paris, 1925).Google Scholar
37 Kaisenberg, G., Volksentscheid und Volksbegehren (Berlin, 1926).Google Scholar
38 Kaisenberg, G., Der Weg der Volksgesetzgebung (Berlin, 1926), p. 28.Google Scholar
39 Vössiche Zeitung, May 21, 1926.
40 Berliner Tageblatt, June 19, 1926.
41 Germania maintained a significant silence upon the issue.
42 The letter read in part as follows: “I need hardly tell you that I, who have passed my life in the service of the kings of Prussia and of the German emperors, look on this petition for a referendum as a deplorable lack of traditional feeling and as a gross ingratitude ‥‥ a blow against the foundation of what is right and ethical.”
43 Die Role Fahne and Vorwärts, June 21, 22, 1926; Berliner Tageblatt, July 1, 1926.
44 In the Reichstag elections of December, 1924, the Communists polled 2,709,086 and the Socialists 7,881,041 votes. In the second balloting for president in April, 1925, Hindenburg received 14,655,641, Marx, 13,751,605, and Thälmann, the Communist candidate, 1,931,151 votes.
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