Did members of the Reichsrat in Weimar Germany have political parties, or was it a non-partisan body?

by oom1999

Okay, so a few searches haven't turned up the answers I'm looking for. In the July 1932 German elections, the Nazi Party took a plurality of the seats in the Reichstag, the lower house of the German legislature. They would hold onto that plurality until they seized power the following year.

But what of Weimar Germany's upper house, the Reichsrat? They weren't popularly elected, but rather appointed by the individual German states. Did members of this body have political parties, or was it supposed to be a nonpartisan body? Hitler completely dissolved the Reichsrat soon after seizing power, so I would assume that Nazi sentiments were not popular there, but that assumption is all I have.

_persevero_

Disclaimer: I'm by no means an expert on this topic and will only give a small answer.

As you correctly pointed out, members of the Reichsrat were not directly elected by the public but instead appointed by the respective governments of all German states forming the Weimar republic (modern day's Germany's Bundesrat is similar in that regard). Seats per state were allocated in proportion to their population but in order to prevent Prussian dominance whose population would have resulted in around 60% of the seats, the voting power was capped to 40% per state. But that's not what you were asking!

One very important point to keep in mind in regards to your question is the fact that de jure the Reichsrat was in fact not the upper chamber of the Weimar parliament - the constitution did not describe a parliament consisting of two chambers. De facto it could still play a big role in the legislative process because it had the rigth to veto any bill by the Reichstag BUT in theory, with a 2/3 majority the latter body had the authority to simply overrule the Reichsrat (since such a 2/3 majority was virtually impossible, especially in the early 30s, the Reichsrat had a more deciding standing than the constitution technically provided for. Another element that made party politics a less influential and deciding factor in the Reichsrat was the nature of the member's mandate - a so-called "imperative" one, meaning that the way members voted was decided by their respective state government and not (at least not necessarily) along party lines although it was possible that those two intersected.

So, the Reichsrat wasn't exactly non-partisan but by nature of its place in the institution partisan politics didn't play the biggest role in it. As the conservative politcal scientist Carl Schmitt described, the Reichsrat "in reality comes close to a second chamber in terms of powers and activities, but it is not constructed as a special representation, but only as a representation of the German states in the legislative and administrative processes of the Reich, namely as an assembly of instructed representatives of the state governments. Through its right to participate in the legislation ... it can perform the functions of a second chamber in the system of a power-sharing construction, but it does not form a parliament together with the Reichstag" (Schmitt, Verfassungslehre, 296).

As far as Hitler and the Nazis were concerned, this institution of "power-sharing" went directly against their plans for a heavily centralized German state. At the same time, the Reichsrat didn't prove to be a hurdle on their way to seize complete power - after all, the "Ermächtigungsgesetz" (enabling act) passed the Reichstag with a 2/3 majority. But even shortly before that, the Reichstag Fire decree and the process of "Gleichschaltung" meant that the federal government could interfere with the state governments and therefore automatically take over control of the Reichsrat.

I hope this quick and jubmled reply answered some of your questions but it's far from comprehensive.

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