Germany · 175th anniversary of the Paulskirchenverfassung

The Frankfurt National Assembly emerged from the March Revolution of 1848. In many German states, citizens demanded political participation, freedom of the press, fundamental rights and national unity. The delegates, elected according to different state-specific rules, convened on 18 May 1848. They were primarily lawyers, professors, civil servants and other members of the educated middle class; women had neither the right to vote nor the right to stand for election.

The Protestant Paulskirche in Frankfurt am Main served as the venue. Its large, well-arranged interior was better suited to a parliamentary assembly than the city’s existing secular buildings. Since then, the church has been regarded as a place of remembrance in the history of German democracy. The present building was reconstructed after its destruction in the Second World War and reopened in 1948, on the centenary of the National Assembly.

The delegates had to devise a state order while responding to current conflicts. Among the contentious issues were the borders of the future Reich, the relationship with Austria and Prussia, and the question of whether Germany should become a republic or a monarchy. The draft ultimately adopted provided for a federal constitutional state with a parliament, a government, an independent judiciary and a hereditary emperor at its head. A catalogue of fundamental rights regulated, among other things, equality before the law, freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of opinion and the press, and the abolition of privileges based on social estates.

The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV rejected the imperial dignity offered to him. Several governments of individual German states also refused to recognise the new order. As a result, the National Assembly lost its political foundation; its remnant, relocated to Stuttgart, was dissolved in June 1849.

Although the constitution did not come into force permanently, its conceptions of fundamental rights and parliamentary principles influenced later German constitutions. The anniversary therefore provided an occasion to recall the conflict-ridden beginnings of parliamentarianism, national unification and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms in Germany.