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Germany Government
After Germany’s defeat in World War II, the Allied forces of France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR) divided the country into four zones. In 1948 France, Britain, and the United States merged their zones into one region while the Soviet Union imposed Communist rule over its zone. In 1949 this division of Germany was perpetuated by the creation of East Germany and West Germany.
In West Germany, a council composed of members of the state legislatures created the Basic Law, or constitution, in 1948 and 1949. It was approved by the state legislatures and by U.S., British, and French occupation authorities. The Basic Law established West Germany as a parliamentary democracy and a federation of states (see Federalism). It has been amended many times, most recently in the 1990s to help anchor the unification of East and West Germany in the constitution. At that point, Germany decided to reconstitute the five original states of East Germany and to admit them, one by one, into the federal union without changing the basic structure of the West German system. The Unity Treaty of 1990 permitted East Germany to retain some of its laws that conflicted with West German statutes until the all-German parliament could bring about a uniform settlement.
A Federal Union
The kind of federalism set forth in the Basic Law is based on German federal traditions and differs from the federal system of the United States. German federalism concentrates legislative power at the federal level and places administrative and judicial powers at the state level. Each state has a popularly elected legislature, which chooses a minister-president or a first mayor (in Hamburg and Bremen) to serve as chief executive. There is very little for the 16 state assemblies to legislate because the Basic Law subordinates most state legislative powers to the federal government. However, the states formulate some educational and cultural policies and maintain police. The administration of all laws, including federal laws, is almost exclusively in the hands of the states. Federal administration—except for the foreign service, border protection, and defense—is limited to the personnel of federal cabinet ministries and institutes. These federal bodies collect statistics and draw up legislative bills for policy-making. Even taxation is mostly federally legislated and state administered, including the largest sources of revenue, income and corporation taxes. These taxes are shared by the state and federal levels and, in part, are redistributed from the richer to the poorer states.
The key German federal institution is the Bundesrat (Federal Council), which is the representative of the state governments and has the final say in disputes between states and between the states and the federal government. The Bundesrat is the upper house of parliament but its members are state ministers or civil servants and are not elected; instead their respective state governments appoint them. Of Germany’s 16 states, the four largest—North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Baden-Württemberg, and Bavaria—are all in the west and tend to predominate in the Bundesrat. The five states of former East Germany—which are mostly poor and, with the exception of Saxony, small in population—play a lesser role in federal politics.
B Executive
Germany has a parliamentary head of government, or prime minister, called the chancellor. The chancellor is chosen by a majority vote of the popularly elected lower house of parliament, the Bundestag (Federal Assembly), usually by a coalition of parties. The chancellor selects a cabinet of ministers from among the parties in the coalition. The Basic Law gives the chancellor the authority to determine the guidelines of government policy and to select and dismiss the ministers. The chancellor can be removed from office only if the Bundestag elects a successor or when the Bundestag itself is reelected. Due to the existence of strong, disciplined parties, Germany has a stable system of government with little turnover.
The federal president, who acts as the head of state, is elected for a five-year term by the Bundesversammlung (Federal Convention), which consists of the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of members from the state legislatures. The president’s functions are largely ceremonial and nonpartisan. The president receives foreign ambassadors and promulgates laws but has no authority to make policy.
C Legislature
Germany’s federal parliament consists of two legislative bodies, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. The Bundestag is popularly elected at intervals of no more than four years. All citizens who are 18 years of age or older may vote. The number of seats in the Bundestag varies from election to election; there were 614 seats in 2005.
Bundestag seats are determined by a two-part electoral process. German voters have two votes: one to directly select a candidate for their district, and the other to select a particular party. Half of the seats are filled by directly elected candidates, while the other half are filled based on the percentage of the total vote that each party receives. The final distribution of each party’s seats is also adjusted in proportion to the total popular vote. A party must have at least three candidates directly elected or receive a minimum of 5 percent of the national popular vote to win representation. The Bundestag is organized into topical legislative committees, such as for foreign affairs and for agriculture. The committees discuss and modify appropriate bills, but nearly all bills originate with the chancellor’s cabinet.
The 69-member Bundesrat is appointed by the 16 state governments. Representation is determined by population, with each state having no less than three and no more than six seats. The four largest states each have six-member delegations; the four smallest states—Saarland, Hamburg, Bremen, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern—each have three-member delegations; and all the other states have four seats each. This ratio actually favors the smaller and smallest states because it gives them a veto over any action that requires a two-thirds majority, such as constitutional amendments. Each state delegation must vote as a block and according to the instructions of its state government. In its legislative role, the Bundesrat has only a suspensive veto (whereby it can delay but not actually prevent the passage of bills approved by the Bundestag) over most legislation. The exception to this is bills that deal with the administrative responsibilities of the state governments, which are the more important bills before parliament. On these, the Bundesrat has a veto, which cannot be overridden.
D Judiciary
Germanyfollows civil law (or Roman law) procedures and organization, which differ substantially from American and British common law. Judges play a more activist role, and attorneys a lesser one, than in an American courtroom. In a typical German criminal trial, a panel of judges hears the case. The panel includes the investigating judge, who conducts a prior investigation of the facts of the case and decides if it should be tried at all. The states’ ministries of justice appoint and promote most judges.
German courts at the state level form separate hierarchies depending on the kind of law that they administer: civil, criminal, administrative, social insurance, financial, or labor law. Each state system is headed by a high court, and there is one federal court for each of these specialties. However, plaintiffs may appeal their cases up to the appropriate federal court only if they can demonstrate that similar cases involving the same federal laws have been interpreted differently by the high courts of other states. In such a case, the federal court gives a binding interpretation of the law in question.
Germany also maintains a separate, non-Roman law system of constitutional courts, which interpret their respective state constitutions and the Basic Law. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe is the most important. It has a total of 16 judges, 8 selected by the Bundestag and 8 by the Bundesrat. A judicial candidate must receive a two-thirds majority vote, thus ensuring a broad consensus on the selection. The Federal Constitutional Court comprises two panels. One panel deals with the bill of rights, articles 1 to 20 of the Basic Law; the other panel judges disputes among federal bodies, among states, and between levels of government. The court has invalidated about 800 federal and state laws and regulations and given its interpretation on well over half of the articles of the Basic Law. A large part of its work involves citizens’ complaints about violations of the bill of rights. It has even heard foreign policy issues, including cases on the constitutionality of treaties.
E Political Parties
A number of political parties are represented in the Bundestag. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is Germany’s oldest party. Founded in 1875, the SPD has developed from a Marxist socialist workers’ party into a broadly based people’s party, which now also emphasizes Christianity and humanism. The SPD supporters include trade union workers and white-collar and public employees, especially teachers. In recent years, the SPD has championed environmentally oriented economic reforms, environmental concerns in general, women’s rights, and the rights of asylum-seekers.
The SPD has often allied itself with Germany’s Green Party. This party has gradually gained strength since it first won representation in the Bundestag in 1983. The Greens support environmentalism, feminism, and pacifism. Despite the enormous environmental problems in former East Germany, the Greens have attracted little support there. They have, however, joined forces with Alliance 90, a party that has grown out of the East German citizen movements that first opposed the Communist dictatorship. (Green Parties.)
Another major party is the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is closely allied with the Christian Social Union (CSU) of Bavaria. The CDU/CSU has also formed an alliance in the past with the much smaller Free Democratic Party (FDP). This coalition brought about German unification in 1989 and 1990 against considerable opposition. The CDU and the CSU were both established in 1945. Under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CDU/CSU alliance was conservative on economic and social questions, such as abortion rights, although it supported the welfare state, which provided a wide range of social services to its citizens. Among the CDU/CSU supporters are churchgoing Catholics and Protestants from all walks of life, farmers, and nonunion workers. The FDP, founded in 1948, is a party of liberal and libertarian business and professional people, white-collar workers, and farmers.
Also represented in the Bundestag is the Left Party. The Left Party is a successor to the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which in turn succeeded the state-run Communist Party of EastGermany. Most PDS voters were white-collar employees from former East Germany, including many university-educated and highly trained civil service and management professionals who were discontent with unification. The PDS had almost no support outside of former East Germany and tried to represent the regional interests of this area. In 2005 the PDS formed an alliance with a left-wing group called Election Alternative: Jobs and Social Justice (WASG). The WASG was primarily made up of a breakaway faction from the SPD. The Left Party was formed from this alliance.
Dozens of other parties run candidates in every election but have not yet managed to gain representation in the Bundestag. Some have won seats in state legislatures. Among them are radical right groups such as the Republicans, the German People’s Union, and the National Democrats.
F Social Insurance
Germany has one of the most comprehensive and generous systems of health, old age, disability, and unemployment insurance in the world. A large part of the population benefits from the welfare system, which includes child support, public housing, and veterans aid. The welfare state accounts for about one-third of the national budget. Basic universal health care and old age and disability pensions are financed equally by employer and employee contributions. Better-paid employees, managers, and business and professional people usually supplement their benefit levels by buying additional private insurance. Employers pay for accident insurance. Long-term nursing care for the elderly is financed by payroll taxes. Parliament sets the rates of these insurance programs, which are administered by boards staffed by trade unions and employers’ associations.
The German welfare state began in the 1880s with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s old age and disability insurance, and it has always enjoyed broad support. With the birth of West Germany in 1949, the welfare programs continued to grow due to a social partnership between business and labor, as well as the social market economic policies of the CDU/CSU governments. These programs were based on the common belief that a well-ordered welfare state can be highly productive at the same time that it takes care of its weaker members. A law passed in 1957 tied West German public pensions to rising wage levels. In 1990 the average pension after a career of gainful employment was about 70 percent of the last income before retirement. On the downside, such a generous welfare state results in high tax rates for social security.
Before unification in 1990, East Germans enjoyed a modest but egalitarian system of social insurance. Subsidized rents, food, transportation, and recreation made their modest pension levels quite comfortable. Unification raised East German pensions, but it has also brought higher prices as the subsidies are ended.
G Defense
Since 1955 West German external security has been tied to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). East Germany was similarly tied to the Warsaw Pact until 1990. Even in peacetime, all major units of the German army and air force were assigned to NATO operational command, leaving no separate German army under German command. The final negotiations toward international recognition of united Germany gave Germans a choice of whether or not they wanted to continue in the Western alliance or to become a neutral nation; they chose NATO. As a condition of being accorded international sovereignty in 1990, Germany pledged to limit its armed forces to 370,000 troops and to continue to foreswear the production and use of nuclear, bacteriological, and chemical weapons. The cap on military forces meant that the West German NATO forces of about 500,000 and the East German forces of 200,000 were halved. The East German army was dissolved, and West Germany invited East German military personnel, but not high officers, to apply for transfer to the Bundeswehr (Federal Army).
About two-thirds of the Bundeswehr consists of army units, while the remaining one-third is naval and coastal and air forces. Half of the military personnel are regulars or extended-service volunteers for terms ranging from 2 to 15 years. The other half are conscripts who are drafted for 10 months. All men 18 years of age or older must serve in the military. Large numbers of persons subject to the draft opt instead for the status of conscientious objector, which obliges them to spend two years in civilian service in hospitals, old age homes, and other civilian settings.
After the defeat of the German forces in World War II, major efforts were undertaken to reduce the militaristic spirit of the German armed forces. Officers and soldiers were educated to be “citizens in uniform.” The Basic Law ensured civilian control over the military, specifying that in peacetime the defense minister has the supreme command over the Bundeswehr. If the Bundestag declares a “state of defense,” the command passes to the chancellor. The Bundestag also controls the defense budget, and its Defense Committee oversees the organization and procedures of the military. In addition, the Bundestag appoints a defense ombudsman to handle complaints by enlistees on subjects such as officer misconduct and other abuses.
Germanywas accustomed to the presence of foreign military forces after it was defeated in World War II. From the beginning of the 1945 Allied occupation, 250,000 American troops and as many as 360,000 Soviet soldiers were stationed in West and East Germany, along with a huge quantity of lethal weapons ranging from tanks and planes to nuclear-armed missiles. The presence of foreign army units and recurrent military maneuvers were a constant reminder to the German people of how closely they lived to possible open warfare. A major change in German life occurred in the early 1990s when most NATO countries reduced their forces in Germany, the Americans to under 100,000 troops. The Russians completed the withdrawal from their bases in East Germany in 1994. The final and most symbolically meaningful exodus was the departure in 1994 of the token troops from four nations that had kept Berlin an occupied city since 1945.
H International Organizations
In addition to NATO, Germany is a member of numerous European and international groups. Germany, together with France, has played a leading role in the European Union (EU). Under EU auspices, Germany has pressed for a more unified and cooperative Europe in economic, political, and security affairs. Both Germanys were members of the United Nations (UN), and united Germany joined the UN in 1990. Germany also participates in UN agencies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Labor Organization (ILO), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) .Germany belongs to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Communications Satellite Corporation (INTELSAT), and Interpol (the International Criminal Police Organization).
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