German Administration under the Nazi Régime

When the third edition of Otto Mayer's famous treatise on German administrative law appeared in 1924, this dean of the science of German administration remarked, ironically and almost contemptuously, in his preface: “No important additions have been necessary since the editions of 1914 and 1917…. While constitutions wane, administrative structures remain.” This statement being made at a time when the structure of German government seemed to have been changed fundamentally by a world war and a revolution, many considered it a somewhat sour reaction of a conservative and a “specialist,” who closed his eyes to the great changes which had taken place in Germany and sought solace in the apparent stability of the more technical administrative machine.Today we see that the remark almost perfectly fitted a situation where, under what proved to be a rather fragile constitutional roof, essential bureaucratic forces and governmental structures remained the same as before and were able eventually to thwart the implementation of the new political tendencies. Upon further reflection, Mayer's somewhat casual statement seems to fit the more general relation between the constitutional-political form and the underlying administrative structure which has prevailed in. Continental countries since the French Revolution.