The Revival of German Unions of Local Authorities After World War II

A democratic and peace-loving Germany must have sound political, economic, social, and ethical foundations. On the political side, this means, among other things, the restoration of local self-government, destroyed by Nazi rule and now in process of being rebuilt. Fortunately, Germany has a long tradition of local self-government on which to build. The tradition reaches back to the Middle Ages, but was lost in the centralizing absolutism of modern times. With the reforms of Stein in 1808, a new chapter in the history of local self-government began which lasted on down through the Bismarckian Empire and the Weimar Republic. One of the attributes of local self-government is freedom of association. In other words, local authorities may voluntarily unite in associations for the promotion of their mutual interests and the defense of their rights against encroachments by the state. For example, the United States has its state leagues of municipalities, federated into the American Municipal Association, France has its Union des Villes et Communes de France, and Britain has its Association of Municipal Corporations. The same was true of pre-Hitler Germany, with its various unions of cities (Städte), rural counties (Landkreise), rural communes or municipalities (Landgemeinden), and provinces. The first German union of local authorities was the Hanover Städteverein founded in 1866 while Hanover was still an independent kingdom. Thirty years later (1896), the cities of all Prussia formed the Preussischer Städtetag. In that same year, the Bavarian cities were also organized. These various state unions were finally united (1905) into an all-German association known as the Deutscher Städtetag. In addition to the state unions, larger cities were direct members of the organization—usually cities with more than 25,000 inhabitants and constituting Stadtkreise (city-counties or county-boroughs, to use the English terminology). In 1931, 279 cities held direct membership in the Deutscher Städtetag.