Frankfurt Parliament

The outside of the church of St. Paul on the day of first deliberation.

The Frankfurt Parliament or Frankfurt Assembly (Frankfurter Nationalversammlung) was a German National Assembly convened after the March revolution of 1848, who tried to establish the unification of Germany in a democratic way. It was chaired by Heinrich von Gagern.

In most of the German states, liberal governments had been formed, the so-called Märzregierungen ("March governments"). On March 10, 1848, the Reichstag (imperial parliament) of the German Confederation (the institution that replaced the dissolved Holy Roman Empire during the Napoleonic Wars) appointed a Siebzehnerausschuss ("committee of seventeen") to prepare a constitutional text; On March 20, the Bundestag urged the states of the confederation to call elections for a constituent assembly. After serious street riots (Barrikadenaufstand) in Prussia, a Prussian National Assembly was also convened, to prepare the constitution of that kingdom.

The 585 deputies elected from the entire territory of the Confederation for the Vorparlament met, when King Frederick William IV of Prussia gave his consent, in the Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church) in Frankfurt am Main. The sessions took place between May 18, 1848 and May 31, 1849.

The Assembly approved the first German constitution, the Frankfurt Constitution of 1849 (Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches, also called Paulskirchenverfassung, or St. Paul's Church Constitution), which did not come into force.

Background

The triumph of the Revolution in France at the end of February 1848, which meant the end of the monarchy of Louis-Philippe of Orleans and the proclamation of the Second French Republic, had an enormous impact throughout Europe and also in the 39 German states grouped since 1815 in the German Confederation. The German liberals and radical democrats took to the streets at the beginning of March, as in Paris, to demand -also from the parliaments- civil liberties, the legalization of political parties and the formation of a national militia, but above all the convocation of a national Parliament. These petitions became known as the "March Demands".

Development

The main “March demand” came true on May 18 when the 585 representatives of the German people elected by universal male suffrage – among whom were Germany's intellectual and liberal elite, but only four artisans and no peasants ― met at St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt to form the German National Assembly, charged with approving a constitution and electing a government for all of Germany. The call had been made on March 5 by 51 liberal deputies from various southern German states meeting in Heidelberg. Between March 31 and April 2, a Previous Parliament had met in Frankfurt that aspired to represent the whole of the Germans without distinguishing the State to which they belonged.

Session of the Frankfurt Assembly in which Democratic leader Robert Blum addresses the deputies (June 1848).

To preside over the Assembly, Heinrich von Gagern was elected, who appointed John of Habsburg as regent of the Empire, without having consulted the princes, and formed a provisional central government. The majority of the deputies defended a moderate position that consisted of gradually reforming the German states, with the agreement of their princes, to convert them, following the liberal model, into constitutional states. Only a minority advocated the formation of a federal republic similar to the United States.

In the deliberations of the Assembly, the confrontation soon arose between the supporters of the «Greater Germany», which included all the German territories, including Austria, and at its head an emperor of the House of Habsburg, the reigning dynasty in the Empire Austrian; and the defenders of "Little Germany", in favor of excluding non-German areas from the Austrian Empire and for the new state to be headed by an emperor from the House of Hohenzollern, who reigned in Prussia. In late October In 1848, the Assembly approved by a strong majority a resolution favorable to "little Germany" and contrary to the claims of Austria, since it stated that "no part of the German Reich can form a State with non-German countries", and "if a German country has the same sovereign as other countries, the relationship between those countries can only be regulated by a personal union.

The Assembly managed to promulgate a Constitution for the whole of the Reich on March 27, 1849, in which the fundamental rights of German citizens were recognized and a Reichstag made up of two chambers was established, one made up of the representatives of the States, and another elected by universal male suffrage. The head of state would be held by an emperor, who would share the government with the Reichstag.

The most serious problem that the Assembly had to face was the one raised by the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein that had proclaimed their independence from the King of Denmark and had asked the latter for help. Since the Assembly did not have its own army, it had to resort to the Prussian Army. He invaded Denmark but had to withdraw immediately due to protests and the threat of intervention from the European powers ―Great Britain sent a fleet to the North Sea and the Russian Empire mobilized its army on the border with Prussia, while French ambassadors intervened before the different German governments―.

Caricature by Federico Guillermo IV of Prussia playing undecided with the imperial crown offered by the Frankfurt Assembly.

The failure on the question of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, together with the radicalization of the revolution in many places, which made it lose support among the liberal bourgeoisie, would end up sealing the fate of the Assembly, especially after the refusal of the King of Prussia Frederick William IV to assume the crown of the German Empire that the Assembly had offered him - by 276 votes against 263 -, opted for the option of "little Germany". «Frederick William IV liked the idea of assuming the direction of the destiny of Germany, but on the condition that it was the princes who entrusted him with such a task and not Parliament. What the delegation from the church of Saint Paul offered him - he writes to the Grand Duke of Hesse - was "a pig's crown", "a diadem of dung and clay & # 34; that gave off the “rotten smell” of the revolution. And, in addition, he feared, and not without reason, the protests that the European powers would send him and, above all, the possible intervention of Austria". His rejection of the imperial crown was also due to "his desire that it not disappear Prussian identity in the empty dream of a new liberal Germany".

The refusal of the King of Prussia to assume the leadership of the Reich left the moderates of the Frankfurt Assembly without arguments, which was taken advantage of by the democratic sector to launch a second insurrection in April 1849. The withdrawal of the deputies Austrians and Prussians of the Assembly forced it to leave Frankfurt to go to Stuttgart, but there the government of the kingdom of Württemberg prohibited it from meeting, which caused a strong reaction. Armed rebellions broke out in many territories, which were put down by the intervention of the Prussian and Austrian armies.

Assessment

The Frankfurt Parliament was the first attempt to create a unified Germany. Space was given to function, but the parliament was weak, since it had no legal power (it was in the hands of the German Confederation). The revolutions on which the parliament was based were crushed. Frederick William's denial of the imperial crown gave Prussia and Austria an excuse to withdraw their deputies, thus nullifying the latest revolutionary threat. The big winners were the conservatives.

According to Luis Eugenio Togores, «the Frankfurt Assembly always lacked real strength, because despite the great moral prestige it achieved throughout Germany, it did not care - nor could it - to deprive the different military and political forces of their military and political strength. States of Germany, with which it never had real capacity to carry out its projects. This lack of means of action was especially evident in international issues... When it came to defending her ideas with facts, she was always forced to surrender into the hands of one of the great German states. A fact that was evidenced in the question of the duchies".