Our Basic Law - Blog
Die Grundlage für unsere Freiheit und unseren Frieden seit 1949
creation of the Basic Law
The Basic Law is now 75 years old and has ensured that we can live together freely and in peace. The fathers and mothers of the Basic Law wrote it under the impression of Nazi rule and the consequences of the Second World War. They experienced back then what none of us want to experience today: lack of freedom, dictatorship, tyranny, political persecution, racial discrimination and much more. And they succeeded. Our democracy has been one of the strongest democracies in the world ever since. While during the Nazi era the people were everything and the individual counted for nothing, the makers of the Basic Law in 1949 put the individual and his dignity and rights at the center. As the basis for our future coexistence. The current social developments that are endangering our democracy in Germany should be an opportunity for us to perhaps take another look at the Basic Law. Because it states which rights and duties we still have today and on what basis our coexistence has functioned peacefully for over 70 years.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier 2022
"The Basic Law and its interpretation, which it has experienced over many decades through the jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court, make it one of the most stable constitutions of all. Let us ensure that it stays that way! This can only be achieved through civic engagement. Every citizen is empowered to participate. But they must draw the strength from within themselves to use this opportunity for the benefit of all. This begins with reading the Basic Law. It continues with participation."
In our blog we regularly present individual paragraphs of the Basic Law that are particularly important for our daily lives.
The preamble
Conscious of its responsibility before God and mankind, and inspired by the will to serve world peace as an equal member in a united Europe, the German people, by virtue of its constituent power, has given itself this Basic Law.
The Germans in the states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia have, through free self-determination, completed the unity and freedom of Germany. This Basic Law therefore applies to the entire German people.
Art. 1 - Würde und Menschenrechte
(1) Human dignity is inviolable. It is the duty of all state authorities to respect and protect it.
(2) The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the foundation of every human community, of peace and justice in the world.
(3) The following fundamental rights bind the legislature, the executive and the judiciary as directly applicable law.
Art. 2 - Right to liberty and life
(1) Everyone has the right to free development of his personality,
as long as it does not violate the rights of others and does not violate the constitutional
violates the moral order or the moral law.
(2) Everyone has the right to life and physical integrity.
Personal freedom is inviolable. These rights may only be infringed
intervention on the basis of a law.
Art. 3 - Equality before the law
(1) All persons are equal before the law.
(2) Men and women have equal rights. The State promotes the actual
material enforcement of equal rights for women and men
and works towards eliminating existing disadvantages.
(3) No one shall be discriminated against on account of sex, origin,
his race, his language, his homeland and origin, his
beliefs, religious or political views.
No one may be discriminated against or favored because of their disability.
be disadvantaged in terms of education.
Art. 20 - Das Volk als Souverän
(1) The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state.
(2) All state power emanates from the people. It is exercised by the people in elections and referendums and through special legislative, executive and judicial organs.
(3) The legislature is bound by the constitutional order, the executive and the judiciary are bound by law and justice.
(4) All Germans shall have the right of resistance against any person attempting to abolish this order if no other remedy is possible.