Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:01:44.334Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Formalizing the Rule of Law in Prussia: The Supreme Administrative Law Court, 1876–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Kenneth F. Ledford
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University

Extract

In the epilogue to his authoritative 1957 intellectual history, The German Idea of Freedom, Leonard Krieger concluded his exploration of German political thought from the Reformation to the Second Empire by excoriating the German liberal middle class, and especially the National Liberal Party, for its compromise with the authoritarian state and the landed aristocracy. He singled out for particular scorn the Rechtsstaat theory of Rudolf Gneist: Rudolf Gneist's doctrine of the Rechtsstaat, from which all oppositional elements had now been removed, set the tone for the adaptation of the old liberal political ideal to cover the legal reality of the new national state … The concept of Rechtsstaat, that barometer of 19th-century liberalism, was no longer defined in terms of a state which permitted to the individual rights apart from the state. It became now simply the kind of state whose power was articulated in legal modes of action — that is, in measures which conformed to general rules.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Earlier versions of this essay were presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History, the Comparative Legal History Seminar at the University of Chicago, and the Faculty Workshop Series at the School of Law at Case western Reserve University. I wish to thank the participants in those sessions for their helpful comments and suggestions. I also wish to recognize and thank the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst for a Study Visit Grant that supported the research upon which the paper is based.

1. Krieger, Leonard, The German Idea of Freedom: History of a Political Tradition from the Reformation to 1871 (Chicago, 1957), 356–58, 458–60Google Scholar, quotation from 460. Krieger endorses and extends the earlier critique of Gneist's Rechtsstaat doctrine found in Heffter, Heinrich, Die deutsche Selbstverwaltung im 19. Jahrhundert: Geschichte der Ideen und Institutionen (Stuttgart, 1950), 372403, 623–53.Google Scholar

2. Pflanze, Otto, “Juridical and Political Responsibility in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” in The Responsibility of Power: Historical Essays in Honor of Hajo Holborn, ed. Krieger, Leonard and Stern, Fritz, (Garden City, N.Y., 1967), 162–82, quotation from 180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Huber, Ernst Rudolf, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789, 8 vols. (Stuttgart, 19781991), 3: 985.Google Scholar

4. Celebratory postwar assessments of the importance of the administrative law court system by legal historians include Apel, Erich, “Die Entwicklung des Rechtsschutzes in der preussischen Verwaltung” (Dr. jur. diss., University of Marburg, 1961), 96Google Scholar; Frege, Ludwig, “Der Status des preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichtes und die Standhaftigkeit seiner Rechtsprechung auf politischem Gebiet,” in Staatsbürger und Staatsgewalt: Verwaltungsrecht und Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit in Geschichte und Gegenwart:Jubiläumsschrift zum hundertjährigen Bestehen der deutschen Verwaltungsgerichts-barkeit und zum zehnjährigen Bestehen des Bundesverwaltungsgerichts, ed. Külz, Helmut R. and Naumann, Richard, 2 vols. (Karlsruhe, 1963), 1:131–55Google Scholar; von Unruh, Georg-Christoph, Verwaltungsgerichtsbar-keit im Verfassungsstaat: Probleme und Entwicklung (Herford, 1984)Google Scholar; and Pauly, Stephan Felix, Organisation, Geschichte und Praxis der Gesetzesauslegung des (königlich) Preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichtes 1875–1933 (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 17Google Scholar. For more critical treatments, see Gliss, Jürgen, Die Entwicklung der deutschen Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit bis zur Bundesverwaltungsgerichtsordnung — unter be-sonderer Berücksichtigung der Grundpositionen von Bähr und Gneist, (Dr. jur. diss., University of Frankfurt am Main., 1962 [Gelnhausen, 1962]), 6975Google Scholar; Wichardt, Hans-Jürgen, “Die Rechtsprechug des Königlich-Preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts zur Vereins- und Versammlungsfreiheit in der Zeit von 1875 bis 1914: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung des materiellen Rechtsstaates in Deutsch-land,” (Dr. jur. diss, University of Kiel, 1976), 128Google Scholar; and Stump, Ulrich, Preussische Verwaltungsgerichts-barkeit 1875–1914: Verfassung— Verfahren — Zuständigkeit (Berlin, 1980), 303–5Google Scholar. Useful surveys of administrative law and the system of administrative law courts are: Bornhak, Conrad, Preussisches Staatsrecht, 3 vols. (Freiburg im Breisgau, 18881890), 2 (1889): 397497Google Scholar; von Bredow, Wichard, “Kritische Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit in Preussen” (Dr.jur. diss., University of Königs-berg, 1922)Google Scholar; von Elbe, Joachim, Die Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit nach den Gesetzen der deutschen Länder (Berlin, 1926)Google Scholar; Badura, Peter, Das Verwaltungsrecht des liberalen Rechtsstaates: Methodische Überlegungen zur Entstehung des wissenschaftlichen Verwaltungsrechts (Göttingen, 1967)Google Scholar; Görlitz, Axel, Verwaltungs-gerichtsbarkeit in Deutschland (Neuwied and Berlin, 1970)Google Scholar; and Rüfner, Wolfgang, “Die Entwicklung der Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit,” in Deutsche Verwaltungsgeschichte, ed. Jeserich, Kurt G. A., Pohl, Hans, and von Unruh, Georg-Christoph, 6 vols. (Stuttgart, 1984), vol. 3, Das Deutsche Reich bis zum Ende der Monarchie, 909–30.Google Scholar

5. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Das deutsche Kaiserreich 1871–1918, 5th ed. (Göttingen, 1983), 132Google Scholar; the translation here is taken from The German Empire 1871–1918, trans. Traynor, Kim (Leamington Spa, 1985), 128.Google Scholar

6. See the disappointing silence on this issue in the third volume of the magisterial Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, 4 vols. (Munich, 1987–)Google Scholar, vol. 3, Von der “Deutschen Doppelrevo-lution” bis zum Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges 1849–1914 (1995), 857–64.Google Scholar

7. Nipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918, 2 vols. (Munich, 19901992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, vol. 2, Machtstaat vor der Demokratie, 119.Google Scholar Nipperdey cautions, however: “Of course, one must not exaggerate this court's liberality and friendliness to the citizen.”

8. See for example Blackbourn, David, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Reappraising German History in the Nineteenth Century.”Google Scholar in idem and Eley, Geoff, The Peculiarities of German History (Oxford, 1984), 157292, 190–95Google Scholar; and John, Michael, Politics and the Law in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Origins of the Civil Code (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar. See also the essays in the section on “Bürgerliche Gesellschaft und bürgerliches Recht,” in Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert: Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich, ed. Kocka, Jürgen, 3 vols. (Munich, 1988), 1: 301468Google Scholar. Especially important to this essay is Regina Ogorek, “Individueller Rechtsschutz gegenüber der Staatsgewalt: Zur Entwicklung der Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit im 19. Jahrhundert,” in ibid., 1: 372–405.

9. Two excellent recent works, one each by a legal and social historian, are Ormond, Thomas, Richterwürde und Regierungstreue: Dienstrecht, politische Betätigung und Disziplinierung der Richter in Preussen, Baden und Hessen 1866–1918 (Frankfurt am Main, 1994)Google Scholar, and, von Hodenberg, Christina, Die Partei der Unparteiischen: Der Liberalismus der preussischen Richterschaft 1815–1848/49 (Göttingen, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. A useful exploration of the relationship of the rule of law and the Rechtsstaat by an American legal scholar is Berman, Harold J., “The Rule of Law and the Law-Based State with Special Reference to the Soviet Union,” in Toward the “Rule of Law” in Russia? Political and Legal Reform in the Transition Period, ed. Barry, Donald D. (Armonk, N.Y., 1992), 4360.Google Scholar

11. Böckenforde, Ernst-Wolfgang, “The Origin and Development of the Concept of the Rechtsstaat,”Google Scholar in idem, State, Society and Liberty: Studies in Political Tlieory and Constitutional Law, trans. Underwood, J. A. (New York, 1991), 4770.Google Scholar

12. Dicey, Albert Venn, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 8th ed. (London, 1915; reprint ed., Indianapolis, 1982; 1st ed., London, 1885), chap. IV: “The Rule of Law: Its Nature and General Applications,” 107–22.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., 120–21; the clearest commentary on this aspect of Dicey's rule of law is Cosgrove, Richard A., The Rule of Law: Albert Venn Dicey, Victorian Jurist (Chapel Hill, 1980), 7890.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Holthöfer, Ernst, Ein deutscher Weg zu moderner und rechtsstaatlicher Gerichtsverfassung: Das Beispiel Württemberg (Stuttgart, 1997), 27.Google Scholar

15. Stolleis, Michael, “Rechtsstaat,” in Handwörterbuch zur Deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, ed. Erler, Adalbert et al. , 5 vols. (Berlin, 19711998), 5: cols. 367–75, col. 372.Google Scholar

16. Anglo-American scholars consistently note the problems associated with attaching any precise meaning to the concept of the rule of law. Joseph Raz, “The Rule of Law and Its Virtue,” in idem, The Authority of Law (Oxford, 1979), 210–29Google Scholar; and Cass, Ronald A., The Rule of Law in America (Baltimore, 2001), 319Google Scholar. Noting that difficulty, and the rather limited nature of the concept, others differ from Böckenförde and other Germans and equate the rule of law and the Rechtsstaat. MacCormick, D. Neil, “Der Rechtsstaat und die rule of law,” Juristen Zeitung 39 (1984): 6570.Google Scholar

17. For the eighteenth-century story leading up to the Prussian reform era, see Loening, Edgar, Gerichte und Verwaltungsbehörden in Brandenburg-Preussen: Ein Beitrag zur Preussischen Rechts- und Verfassungsgeschichte (Halle, 1914), 30147Google Scholar. See also the accounts in the Nazi-era, Schmitt-influenced Wagner, Albrecht, Der Kampf der Justiz gegen die Verwaltung in Preussen, dargelegt an der rechts-geschichtlichen Entwicklung des Konfliktsgesetzes von 1854 (Hamburg, 1936), 49101Google Scholar, and, more reliably, Heffter, , Die deutsche Selbstverwaltung, 11321.Google Scholar

18. A general introduction to this characteristic of European civil law is Merryman, John Henry, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction of the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America, 2d ed. (Stanford, 1985), 8590, 133–41Google Scholar. See also van Caenegem, R. C., An Historical Introduction to Private Law (Cambridge, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Hahn, Erich J. C., Rudolf von Gneist, 1816–1895: Ein politischer Jurist in der Bismarckzeit (Frankfurt am Main, 1995), 135–43Google Scholar, provides an insightful discussion of the tensions between the ideals of Administrativjustiz, the Justizstaat, and the Rechtsstaat. Much the same treatment can be found in idem, “Rudolf von Gneist (1816–1895): The Political Ideas and Political Activity of a Prussian Liberal in the Bismarck Period,” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1971), 144–48Google Scholar. The celebratory schema as one of a triumphal march from the tutelary Polizeistaat to the apogee of protection of individual rights, the Rechtsstaat, through these three stages, is explicit in Jellinek, Walter, Verwaltungsrecht, 2d ed. (Berlin, 1929), 7592CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sellmann, Martin, “Der Weg zur neuzeitlichen Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit: Ihre Vorstufen und dogmatischen Grundlagen,” in Staatsbürger und Staatsgewalt, ed. Külz, and Naumann, , 1: 2586Google Scholar. For one of many examples of scholarship that posits this tripartite classification, see Jellinek, , Verwaltungsrecht, 7679.Google Scholar

20. For a brief discussion of separation-of-powers theory in the context of the history of the Prussian judiciary, and of the establishment of the independence of the Prussian judiciary in eighteenth and nineteenth century legal reforms, see Ledford, Kenneth F., “Judicial Independence and Political Representation: Prussian Judges as Parliamentary Deputies, 1848–1913,” Law and Social Inquiry 25 (2000): 1049–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. Hintze, Otto, “Preussens Entwicklung zum Rechtsstaat,”Google Scholar in idem, Gesamntelte Abhandlungen zur Staats-, Rechts- und Sozialgeschichte Preussens, ed. and intro. by Oestreich, Gerhard, 2d. ed., 3 vols. (Göttingen, 1962)Google Scholar, vol. 3, Regierung und Verwaltung, 97163, esp. 99–123Google Scholar. See also Apel, , Entwicklung des Rechtsschutzes, 522Google Scholar. Rüfner, Wolfgang, Verwaltungsrechtsschutz in Preussen von 1749–1842 (Bonn, 1962), 117–20Google Scholar, argues that Prussia had already evolved into a Jussizstaat in the late eighteenth century through the increasing supervision of the administration by the judiciary; see also Hahn, , Rudolf von Gneist, 137.Google Scholar

22. Stump, , Preussische Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit, 2122Google Scholar, and von Unruh, , Verwaltungsgerichts-barkeit, 18.Google Scholar

23. Diesselhorst, Malte, Die Prozesse des Müllers Arnold und das Eingreifen Friedrichs des Grossen (Göttingen, 1984)Google Scholar. An incisive recent analysis in English not only explains in accessible detail the complicated facts of this case but also explores some shortcomings of the ways in which legal and other historians have interpreted it as a watershed on the road to the rule of law; Luebke, David M., “Frederick the Great and the Celebrated Case of the Millers Arnold (1770–1779): A Reappraisal,” Central European History 32, no. 4 (1999): 379408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Ogorek, , “Individueller Rechtsschutz,” 391–95.Google Scholar

25. See Dicey, , Law of the Constitution, 213–67Google Scholar, who goes to great pains to distinguish the English rule of law from French droit administmtif and denounces the latter scathingly. Rudolf von Gneist, extensively and favorably cited by Dicey in this passage, also found in the French system a tyranny of the legislative branch so typical of France since the revolution of 1789. Gneist, Rudolf, Der Rechtsstaat und die Venvahungsgerichte in Deutschland, 2d ed., (Berlin, 1879), 158–90.Google Scholar

26. The quotation is taken from the text of the 1849 constitution found in Hucko, Elmar M., ed., The Democratic Tradition: Four German Constitutions (Oxford, 1987), 79117, 113.Google Scholar

27. Bähr, Otto, Der Rechtsstaat: Eine publicistische Skizze (Kassel, 1864), 6971Google Scholar. See also the discussion at Stump, , Preussische Venvaltungsgerichtsbarkeit, 2223.Google Scholar

28. This system of review of administrative actions by courts of ordinary jurisdiction has been called a “constitution substitute,” (Verfassungsersatz). Kern, Eduard, Geschichte des Gerichtsverfassungs-rechts (Munich, 1954), 73, citing the work of Bähr.Google Scholar

29. For an example of scholars who consider Gneist the “father of the administrative law courts,” see von Unruh, , Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit, 79.Google Scholar

30. Numerous historians have pointed out how profoundly Gneist misunderstood the English institutions that he purported to analyze for application to Prussian circumstances. See McClelland, Charles E., The German Historians and England: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Views (Cambridge, UK 1971), 129–58, esp. 135–44Google Scholar; Hahn, , “Rudolf von Gneist (18161895),” 198210Google Scholar; and Pflanze, , “Juridical and Political Responsibility,” 162–82, 180 3 n. 39.Google Scholar

31. Gneist, , Der Rechtsstaat (1879), 291.Google Scholar

32. Not all observers accept Gneist's patrimony of the system; see Heffter, , Die deutsche Selbstverwaltung, 640–41Google Scholar, and Hahn, , “Rudolf von Gneist (1816–1895),” 188Google Scholar, who accuse Gneist of self-promotion in the second edition of his Rechtsstaat. Credit for the actual drafting of the statutes lies with Paul Persius, an official within the Ministry of the Interior and the first president of the Oberverwaltungsgericht. Egidi, Hans, “Paul Persius, der Schöpfer der Preussischen Verwaltungs-gerichtsbarkeit,” in Aus 100 Jahren Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit, ed. Baring, Martin, 2d ed. (Cologne, 1963), 1840, 33–34.Google Scholar

33. For the debates surrounding the enactment of the administrative reforms, see Meister, Ewald, “Der Kampf der Konservativen und Liberalen um die Begründung der Selbstverwaltung und der Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit in Kreis und Provinz bei der Gneistschen Verwaltungsreform” (Dr. jur. diss., Westfälische Wilhelmsuniversität Münster, 1929)Google Scholar. The Prussian constitutions of 1849 and 1850 provided long lists of individual rights in articles 3–42, which, despite notable restrictions such as limitations upon political associations, provided the primary basis for individual citizens to assert before administrative law courts limits on the administrative discretion of governmental officials. Preussische revidierte Verfassung vom 31.1.1850, in Huber, Ernst Rudolf, Dokumente zur deulschen Verfassungsgeschichte, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1961), 1:401–14.Google Scholar

34. Gliss, , Entwicklung der deutschen Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit, 1820Google Scholar, and Pohl, Jeserich, and von Unruh, , Deutsche Verwaltungsgeschichte, 3: 922–26.Google Scholar

35. “Gesetz betreffend die Verfassung der Verwaltungsgerichte und das Verwaltungsstreirver-fahren vom 3. Juli 1875,” Gesetz-Sammlung für die königlichen Preussischen Staaten (Berlin, 1806–) (hereafter “G.S.”) (1875), 375–92, as revised by that of 2 August 1880 in G.S. (1880), 328–48. The requirement that half the judges be trained as administrators and half as judges appears in both versions at § 17; lifetime appointment at § 18; and self-discipline at §§ 20–25.Google Scholar

36. Stump, , Preussische Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit 1875–1914, 107–12.Google Scholar

37. In the eyes of many twentieth-century interpreters, this fact alone calls into question the true independence of the entire administrative law court structure, including the Supreme Administrative Law Court. Frege, , “Der Status des preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichtes,” 132–36Google Scholar, takes great pains to persuade that the Supreme Administrative Law Court was really a “central authority” in Prussia, subordinate only to the Ministry of State. Yet, from its very early days, the court found itself limited in its institutional independence from the Ministry of the Interior. In 1875 that ministry won acquiescence from the Ministry of State of its assertion of titular jurisdiction over the court. See the long memorandum, Minister des Innern to Staatsministerium, 21 October 1875, found in Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz (hereafter GStA PK), I. HA, Rep. 84a (B), Nr. 685: Akta des Justiz-Ministeriums betreffend: Die Verwaltungsgerichte. Bd. II: 1875–1883, 35, acquiesced to unanimously by the Staatsministerium, Sitzungs-Protokoll des Staatsministeriums, 31 October 1875, ibid., 44. The 1880 revision to the 1875 statute placed intermediate administrative law court judges under the disciplinary provisions of the disciplinary law for non-judicial officials, which provided far less disciplinary autonomy than provided for judges in courts of ordinary jurisdiction; § 16a. Finally, in 1882 the Minister of Interior successfully asserted that he, not the President of the Supreme Administrative Law Court, was the responsible authority for evaluating the performance of lower administrative law court judges and proposing them for honors and titles. Sitzungs-Protokoll des Staatsministeriums, 8 November 1882, GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 84a (B), 176.

38. See the Zuständigkeitsgesetz of 1883, G.S. (1883), 237, reprinted in Reichelt, Hugo, Verwaltungsgesetzbuch für Preussen (Berlin, 1914), 88112.Google Scholar

39. Landesverwaltungsgesetz, §127; after exhausting administrative remedies up to the level of the provincial governor (Regierungspräsident or Oberpräsident), appeal lay to the Supreme Admi-nis-trative Law Court “for complaints against police orders [ Verfügungen] of the local or county police.”

40. Jesse, Paul, “50 Jahre Oberverwaltungsgericht,” in Verwaltungsrechtliche Abhandlungen: Festgabe zur Feier des fünfzigjährigen Bcstehens des Preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts, 20. November 1875–1925, Triepel, Heinrich ed. (Berlin, 1925), 128, 1–3.Google Scholar

41. The total number of judges, 118, is less than the sum of all presidents, senate presidents, and judges, because some senate presidents and presidents were appointed from the ranks of the judges of the court.

42. Einkommensteuergesetz vom 24. Juni 1891, G.S. (1891), 175–204, § 44. For an interpretation of the context and impact of this reform, see Greim-Kuczewski, Peter, Die preussische Klassen-und Einkommemteuergesetzgebung im 19. Jahrhundert: Eine Untersuchung über die Entwicklungsgeschichte der formellen Veranlagungsvorschriften (Cologne, 1990).Google Scholar

43. Entscheidungen des königlich-preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts, 9 (1882),353. See the discussion in von Unruh, , Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit, 6061.Google Scholar

44. Article 9 of the Constitution of 1850 provided: “Property is inviolable. It can be limited or seized only on the basis of the public good, as determined by prior proceedings or in emergency cases at least preliminary determination of compensation, and if compensated according to law.” The pertinent passage in the ALR, § 65, Tit. 8, Th. I, provides: “As a general matter [in der Regel], every property owner is fully entitled [wohl befugt] to construct buildings on his real property or to make alterations to his buildings.”

45. Entscheidungen des königlich-preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts 9 (1882), 353, 363–66.Google Scholar Article 106 provided: “Laws and ordinances are binding if they have been promulgated in the form prescribed by law. Review of the legal validity of properly promulgated royal ordinances lies not with the authorities but rather with the courts.”

46. For a recent embrace of the importance of the “Kreuzberg case,” see the catalog of the exhibit mounted by the Geheimes Staatsarchiv preussischer Kulturbesitz in 1994, Gundermann, Iselin, ed., Allgemeines Landrecht für die preussischen Staaten 1794 (Berlin, 1994), 112.Google Scholar

47. von Unruh, , Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit, 5859, esp. cases cited in note 76.Google Scholar

48. Entscheidungen des königlich-preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts 1 (1876), 347–60.Google Scholar

49. Many of these cases are discussed in Frege, , “Der Status des preussischen Oberverwaltungs-genchtes,” 137–39Google Scholar. Their citations are: Entscheidungen des königlich-preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts 32 (1898), 406–13; 53 (1909), 250–55; 47 (1906), 337–43; 39 (1902), 403–9; 49 (1907), 419–25; 66 (1914), 323–26.Google Scholar

50. For the manifold legal methods of police harassment to which the Social Democrats were subject between 1878 and 1890, especially the particularly repressive years of 1886–1887, see Lidtke, Vernon L., The Outlawed Party: Social Democracy in Germany 1878–1890 (Princeton, 1966), 241–62Google Scholar. For an examination of the narrower issue of official harassment of the Social Democratic press after the lapse of the Anti-Socialist Law, see Hall, Alex, Scandal, Sensation and Social Democracy: The SPD Press and Wilhelmine Germany 1890–1914 (New York, 1977), 53; while Hall deals primarily with police use of the criminal law, he mentions in passing what Social Democrats perceived as the hostility of the Supreme Administrative Court, although he pursues no general analysis of that court's jurisprudence.Google Scholar

51. Entscheidungen des königlich-preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts, 21 (1891), 400–11Google Scholar. The cases are discussed at length at Frege, , “Der Status des preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts,” 139–40.Google Scholar

52. Entscheidungen des königlich-preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts, 56 (1911), 318–21Google Scholar. Mystifyingly, Frege, completely misreads two other cases, 56 (1911), 308–21 and 63 (1913), 279–87, in which the Supreme Administrative Law Court upholds the police decision to prohibit Social Democratic public meetings because they might incite violence either from unnamed “regime-loyal workers” who might be angry because of a Social Democratic boycott of several local pubs in the first case or from members of veterans' associations who planned a competing parade in the other (in the latter case, police banned both parades). In both cases, the court upheld police action that allowed the “national” side to silence the Socialists by means of a “heckler's veto.”Google Scholar

53. Frege, , “Der Status des preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts,” 140–44Google Scholar; see also Pagenkopf, Martin, Das preussische OVG und Hauptmanns “Weber”: Ein Nachtrag zum 125. Geburtstag von Gerhart Hauptmann (Bonn, 1988), 5670, which reproduces the judgments of the Supreme Administrative Law Court (89–124).Google Scholar

54. Entscheidungen des königlich-preussischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts, 44 (1904), 427–32,432–33, and 60 (1912), 334–39.Google Scholar

55. Ibid., 56 (1911), 321–29 (Zentrum) and 66 (1914), 338–41 (Polish Party).

56. Ibid., 50 (1908), 176–87.

57. Ibid., 34 (1899), 439–46; 61 (1913), 238–44; 57 (1911), 333–37; and 60 (1912), 352–56.

58. Ibid., 29 (1896), 429–38 and 61 (1913), 230–38.

59. Ibid., 24 (1893), 311–16.

60. Ibid., 41 (1903), 432–37; 54 (1910), 391–98; and 37 (1901), 439–48. For a general account of the special circumstances that prevailed in northern Schleswig, see Blatt, Lothar, Die rechtliche Behandlung der dänischen Minderheit in Schleswig-Holstein von 1866 bis 1914 (Husum, 1980). The jurisdiction of the State Administrative Law, and thus of the Supreme Administrative Law Court, was not extended to Schleswig until 1889.Google Scholar

61. For a discussion of actual and symbolic violence as the basis of relations between the police and the lower classes in Prussian cities, see Lüdtke, Alf, Police and State in Prussia, 1815–1850 (New York, 1989).Google Scholar

62. See Turk, Eleanor L., “The Berlin Socialist Trials of 1896: An Examination of Civil Liberty in Wilhelmian Germany,” Central European History 19, no. 4 (1986): 323–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63. Besides Krieger and Pflanze, see the overview by de Ruggiero, Guido, The History of European Liberalism, trans. Collingwood, R. G. (Oxford, 1927), 251–64Google Scholar. Hahn, Erich, “Ministerial Responsibility and Impeachment in Prussia 1848–1863,” Central European History 10, no. 1 (1977): 327, discusses the profoundly juridical liberal conception of the state in the period preceding the one considered in this essay.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64. Ogorek, , “Individueller Rechtsschutz,” 404–5.Google Scholar

65. I have developed this idea of the procedural nature of the liberal conception of the Rechtsstaat further in Ledford, Kenneth F., “Lawyers, Liberalism, and Procedure: The German Imperial Justice Laws of 1877–79,” Central European History 26, no. 2 (1993): 165–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also idem, From General Estate to Special Interest: German Lawyers 1878–1933 (Cambridge, 1996), 1220.Google Scholar

66. For the conservative lament, see Wagner, , Der Kampf der Justiz gegen die Verwaltung, 146–64Google Scholar; for the liberal satisfaction, see Hintze, , “Preussens Entwicklung zum Rechtsstaat,” 160–61.Google Scholar

67. Stahl, Friedrich Julius, Die Philosophie des Rechts, 3rd ed., 3 vols. in 2 (Heidelberg, 1856)Google Scholar, vol. 2, Rechts- and Staatslehre auf der Grundlage christlicher Weltanschauung, 137Google Scholar, and Dicey, , Law of the Constitution, 187.Google Scholar