Begins by considering the principle of state neutrality, briefly sketching its history and contemporary policy context with particular reference to multiculturalism and diversity. The first section of the case law study examines state neutrality in relation to the fundamental freedoms: the rights to freedom of religion, association/assembly and to expression, giving particular attention to the concepts of “religion” and “belief” and to the intersect between fundamental rights and the church–state relationship. The second stage then studies the effects of equality and non-discrimination legislation on the laws relating to family matters and reviews the associated case law. Maintaining the same equality focus, the third stage traces case law developments at the interface between church–state and areas of everyday life including education, employment, healthcare and retail services. The chapter concludes with a section that considers the role of state neutrality in relation to the religious dimension undeniably present in the current twin issues of terrorism and the migrant crisis.

This chapter explores the normative background for the Weimar Republic’s demise, paying particular attention to the shortcomings in the Weimar Constitution (governance by presidential emergency decrees, based on Article 48; and the absence of a constitutional court with clear competencies for judicial review) that abetted democracy’s collapse. We closely examine the controversy in fall 1932 over whether the president, as the “guardian of the constitution,” was ex officio beyond judicial control, as Carl Schmitt claimed, or if such a viewpoint contradicted the spirit of the democratic Weimar Constitution as Hans Kelsen claimed. Kelsen’s critique of Schmitt’s views on the normative position of the president’s normative position and powers in late 1932 was one of the last forceful theoretical defenses of Weimar democracy.

Chapter 3 focuses on the history of the DNVP from the elections to the Weimar National Assembly to the Reichstag elections of June 1920. It deals in particular with the way in which the DNVP established itself as a party of “national opposition” at the National Assembly with particular attention to its positions on the Weimar Constitution and the Versailles Peace Treaty. It also examines the success with which hard-line conservatives around Count Westarp were able to assert themselves in the deliberations over the party program and in pushing back against efforts of the young conservatives around Ulrich von Hassell to shape the DNVP into a progressive conservative party free from the follies of the past. The chapter ends with the Kapp putsch in March 1920, the adoption of the party program a month later, and the Reichstag elections of June 1920 in which the DNVP improves upon its performance at the polls in the elections to the National Assembly.