On May 23, 1949, the Parliamentary Council in Bonn formally proclaimed the Basic Law, the founding charter of the Federal Republic of Germany. Drafted under the eye of the Western Allies, it was deliberately called a "Basic Law" rather than a constitution, a provisional framework for a divided country expected one day to reunite. Its first article declared human dignity inviolable, a direct answer to the Nazi years. Four months later Konrad Adenauer became the new state's first chancellor.
The Basic Law was the work of the Parliamentary Council, sixty-five delegates chosen by the regional parliaments of the American, British and French occupation zones, who met in Bonn from September 1948 under the chairmanship of Konrad Adenauer. They adopted the text on May 8, 1949, four years to the day after Germany's surrender, and after ratification by the states it was signed and proclaimed on May 23.
The drafters built in hard lessons from the collapse of the Weimar Republic. The chancellor could be removed only by a constructive vote of no confidence that named a successor, fundamental rights were placed at the top of the text and bound every branch of government, and a constitutional court was given the power to strike down laws. Article 1 set the tone: "Human dignity shall be inviolable."
The word "provisional" hung over the document for four decades, since its preamble looked ahead to the day the German people would complete their unity. When that day came in 1990, the East German states simply acceded to the Federal Republic, and the stopgap charter of 1949 became the constitution of a reunited Germany.
Key people: Konrad Adenauer