The Fragile Burgfrieden

Abstract

After receiving the approval of the Bundesrat on November 21, 1916, the draft of the National Service Bill was submitted on November 23 to the Budget Committee of the Reichstag. Here discussions of a general nature were held until November 25, followed by a more detailed critique which lasted until November 28.¹ In order to give the impression to the outside world that the Reichstag had accepted the bill for compulsory labor without discussion, regular parliamentary procedure was circumvented in that the biU was first discussed in the committee stage before it was submitted to the plenum of the Reichstag for referral to a committee.² This unusual procedure clearly expressed the government’s wishes, and especially those of Ludendorff, to reduce parliamentary debate in order to make the bill a law as soon as possible.³