ABSTRACT
West Germany’s leaders faced a difficult task. They wanted to write a constitution that was in accord with Germany’s own political traditions, but they also had to construct a document that could obtain the approval of the Allied military governors. Fortunately the two sets of criteria were not incompatible, although the priorities of the Allies and the Germans differed. Both sides agreed that the new West German state should be a parliamentary democracy and that the new constitution should draw on Germany’s only other experience with parliamentary democracy, the Weimar constitution. The Allies assigned
Two states emerged from the rubble of the Third Reich, and whereas the East German Democratic Republic (GDR) would eventually collapse under the weight of its economic and political problems, the West German Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) would be recognized as the most successful society in modern German history. Germans on the western side of the Elbe have enjoyed democratic freedoms, unprecedented political stability, economic prosperity, and genuine international respect.
