Government of Hamburg
Hamburg is a city-state and municipality, and thus its governance deals with several details of both state and local community politics.
Upon joining the German Empire, the city-state retained partial sovereignty as a federal state.
Prior to the constitutional reforms in 1919, the hereditary grand burghers, or Hanseaten, had a legally privileged position and were the only ones eligible for election to the senate.
The basis of the political system are the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany and the Constitution of the Free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg.
The Free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg is its own state in the Federal Republic of Germany.
This law also regulates among other, the remuneration, pension, privilege to refuse to give evidence and the legal position of Hamburg judges.
Until 1860 the government of Hamburg was called Rath or Rat (board/council), the members had been Ratsherrn (councillors) and Bürgermeister (Burgomaster).
During the Napoleonic Wars, when Hamburg was occupied and then annexed into France, the existing Hamburg council was replaced by a municipal council (conseil municipal or Munizipalrat), which existed from 1813 to 1814, when the previous constitution was reinstated.
65) and the Gesetzes über das Hamburgische Verfassungsgericht (Law of the Constitutional Court of Hamburg) (§ 14).
(German: Behörde für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Gleichstellung) Among others the Behörde für Inneres und Sport is the oversight authority for the law enforcement agencies in Hamburg, the fire brigade, for disaster control and its units, the residents registration offices and the State Election Office.
[9] (German: Behörde für Gesundheit und Verbraucherschutz) On May 7, 2008 the former Ministry of Culture was renamed to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Media (German: Behörde für Kultur, Sport und Medien), and is now, among other duties, responsible for tourism, the public record office of Hamburg, the office of the protection of historical monuments, and the memorial site for the Neuengamme concentration camp.
[17][20] The highest honour awarded by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg is honorary citizenship (Ehrenbürgerrecht).
[22] In 1937 the German leader Adolf Hitler signed the book before giving a public speech in Hamburg.
The only Nazi signature remaining is from Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, due to the fact that he wrote on the same sheet as the former German President Paul von Hindenburg.
[24] The Dalai Lama signed the Golden Book during his 5th visit to Hamburg in February 2007.
[25] Historically, Hamburg's citizens have not been legally allowed to receive decorations—only medals or medallions.
One of the few citizens of a Hanseatic city to receive a decoration was the entrepreneur Alwin Münchmeyer, who later stated that this were his "falls of mankind".
[27] Helmut Schmidt, former Hamburg Senator of the Interior and German Chancellor, declined several times to accept the Federal Cross of Merit, stating that he had been a Hamburg senator and, according to Hanseatic tradition, was not permitted to wear decorations.
[30] Its first recipients were Paul Spiegel (posthumous), who was a member of the executive committee of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and Hinrich Reemtsma, whose foundation contributed €500,000 to the renovation of an old Talmud Torah school into a Jewish community centre.
