State Court for the German Reich

The court was established in 1921 and ceased functioning in February 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany.

In addition it lacked the authority to rule on disputes about the extent of the rights and duties of major constitutional bodies (e.g. the Reichstag, Reichsrat, president, etc.)

The most high-profile decision of the State Court was the case of Prussia contra Reich concerning the 1932 Prussian coup d'état (Preussenschlag).

On 20 July 1932, an emergency decree issued by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution deposed the Prussian government and appointed Chancellor Franz von Papen Reich Commissioner for Prussia.

The State Court denied the legality of the government's dismissal, since it had not been guilty of any breach of duty under Article 48 §1 of the constitution.

The fact that the trial also proved the fundamental inadequacy of a judicial process for dealing with political power struggles, as Ernst Rudolf Huber and Carl Schmitt argued in 1932 in 'Reich Authority and the State Court' (Reichsgewalt und Staatsgerichtshof )[8] and foresaw that in the future, political solutions would be sought outside the realm of legality.

The court's ruling was ignored by the Papen government and President von Hindenburg, and the emergency decree was neither withdrawn nor modified.

[9] After Adolf Hitler's appointment to the chancellorship in January 1933, the constitutional jurisdiction of the State Court came to an immediate end.

Hitler governed under the Führer principle, which did not provide for reviewing the decisions of the executive by an independent judicial body.

The Weimar Constitution had an extensive catalogue of fundamental rights, but most of the articles were only programmatic in character and were not directly applicable, enforceable law.