Germany begins EU referendum debate ?

Dear reader,

first of all the author must confess to be allergic against some nonfactual stuff he encounters while reading articles brought to his attention. As he made it clear in his short profile of eurozoneremarks ... he loves facts and hates BS ... he was suddenly reminded of the latter by a tweet originating from @raluca3000 which contained an article by the Irish Times. A newspaper the author also likes to retweet for its usually superb content but he guesses that once in a while even a superb paper can produce a glitch. He also wants to point out that usually tweets of @raluca3000 are more than just OK ..they almost have a perfect record of hitting bulls eye.

So here is the article in question:

Germany begins EU referendum debate with one eye on its past (Irish Times)

The author usually reads articles very fast and comprehends their content but in this case he started to think twice ..wondering if he didn't catch some latest developments before questioning the content of Mr Scally. So the first thing the author here was wondering about was the sentence:  


"Germans don’t speak lightly of referendums. Its postwar democratic model was fashioned on indirect, parliamentary legitimation,a response to Hitler’s disastrous manipulation of direct democracy to abolish democracy and establish a dictatorship"
 
Hmmm.... what disastrous manipulation is he (Scally) referring to ? Anybody less clueless than the author here (feel free to give a hint by posting a comment) As far as the author here studies German history for more than 30 years he does not know what event was possibly on Mr Scally's mind. There was not a referendum bringing Mr Hitler to power nor was there any referendum used to abolish any posts or laws by his later government. The most problematic elements of "Weimarer Verfassung"(inofficial name) were: The power of the president of the Reich which was could dissolve parliament, "hire and fire" the Chancellor and was Commander in Chief and could issue "Notverordnungen" to react to immediate dangers for the state but were in fact dictatorial powers. 
In fact the post was a replacement of the former Kaiser.  So before Mr Hitler came to power there was no referendum as a "disastrous manipulation of direct democracy" and there wasn't one after he got the post as Chancellor either. It is fact that some rather dangerous elements of "Weimarer Verfassung" have been altered in the 1949 Version of (West)German "Grundgesetz" but the lack of referendum due to Hitler's fatal rule is rather a myth:


Obviously it is not the first time it has occured so that there is even a comment to be found in an article of Wikipedia. It says (in German: paragraph "Geschichte"): 
"The thesis that there were 'unpleasant Weimar experiences' with a plebiscite often serves as an explanation of their omission in the Grundgesetz. On what it grounds and why this view is so widespread is unclear. "

The second time the author here started to wonder about was the fact that two unnamed "leading law professors from Heidelberg" were calling for such a referendum. So although he was offline for 2-3 days in a row he kept listening to excellent German broadcaster DLF and kept also watching German TV but cannot recall seeing or hearing anything concerning that particular matter. By using Google he came along this article: Phoenix-Runde mit Degenhart but the professor in favor of a referendum in it is obviously from Leipzig.

So as always it is much more than just a courtesy to have the full names of people in order to identify them or what they supposedly have said. Not just "professors of Heidelberg" or also very popular by other news sources: "by German politician/lawmaker" ... well there are plenty of them ;-)

Maybe there was a debate present in a certain corner of German ivory tower that even managed to fly beneath this writer's radar undetected. Who knows ... If so ...some articles preferably in German would need to be put on the table. The author here would be delighted to have such a debate published on eurozoneremarks. 



Weimarer Verfassung
Prof. Dr. Cristoph Degenhart