Emergency decree on budgetary reorganisation

© krischn Photo-montage by John Heartfield, October 1930: The dead parliament

Since Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning (Centre, 1885-1970) is unable to find a parliamentary majority for his programme to reorganise the Reich’s budget, Reich President Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) issues an emergency decree on 1 December 1930 to “safeguard the economic and financial situation." At the same time the next session of the Reichstag is postponed until February of 1931. Thus the German parliament loses more and more significance in the legislative process: Whereas the previous year (1930) still saw only five presidential emergency decrees compared to 98 laws passed by parliamentary majority, the following year (1931) will already see 44 emergency decrees compared to only 34 laws.