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Anti-Socialist Law (October 21, 1878)

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§ 28. For districts or localities where the public safety is menaced by the endeavors described in § 1, par. 2, the following regulations may be decreed, in case they are not already permitted by state law, with the consent of the Bundesrat for a period not exceeding one year:

1. that meetings may take place only after the consent of the Police Authority has been obtained; this limitation does not extend to meetings called for the purposes of an announced election to the Reichstag or to the diets of the states [Landesvertretung];

2. that the distribution of publications shall not take place on public roads, streets, squares, or other public places;

3. that the residence in districts or localities of persons from whom danger to public safety and order is to be feared may be forbidden;*

4. that the possession, bearing, importation, and sale of weapons is to be forbidden, limited, or made conditional upon certain requirements.

The Reichstag must be informed immediately, that is, upon its first reassembling, about any decree that has been issued under the foregoing provisions.

The decrees are to be announced in the Reichsanzeiger and by whatever manner is prescribed for local police orders.

Whoever, knowingly or after public notice is given, acts in contravention of these regulations, or of the decisions based thereon, is to be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand marks, or with arrest or imprisonment not exceeding six months.

§ 29. The Central Authority of each Federal State will announce to which authority the designation of State Police Authority applies.

§ 30. This law goes into force upon the day of its proclamation and remains in force until March 31, 1881.


* Based on the law concerning the authentic declaration and the period of validity of the Law against the Publicly Dangerous Endeavors of Social Democracy [the Anti-Socialist Law] dated May 31, 1880 (RGBl. [Reich Law Gazette] 117), § 28 was supplemented with the following clause: “The regulation stipulated in § 28, No. 3 of the Law dated October 31 is interpreted in such a way that it is not applicable to members of the Reichstag or of any legislative assembly who are staying at the seat of this body during its session. Any appeals against the decrees issued on the basis of regulations in accordance with § 28 of the aforementioned law can only be submitted to the regulatory authority.” (Footnote adapted from Ernst Rudolf Huber, ed., Dokumente zur Deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte [Documents on German Constitutional History], 3rd rev. ed., vol. 2, 1851-1900. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1986, pp. 464-69.)



Source of English translation: Vernon L. Lidtke, The Outlawed Party: Social Democracy in Germany, 1878-1890, Appendix C, pp. 339-45. © 1966 Princeton University Press, 1994 renewed PUP.

Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. www.pup.princeton.edu

Source of original German text: Das Staatsarchiv [The State Archive], vol. 34, no. 6797 (1878): pp. 45ff., also Reichsgesetzblatt [Reich Law Gazette] (1878): pp. 351ff; reprinted in Ernst Rudolf Huber, ed., Dokumente zur Deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte [Documents on German Constitutional History], 3rd rev. ed., vol. 2, 1851-1900. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1986, pp. 464-69.

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