Exercise 1: Why the Reichsstatthalter Law Genuinely Ended Federalism — Possible Solution ================================================================================================================== The real answer here requires comparing what Chapter 1 established federalism actually meant structurally, and showing precisely which of those structural features the 1933 law removed. WHAT CHAPTER 1'S FEDERAL STRUCTURE ACTUALLY GUARANTEED Chapter 1 established Imperial Germany as a genuine federation of 25 separate constituent states, each keeping its own monarch or government, with the states collectively holding real power through the Bundesrat - a body where state delegates voted as blocs, and where Prussia's own 17 votes alone were enough to block any constitutional amendment. Even though Prussia dominated, the underlying structure still recognized the states as genuinely separate political entities with their own real governments and their own real collective voice in national lawmaking. WHAT THE REICHSSTATTHALTER LAW ACTUALLY DID The 7 April 1933 law installed a single Reich Governor over each individual state, and gave that appointed official - answerable to the central Reich government, not to the state's own population or institutions - the real power to dissolve the state's own parliament, appoint its own officials, and issue laws directly for it. Every decision-making function that had previously belonged to a state's own separate government now flowed from a single centrally-appointed official instead. WHY THIS IS THE END OF FEDERALISM, NOT JUST A POLICY CHANGE Federalism, as a structural concept, means separate levels of government hold genuinely independent authority - a state government answerable to its own population, not simply carrying out instructions from the center. Installing appointed governors with the power to dissolve state parliaments and legislate directly removes exactly that independence: the states stop being separate governing units and become administrative subdivisions of one centralized government instead. This isn't a change in what policies the states could pursue within their own existing authority - it's the removal of that separate authority altogether. A policy change would leave the underlying federal structure intact while altering what happens within it; this law dismantled the structure itself. ANSWER: The Reichsstatthalter Law of 7 April 1933 genuinely ended German federalism because it replaced each state's own separate, functioning government - the exact structure Chapter 1 established, with real Bundesrat representation and collective state power - with a single centrally-appointed Reich Governor holding the power to dissolve state parliaments, appoint officials, and issue laws directly. This wasn't a change in policy carried out through the existing federal structure; it was the removal of that structure's own defining feature - genuinely separate, independently governed states - turning them into administrative subdivisions of one centralized government. WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ It explicitly compares the specific structural features Chapter 1 established (separate state governments, real Bundesrat power) against what the 1933 law actually removed, and distinguishes a genuine structural dismantling from an ordinary policy change within an intact system.