!!!Maiverfassung

Maiverfassung 1934 (May Constitution of 1934), drafted by O.  Ender; 
promulgated on April 24, 1934 by means of an executive decree which 
the government was entitled to pass under the War Economy Empowering 
Act (Kriegswirtschaftliches Ermaechtigungsgesetz) adopted in 1917. 
This act enabled the executive branch to issue regulations aiming at 
an acceleration of reconstruction efforts in times of war. The act had 
never been abolished after Word War I and was thus illicitly adapted 
to the needs of the authoritarian government. With 74 to 2 votes the 
new constitution was adopted by a rump parliament (76 of 165 members) 
which had not met since 1933 and was convened for one last session on 
April 30, 1934. The constitution was re-promulgated on May 1, 1934. 
Austria thus became a federal state based on Christian and corporate 
principles. Legislative and executive powers were distributed among 
federal, provincial and local authorities. Vienna was made the centre 
of government and the federal capital of Austria. Members of the 
advisory bodies (Staatsrat, Bundeskulturrat, Laenderrat) were to be 
appointed by the Federal President. Government bills were to be 
discussed in the Bundestag, which was composed of members of the 
advisory bodies. In special cases (e.g. for drawing up a list of three 
candidates for the federal presidency) a joint session of the members 
of the advisory bodies (called Bundesversammlung) was to be held. The 
Federal President was to be elected by the Austrian mayors. Seven 
corporate groups were to be set up but only two of them (the civil 
servants and the agricultural and forestry workers) ever came into 
being. The executive was given complete control over the legislative 
branch of government, which had so far been in the hands of the 
Bundesrat and the Nationalrat. This constitution, which was gradually 
put into force by means of an interim constitutional regulation, 
formed the legal basis for the  Corporate State and was also to 
constitute the formal basis for the  Anschluss.

!Literature
A. Merkl, Die staendisch-autoritaere Verfassung 
Oesterreichs, 1935; E. Huber, Die Verfassung des Staendestaates in 
ihrer politischen Auswirkung, doctoral thesis, Vienna 1961; G. 
Jagschitz, Der oesterreichische Staendestaat 1934-38, in: E. Weinzierl 
and K. Skalnik (eds.), Oesterreich 1918-38 vol. 1, 1983.


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