Emil Lederer · 1921
This official commission-record intervention presents Lederer’s proposed restructuring of the opening provisions of a municipalization law. Its argument concerns the allocation of legal authority: municipal competence should come first, followed by procedures for extending it beyond the specified economic sectors. Lederer reports the outcome of a lengthy discussion and then supplies three draft paragraphs. The intervention moves from a general explanation of the revised architecture to concrete legislative wording.
The central change is to place the municipalities’ “Universalkompetenz” at the beginning, moving the former second paragraph into first position. The proposed wording nevertheless makes municipalization conditional on public welfare, predominantly local purposes, and compensation:
Die Gemeinden sind ermächtigt, aus Gründen des öffentlichen Wohles die nachstehend bezeichneten Unternehmungen, falls sie vorwiegend den Zwecken des Gemeindebezirks dienen, gegen angemessene Entschädigung aus der Privatwirtschaft in die Gemeinwirtschaft zu überführen (Kommunalisierung).
English translation: The municipalities are authorized, on grounds of public welfare, to transfer the enterprises specified below from the private economy into the communal economy against appropriate compensation, provided that they predominantly serve the purposes of the municipal district (municipalization).
Municipalization thus appears as a legally authorized transfer, not an unrestricted municipal power. The second paragraph would allow the Reich government, after consulting the Reich Economic Council, to extend municipal competence to additional economic sectors. Lederer explicitly identifies this as incorporating Prentzel’s suggestion: the law’s coverage could be enlarged by ordinance. Vogelstein’s interjection objects that this proposal would never pass, but the recorded intervention offers no resolution of that objection.
The third paragraph supplies a more particular route for cases outside the first two provisions:
Die Landeszentralbehörden können auf Antrag die Zuständigkeit einzelner Gemeinden zur Kommunalisierung von Einzelunternehmungen auf andere als die in § 1 genannten Wirtschaftszweige ausdehnen. Sie können dieses Recht zur Kommunalisierung von Einzelunternehmungen ohne Verleihung des Rechtes auf ausschließlichen Gewerbebetrieb auch anderen Stellen übertragen.
English translation: The central authorities of the constituent states may, upon application, extend the competence of individual municipalities to municipalize individual enterprises to economic sectors other than those specified in § 1. They may also transfer this right to municipalize individual enterprises to other bodies without granting the right to exclusive operation of the trade.
The crucial distinction is between authority to municipalize an individual enterprise and a right of exclusive operation. Lederer’s introductory classification also mentions broader municipalization involving special municipal protection or monopoly rights. The draft therefore differentiates powers rather than treating municipalization as a single, uniform act. Its significance lies in this institutional design: a statutory municipal mandate, centrally authorized sectoral extensions, and individually granted powers need not entail the same monopoly privileges.
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