Emil Lederer · 1921
This recorded intervention in a commission’s plenary deliberations addresses a precise question: may a municipality municipalize an enterprise situated outside its boundaries because that enterprise works for it? Lederer responds to Professor Lindemann, identifying the issue as a new departure in the plenary debate. His qualification—“soweit ich mich erinnere”—limits his claim about what had previously been discussed; it does not weaken his opposition to Lindemann’s position.
Über die Frage, ob ein Betrieb, der außerhalb des Gemeindebezirks liegt, aber für die Gemeinde arbeitet, kommunalisiert werden soll, haben wir, soweit ich mich erinnere, nicht gesprochen.
English translation: As far as I remember, we have not discussed the question of whether an enterprise situated outside the municipal district, but working for the municipality, should be municipalized.
The intervention moves from defining this unresolved question to rejecting a particular interpretation of the law. Lederer’s example is an enterprise in East Prussia that performs 80 percent of its work for Berlin. Such a substantial economic connection, he argues, does not establish Berlin’s legal right to municipalize it. His central distinction is between serving a municipality economically and falling within its territorial jurisdiction.
Es scheint mir ganz selbstverständlich zu sein, daß dieses Recht nur auf dem Hoheitsgebiet der Gemeinde, wenn man so sagen kann, ausgeübt werden darf.
English translation: It seems entirely self-evident to me that this right may be exercised only within the municipality’s sovereign territory, if one may put it that way.
The tentative formulation concerning “Hoheitsgebiet” qualifies the terminology while leaving the territorial restriction emphatic. Lederer does not develop a general theory of municipalization or identify the statutory provisions at issue. The contribution’s significance lies instead in its concise boundary-setting: economic dependence on a municipality cannot, on his reading, extend that municipality’s power beyond its own territory.
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