Germany give every reason to paint a gloomy picture of their development. The rapid weakening of the Kantian empathical-rational foundation of the rule of law in the work of most nineteenth century authors' and the consequent theoretical and practical separation of the rule of law from democracy, already boded ill for these institutions. Until 1919, in constitutional theory, the rule of law remained weak and extremely vulnerable vis-i-vis a powerful, politically dominating administration, equipped with the trappings of state authority, whereas the democratic element was restricted to votes for men and even that only within the German empire. In 1919, when general suffrage for men and women, proportional representation, parliamentary accountability by government and the socio-political rights of freedom of speech, press, meeting, association and coalition were established as the constitutional preconditions for a political democracy, the social preconditions for their operation were already unstable. In the Weimar Constitution, the structural problems and critical contradictions of a political democracy rooted in a capitalist economy were obvious. The class antagonism which, thus far, had been held captive by authoritarian, monarchistic, state bureaucracy in the 'bourgeois society of individuals'2 entered the political arena. The wage-dependent masses saw their political claims confronted by an organized, bureaucratic, industrial, capitalist power complex. There was a legal, political structure which in terms of the liberal concept of the democratic rule of law was obsolete. The socialist movement lacked the power to implement its plan for a political order representing the real needs of a democratic society. The democratic legality