How to destroy a police state (if you're a 19th century Prussian)

[@barbarossarotbart]

That wasn' the first time that the Prussian state lost a case in its own courts: Friedrich II lost a case for the removal of a wind mill that blocked the view from Sans Soussi.

[@karlkarlos3545]

And that wind mill still stands to this day.

[@DeptalJexus]

@@karlkarlos3545 just to mock him in the afterlife haha. Prussia was a true modern society.

[@andreabartels3176]

In 1890 they started compiling the laws that would come into effect on 01.01.1900. Das BGB, Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, the civil code, that handles laws about purchases, contracts and inheritance.

[@PauxloE]

The detailed housing rules are still made by what is a branch of the executive, though somewhat democratically legitimized. We bought a house recently, and its area has an "Erhaltungssatzung" which quite clearly says what we are allowed to change and what not, in order to preserve the character of the area. It was decided by the "Bezirksamt" (which is a local government).

[@martin.brandt]

To become effective, it for sure had passed the legislative "Bezirksversammlung" or "Gemeinderat" or whichever elected body supervizes the Bezirksamt in your federal state.

[@PauxloE]

@@martin.brandt The Bezirksverordnetenversammlung is also counted as part of the executive here. I'm not sure whether it actually has passed it (or would have to pass it), though. [Of course there is some law on state level legitimizing the whole thing.]

[@martin.brandt]

@@PauxloEOh, yes, now that you mention it. But the Bezirksverordnetenversammlung - it is an elected body, right? Technically part of the legislative, legally part of the executive? Sounds like Berlin.

[@wolfgangthiele9147]

This goes to show that the rule of law did exist in Germany prior to 1918 and I would even argue that in the last decades of the 19th century, the “common man” in Germany/Prussia enjoyed better protection against an overreaching government than citizens in some of the classic Western democracies or constitutional monarchies. Also note that in German, the terms “Polizei” (police) and especially “Polizeirecht” (police law) traditionally have somewhat broader meanings even to this day. For instance, “Baupolizei” (literally: “building police”) or “Gesundheitspolizei” (“health police”) would be the equivalents of code enforcement and public health in the English speaking world. The court case Rewboss discusses in this video is known in German legal history as “Kreuzbergerkenntnis”: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreuzbergerkenntnis

[@ppd3bw]

A well organized civil administration with a quite advanced separation of powers was one side of the Prussian state, it's excessive militarism the other.

[@anselmschueler]

Kreuzberg-Erkenntnis o. Kreuzberger Kenntnis?

[@wolfgangthiele9147]

@@anselmschueler Korrekt! (Das Licht ist mir leider erst jetzt aufgegangen: Erkenntnis=Urteil) 🥴

[@mkvenner2]

The term is Rechtsstaat

[@christiankastorf1427]

..and those bureaucrats work with building regulations that are based on a number of laws. The word "Baupolizei" still exists. Environmental protection and aesthetics have to be included. Especially people who live in the country will know hard it is to get building permission for even a bicycle shed. And even in urban areas there is a thing called "Bebauungsplan" that regulates what can be built and where. And do you know that one of the most common building regulations in Germany has its orgin in the 19th century? It was a police decree that there should be enough space between two houses that the (horse-drawn) steam fire-engines could manouvre.

[@szymon940]

Similiar edicts were also used to persecute Poles and Kashubians in Prussia. Most famous example was Michał Drzymała. For a few years he lived in a wagoon claiming that it is not a building. Police were not convinced and insisted that wagoon staying still for more than 24 hours is a house so Drzymała would move it a few meters every day. In the end he lost the case, had to sell the parcel and buy a second one with some house already on it.

[@christiankastorf1427]

Where you are not allowed to build garden sheds (open countryside outside villages) you might "park" an old living van or something, at least, that is what people often think and do. No, they are not allowed to do that. As soon as a vehicle is not supposed to be mobile, it is regarded as a house. Those regulations work against everybody, they did so in the 19th century and they do so today. I know about that from people in my area who own a plot of land near a lake and have thought that such a living van thing would make it possible for them to get their desired weekend lodging. So, not only the Slavic minorities in pre-1945 Prussia were discriminated against by such regulations.

[@szymon940]

@@christiankastorf1427 I don't think you understood. He lived in a wagon, because he was denied a permit to build a building. Why? Because he was Polish catholic and it was time of Kulturkampf. You can look it up, German, Polish and other sources agree on it. I don't have interest in proving historical facts.

[@christiankastorf1427]

@@szymon940 I can well understand that. My home region suffered from a similar discrimination under Prussian rule and people there went to court because of that. A lady got arrested for wearing a red dress with a white belt and a white button tape.That was seen as pro-Danish proganda by the police. Nothing, though, could be done against barn doors being painted in red with white trimmings at the edges. The paranoid "Kulturkampf" and later the agitation of the "Alldeutschen" against all non-German speaking communities in the 1871-1918 Reich are a shameful facts that clearly show how insecure that authoritatian state was. But what I mean is the fact that even a wagon is a house when it is not seen as a means of transport anymore. Same with tents. It was in a TV-programme on such issues, that some architect (!!) thought he could erect a Mongolian yurt in his garden to use it as his study/office. A tent is only a tent as a so-called "non-permanent building", "Fliegender Bau" in German law (here today and somewhere else tomorrow...) That means tents have to be dismantled after some days or weeks. When a tent is meant to stay there forever, it is a house and no tent. He needed a building permission and therefore had to take it down.

[@Hand-in-Shot_Productions]

I have heard of the Prussian _Polizeistaat,_ but I didn't know something as simple as a ruling over _houses_ could help dismantle it, let alone _did_ so! Thanks for the video!

[@idraote]

Considering how ugly many German cities are, especially in the residential areas, one would wish someone knowledgeable would indeed have the power to forbid buildings because of sheer aesthetics.

[@mardiffv.8775]

In the Netherland there is a similar situation, the "police" is called Welstandscommisie, Commity for the greater good. It checks weather your house looks beautiful enough and fits in with the surroundings. The WC can reject the color of paint on your house, or forbid you from installing solar panels or a dormer. There is a good reason for it: to prevent ugly houses being build, or houses that do no fit in in the neighborhood. Like we see in Belgium, where you build any house that you want. But the WC is too strict sometimes.

[@kualamekan9843]

Interesting video as always 👍

[@klaasvaak8922]

Just found your channel and I like it. Based on your number of subscriptions your are underappriciated.high quality, nice topics. It remind me of Geoff Mashall and The Tim Traveller! I have 1000+ videos to watch, thank you.

[@thes764]

Who else assumed that video would be about the "Hauptmann von Köpenick"/"Captain of Koepenick"?

[@PauxloE]

That was not in 19th century, but early 20th. And more military than police.

[@NicolaW72]

@@PauxloE Yes, indeed.

[@walterseelig8470]

.....however if you walk around looking at the ugly buildings you find nowadays _ I am not soooo sure anymore whether this court ruling was a progress...

[@iceylore7767]

I think this is the first time I've ever heard someone refer to Hallesches Tor as Halle Gate

[@brucequinnplayground2114]

Fun watching the cows graze by in the background.

[@damiang.3947]

Please read about Drzymała and his circus wagon. It became a symbol of the struggle of Poles with the authorities of the Prussian partition. His story is very interesting.

[@christiankastorf1427]

Same thing today with people who buy an old circus waggon or living van (those things that you find at building cites, now often replaced by containers and therefore easy to buy) and think they can place it on their plot of land to avoid building permission for a garden house in the countryside. Even with the wheels in place they are regarded as houses by our present building regulations.

[@brucequinnplayground2114]

Interesting that the police were so all-powerful in Prussia in the early 1800s that the police could stop a house from blocking a view. In the USA, the states that created the constitution were nearly like "countries," delegating some powers to the new federal government of the 1780s (e.g. negotiate treaties and regulate interstate commerce and disputes). This broad residual power, left to the states, to do practically anything, is still today referred to as the "police power" of the states, which is a special legal term of art that is understood very broadly. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_constitutional_law) The weirdness and breadth of this "state police power" concept and its basis in the 1700s was already recognized in a 1907 law review article (Cook, What is the Police Power? Columbia Law Rev 7:322). The point is, when you see the US constitutional legal term "police power" referring to states, it relates back to the 1700s and early 1800s, and not to the cop on the corner you see today. Much like the Rewboss story here.

[@danielcarroll3358]

In California so many cities and towns have had zoning laws only allowing single family houses on most (sometimes all) of their land that the state has had to recently pass laws forcing them to allow higher density construction. And oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth. "You are ruining the character of our beloved town!" The problem got so bad that the cost of housing went through the roof and homelessness was on the rise. We not only have NIMBYs (not in my back yard) and BANANAs (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) but also the CAVE people (citizens against virtually everything).

[@notmee2388]

I'm not sure trading police for bureaucrats constitutes any real difference. And presumably, it will still be police enforcing the bureaucrat's whims.

[@hubertbreidenbach]

This video epitomises the channel. Moar!

[@riccardodececco4404]

we certainly would need a police against ugly buildings....

[@princekrazie]

This case isn't really a victory for the People because most people aren't landowners. The Prussian government was willing to give way to a landowner but probably not to a poor factory worker or peasant.

[@publicminx]

it was also a step for poor guys, because the evolution of rights went from a leader class to include an upper class then to include a middle class then to include the lower class. and from building houses also poor ppl benefit directly or indirectly ...

[@RagingGoblin]

German authorities (though not the police) can still essentially proscribe building plans that are 'ugly' -- based on their inability to assimilate with the townscape. This is fiercely observed in more rural areas with historical timber-framing structures.

[@publicminx]

I guess the real conflict was not just by the single landowner but by a coalition of landowners who backed him plus a conflict of different Prussian institutions how things have to be organized and who gets the legislative power ...

[@jimmyincredible3141]

Destroying peoples dreams and freedoms in this regard has been outsourced to the "Bauaufsichtsbehörde" since then^^

[@NicolaW72]

Yes.

[@holger_p]

Come on, they tell you what kind of fence to install, sometimes the type of windows. They are annoying and take time, but it's most often not "destroying dreams". I mean if you want to build a house in a national park, it's there purpose to prevent it.

[@rogink]

Interesting little nugget of German history. So I take it that's where the expression 'police state' came from?

[@holger_p]

From the concept yes, but it existed before and after. If governement, court and head of state are bundled tight together, you can call it a police state, a dictatorship, absence of justice, you can have many names for the same concept. Today we are in the level of "the court can stop everybody, but nobody can stop the court". This has some little dangers too.

[@darth0tator]

that last part sounds a bit like personal experience with bureaucrats

[@lmyrski8385]

So, essentially, the power to ruin your life got shuffled from one desk at city hall to another. Yay! Something tells me whoever got the power was going to have it out for that guy. There's a reason they say you cannot fight city hall.

[@tillposer]

The important ruling was that both the police and the City Hall office could not issue regulations that were not mandated or legitimised by a law issued by the legislative branch. In this case, the police as part of the executive branch created a "law" out of the air. After this ruling, any restriction on building would have to originate from a law passed by the appropriate legislative body, be it the city parliament of Berlin or the King of Prussia via the Prussian parliament. So, yes, there might have been someone out to get him, but until the requisite laws and ordinances had been passed and ratified, they wouldn't have had a leg to stand on and after that fairly humiliating driving of the mighty police, I doubt said someone would put his bureaucratic career on-the-go line for something that would be swatted away with ease...

[@martin.brandt]

That was about Prussia. What about the situation in the other three dozen (smaller) states within the German Reich?

[@hypatian9093]

Well, an old building regulation more or less exists today: The eaves height in Berlin, regulation the height of most buildings, is 22 m - which was the height of the royal palace in Berlin. "Your house may not be taller than that of the king", a logical reason for such a decision...

[@rewboss]

There's no evidence for that. It was more likely a public safety issue: streets were to be 22 m wide to make fires less likely to spread, and the eaves height was also set at 22 m -- either so that in a fire, falling masonry wouldn't damage other buildings, or so that the ladders of the fire brigade could reach the top floor. The same regulation also set the minimum size of courtyards at 5.34 m on each side, so that fire engines could manoeuvre.

[@NicolaiCzempin]

Nice build-up to the punchline 😂

[@eljanrimsa5843]

I see you begin to take roots in Bavaria and throw some shade at the Prussians.

[@vac65]

Well... What's with the cows in the background... ?

[@fireskorpion396]

Not a 9-Euro-Ticket video? xD

[@spot1401]

we have a 9 euro ticket at home. It costs 29 euros. It is 50 minutes late. Non-refundable. Thank you for travelling with Deutsche Bahn.

[@soundscape26]

That saga appears to be over... for now.

[@simsandsurgery1]

@@soundscape26 I’m not sure if you guys live in Germany but as someone who does, it’s very much ongoing in its effects of overcrowding a system which was already at the breaking point. In my local HBF the other day where I change lines from bus to Straßenbahn I took a look in the other day and almost every train was delayed and the sheer amount of people just crammed together was unbelievable. Made me glad I don’t have to take the trains usually. Though the busses and Straßenbahnen and everything else are also ridiculously overcrowded- which is saying something since they were already a nightmare before this fiasco.

[@spot1401]

@@simsandsurgery1 I do. I have a long distance relationship and usually enjoy taking the train on weekends. "usually". This is pushing me back from train to my car, honestly....

[@Rugged-Mongol]

I still never received my 60 euro DB Fernzug nach Freiburg refund after an unfortunate 5 hr delay back from 2018 :|

[@wscottwatson]

Rather than police, they sound to me like civil servants with too much power.

[@holger_p]

So what's the point ? Civil or not civil ? If you don't consider the police as military, police is always a civil servant.

[@h223-n1x]

Cheers to the cow in the background of your video!

[@Trekki200]

That monument looks like a smaller version of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal in Leipzig, I suspect that this was equally intentional and embarrassing for the Prussians.

[@cinematix2988]

it looks nothing like the one in Leipzig...

[@spot1401]

@@cinematix2988 you are 100 percent correct.

[@NicolaW72]

@@cinematix2988 Indeed. This monument was tiny and in some way old-fashioned in comparison with the Leipzig Monstrum aka Monument, which wouldn´t have needed the police to be protected from being obscured by a four-stores-building.

[@baritonfelix]

The Völkerschlachtdenkmal opened in 1913, some thirty years after this court decision. The Saxonians did not want it because they had fought on Napoleon's side. But by then, Prussian nationalism was basically synonymous with Germany.

[@holger_p]

To me it looks like somebody chopped the tip of a church tower.

[@johngorentz6409]

Interesting. So I presume the rest of the story is that the Prussian police of that era then decided to go to work for Twitter and Facebook instead.

[@Baccatube79]

Oh, pray tell me: did you ever have to file a Bauantrag (formal request to erect a building) in Germany? Oh, the joy your life is!

[@NicolaW72]

So we did a huge step forward in Germany...:-)

[@edwardcardozo8325]

Basically NIMBY police