What mayors do: Local government in Germany

We all know about the Chancellor and the Bundestag. But what does local government look like in Germany?
Music:
"Style Funk" and "Hot Swing"
by Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com/
Creative Commons Attribution licence
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[@SchikatuLP]

Learning about my own country from some british guy on youtube, life goals.

[@redzora80]

me too, but as i life in Hamburg, we have a major and a senate and Disdrict assamblys (bezirksversammlung).

[@Hendricus56]

The Afghanistan "joke" is surprisingly relevant, even after 4,5 years

[@EvanC0912]

if this were a video on French administrative division, it would take a day long.

[@JaniceHope]

And in Lower Saxony you can also find the Samtgemeinde and Flecken. Incidentally (wink), I live in a Flecken that's part of a Samtgemeinde.

[@HansJoachimMaier]

I find "Flecken" usually on my shirt after eating Spaghetti with tomato sauce ;)

[@moatl6945]

A Lower-Saxony »Samtgemeinde« _practical_ almost the same as the Bavarian »Verwaltungsgemeinschaft« Rewboss described in the Video at 1:42. This video just gives a simplified view for people _not_ living in Germany. It would be to time-consuming mention all special cases in this video. As an other example, Rewboss describes the »Regierungsbezirk« as an authority »just doing some admin«, only. This is true for the Bavarian »Regierungsbezirk« (»Regierung von/der ...«), which is responsible to the Ministry of the Interior (Staatsministerium des Inneren). *But* there is also the »Bezirk«, which is a elected communal council of it's own. For example hospitals with neurology and psychiatry are administrated there. »Regierungsbezirk« and »Bezirk« are two different authorities not related to each other, but responsible for the very same geographical region.

[@Ulkomaalainen]

About "places named after somewhere else", I'd like to throw in Landkreis Harburg - Harburg not even being a city in its own right but a district of Hamburg.

[@krcn00b]

lot of elections?? you should try switzerland ;)

[@Anolaana]

2:30 this is similar to the City of London being excluded from Greater London, yes?

[@Spezialist212]

Exactly.

[@jesusgonzalez6715]

Anolaana Seranaar though we don't have weird medieval election procedures. And cities usually contain all that locals would consider part of the city, sometimes even more

[@EvanC0912]

not at all. the City of London is excluded because of its complicated long history and an arrangement with the British monarch. the german case is different. there are 2 possibilities that resulted in this arrangement: - the 'excluded' city was once part of the Kreis but it eventually grew large and powerful enough to sustain itself and then detached from the rest of the kreis (being a kreisfreie stadt means more power, control and privilege than a mere stadt within a kreis) - the landkreis was named after a neighboring big city simply out of convenience (perhaps also due to its connection or reliance to the city) this parrangement of having a kreisfreie stadt with a neighboring landkreis named after the city that isnt part of the landkreis (with the landkreis administrative offices located in the city) is actually quite common in germany.

[@meyermeyer8862]

There is one mistake in the subtitles in the middle of the videos, when you talk about the Landkreise. The assembly of Landkreise ist NOT the Landtage, but usually called "Kreistag". About Aschaffenburg: I don`t know how it is there, but in my state you have some indepedent cities and around them districts which are named after these cities even if they are not part of them. This is often done by adding "-Land" to make clear that is the land around this city. But the administration of the "-Land" is often in the city.

[@barvdw]

In the semi-ancien régime system that is Great Britain, it's not such a foreign concept, for instance Derbyshire. The ceremonial county includes the city of Derby, but not the current county...

[@luke_cohen1]

@@barvdw Funny enough, the American state of Virginia has a similar system that's not seen anywhere in the country.

[@barvdw]

@@luke_cohen1 I didn't know that, but there is some logic in it. While a city is intimately linked with its surrounding area, the wants and expectations are often very different. And depending on the size of the city vs what's around it, either can dominate the other, that's not a healthy situation.

I would go by: Municipality, rural/urban districts, state. An interesting thing you could have mentioned about municipalities is that they can have their own law enforcement which is called "Ordnungsamt" which has the sole purpose of code enforcement. Also they usually operate most of the other civil services though more expensive and services of strategic importance like schools of higher education and civil protection can be operated by districts or states especially in poorer and more rural municipalities.

[@rewboss]

The problem with "municipality" is that whenever I use that word when talking to a Brit, they say, "What's a municipality?"

[@jesusgonzalez6715]

kilésengati May be my American English poking through, but every time I hear "parish" I think "church"

[@alexku8452]

Jesus Gonzalez happens to me as well, I think of it as municipality = Gemeinde or Kommune and parish = Kirchengemeinde. To make thinks clear to some more American influenced who might wonder, I think instead of districts they may have a better understanding comparing them to what in the US usually would be a county.

[@luke_cohen1]

@@alexku8452 I'm not surprised by the generally easy governmental comparisons between the US and Germany. America played a major role in writing the current German Constitution (aka The Basic Law iirc) after the end of WWII. America was always good at handling regional and sectional differences and was given the task at balancing two in Germany (only the western part at the time), Italy, and Japan after the war along with a consultant role in Austria.

[@Scytherman]

Well explained :)

[@krachenford9594]

Good video,respect !

[@DeannaAllison]

Thanks for posting this informative video. I really do enjoy watching your KZbin channel! I'm moving to Austria next month so it will be interesting to find out how local government works there. I expect there will be some differences between Austria and Germany ...

[@Succubus1985]

Thanks, great video

[@The_SPM_Fury]

As a resident of Trier, I'd like to invite you to germanys oldest city. If you like, you can stay at Our house, too.

[@Rappelzgamer23]

Second oldest. Worms is older

[@The_SPM_Fury]

Rappelzgamer23 IT seems to be open for debate... Worms is in the ancient city council, but it all depends on how you define the term 'oldest city'... Then there are Andernach and some more. So let's call it a draw. Though, Trier is superior. Which is not open for debate... 😊

[@downhill240]

Always interesting here!

[@Niko_demus]

Elections are good indeed! Nice video in case I want to explain it again to someone.

[@KatalovesLinkinPark]

nice Zusammenfassung :D

[@PauxloE]

And it looks like the nearest post office with a PO box service is also not in your own district? In Berlin, we actually have two levels - the 12 districts (which take on parts of the tasks of a Gemeinde, even though they formally are not separate Gemeinden, and have their own elected assemblies, which elect district mayors), and the city/state (whose parliament is called "Abgeordnetenhaus", which selects the "Senat", a fancy name for the state government, lead by the "governing mayor"). Both elections happen at the same day every 5 years now. Street cleaning and garbage disposal are done by the same city-wide organization, though.

[@AlexanderGoeres]

yeah: _elections are good_!

[@renesalinas7426]

There exists also Flecken which was former a village which had the right to have a Market which was only allowed to cities.

[@FlashBD]

Thank you for this very informative video. Just one question: Isn't "County" a better translation of "(Land-)kreis"? Since the word district is also used to define areas in bigger cities (German: "Bezirk"). This could also fit to "Regierungsbezirk", since this is also translated to "government district".

[@rewboss]

I like to use "district" because "Kreis" most closely resembles English districts; a "county" covers a much larger area and is somewhere halfway between "Kreis" and "Land". For an internal division within a large city, I use "borough", since both London and New York have them. Just because the dictionary says that "Bezirk" means "district" doesn't mean that a German "Bezirk" is anything like, for example, an English "district".

[@FlashBD]

Ok, thanks for the clarification!

[@alexku8452]

rewboss I would say more between Kreis and Regierungsbezirk, but actually there exists some order or hierarchy for such structures defined by the UNO I think (at least there are defined levels to compare such structures) which puts Kreis and County indeed on the same level

[@SimonS44]

What about Ämter? And the Städteregionen of Aachen, Hanover and Saarbrücken? :P Nice video anyway ;)

[@rewboss]

The Ämter I mentioned: they're when small parishes pool their resources. They have different titles in different states: "Amt" is used in several states, especially in East Germany, but there's also "Gemeindeverwaltungsverband", "Samtgemeinde", "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft" and "Verwaltungsverband". The Städteregion Aachen, Region Hannover and Regionalverband Saarbrücken are three of the "exceptions and complications" I really didn't have time for, but they're basically sort of supercharged Kreise.

[@barvdw]

It sounds a lot like a Belgian intercommunale (although that can differ per thing you do, like there's an intercommunale for garbage collection, another for sewage, one for water distribution...), or a French communauté urbaine, or communauté des communes (where it is important to realise the French have fused hardly any places in comparison to e.g. Germany, with lots of villages of say 150 people still being an independent commune).

[@val1n]

And I think the most interesting part is, that the chancellor isn't directly elected by the citizens. We can only vote for the Bundestag and they will vote/decide who will be the next chancellor.

[@CologneCarter]

But at least the parties are telling in advance who is their candidate.

[@Arcturus367]

0:54 Weltstadt Welzem!!

[@minirop]

The strangeness of Aschaffenburg is the same as those in England? like Derby who's outside of Derbyshire.

[@daisybrain9423]

Kind of, I think.

[@johnhughes2124]

and i thought British and Norwegian admin was hard

[@jesusgonzalez6715]

Why do mayors almost never lose reelection?

[@anna-flora999]

No competition

[@AnniMcSally]

Den Status "Markt" bzw. "Marktflecken" gibt es auch bei den Nachbarn, in Hessen ;)

[@rewboss]

Es gibt auch ähnliche Bezeichnungen in anderen Bundesländern, aber sie sind recht selten. In Hessen gibt es nur vier Marktflecken, in Niedersachsen 53 Flecken und in Sachsen-Anhalt vier Flecken. Dagegen gibt es in Bayern 386 Marktgemeinden.

[@ManOfTheWeek596]

Ich lebe in einem Flecken in Niedersachsen (Harpstedt) , ich wusste bis zu diesem Video nicht mal, dass das eine offizielle Bezeichnung ist

[@hall9OOOl]

Ich wusste nichtmal dass es soetwas gibt. Wieder was gelernt ;)

[@forkeke]

Oh, aus Harpstedt - ein Großteil meiner Familie stammt daher. Mal für eine Familiendiskussion kurz gefragt: wie sprichst du Beckeln aussprechen? Langes e oder kurzes e?

[@ManOfTheWeek596]

AnniMcSally ich würde das erst lang und das zweite kurz

[@Schmidt54]

In Cologne, things are different. The local government and businesses just have to join the Karnevalsverein, which is the main platform for ̶b̶̶r̶̶i̶̶b̶̶i̶̶n̶̶g̶ conducting business. The municipality is only a front to cheat people with speed traps that actually go off way below the speed limit, weird parking signs that cry for a ticket because no one studied Verwaltungswissenschaften to understand those. Luckily, the city also employs businesses that are actually bad at their jobs, probably to give them a chance to survive, too; one example was a business that should have built a tunnel but ended up collapsing 2 buildings, destroying priceless historical documents while doing it. Also, the ability to drive a car is optional for residents, and traffic rules do not apply for cyclists, which is why the police rather stops people on bikes than the people doing 70 in the 50 zone. What a nice city I hope I have never to enter again on a daily basis.

[@Wilson-gz1ls]

Warum hat er betont das Wahlen gut sind?War das eine Anspielung an die Türkei? xD

[@Shirokroete]

Die Demokratie wird ja momentan überall mit Füßen getreten, also kann man das nicht oft genug betonen.

[@Wilson-gz1ls]

Stimmt auch wieder. Danke!

[@squirrelknight9768]

Wilson niergendwo mehr als in Deutschland leider... Die zwei großen Volksparteien, mit unüberbrückbaren Differenzen in den Werten Ihrer jeweiligen Wählerschaften, haben sich zu einem nicht "Entwählbaren" Moloch zusammen gerauft. Es gibt keine realistische Chance auf den Erfolg irgendeiner anderen Politik... #KeineDemokratie

[@SomePotato]

SquirrelKnight, was auch daran liegt, dass keine andere Mehrheit im Parlament möglich war. Rot-Rot-Grün wäre mal gegangen, aber da war die SPD zu feige für. Eine Minderheitsregierung hatten wir noch nie, und wenn ich mich in Europa so umschaue, scheinen die auch nicht sonderlich stabil zu sein. Verstehe mich nicht falsch, ich mag die GroKo auch nicht, aber so lange wir die Wahlergebnisse der letzten Wahlen haben, geht es fast nicht anders.

[@contentedbuddha]

SquirrelKnight Die beiden "Volksparteien" mussten sich zusammenraufen, weil sie immer weniger stimmen bekommen. Wenn dieser Trend nicht abreißt, dann ist die GroKo nur eine vorübergehende Rettungsmaßnahme, bevor wir auch eine italienische oder niederländische Parteienlandschaft haben, also dutzende Miniparteien.

[@keidun]

I was thinking that even the smallest villages had a village council... Does Kleinkahl have a mayor type leader to do ceremonies around town...

[@BaldInIhremKino]

where i live (village of ~5500, town of ~55000 in Baden-Württemberg ) we do have a local council (Ortschaftsrat) an a leader (Ortsvorsteher) but it's probably different in other parts of germany we even have a wikipedia article :) de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenacker_(Waiblingen)

[@brh4015]

This is different from state to state. Which I only learned now. Where I live in Baden-Württemberg even small villages of 300 or so people do have one or two people doing a sort of half day job and are elected every 5 years. Mostly they are not members in any political party and the same people may do it for decades. It is really more like a spokes person.

[@keidun]

Thank you for the reply...I watch Bayerisches Rundfunk videos (only understand half of the language, good practice) and I was wondering who the people that tap the kegs and give the speech at fest are...

[@keidun]

Thank you...

[@rewboss]

Kleinkahl is a Gemeinde comprised of the villages of Kleinkahl, Großkahl, Kleinlaudenbach, Großlaudenbach, Edelbach and Bamberger Mühle, and the hamlets Wesemichshof and Glashüttenhof. It does have its own mayor and its own council -- the individual villages don't -- but being so small, most of the day-to-day administration (issuing permits, ID cards, registering marriages and deaths, that kind of thing) is done at the offices of the Administrative Community in Schöllkrippen: the Administrative Community is made up of the parishes of Schöllkrippen, Kleinkahl, Blankenbach, Krombach, Sommerkahl, Westerngrund and Wiesen.

[@FlyingTurtleLP]

Patreon Squad!

[@Adolphification]

during the time of german empire, some states such as bavaria n wuerttemerg even had their own armies!

[@peterg.8941]

Yes that's true but only from 1871 to 1919. After that there was only one army in the German Empire.

[@leDespicable]

Well, Bavaria wasn't just a state, it was a kingdom until 1918.

[@Rick2010100]

Oh, oh, oh your videos are mostly well researched but this one is sub level and only reflect the south German region. To just start with Markt - Markt was a medieval right given to a town to hold a own Market and also collect taxes for this market. This was a special privilege granted by the Emperor to important or loyal cities. This market right made some cities and important and rich, the market right was also mostly combined with the right to establish a court. So the Market day was also a court day and many fines have been announced or exercised public on the market place. There was also no market community, there have been the Gildes of local sales and master craftsman who controlled the market by strict rules which also set up the prices and exchange rates at the local market. I could go on, but my time is limited...

[@keidun]

It would have took the whole video for him to say all of that... I think he did well for the sake of brevity...

[@CologneCarter]

Video time is limited too. Going over the whole shebang in-depth he would need to make it a series.

[@rewboss]

Honestly... this is a five-minute video in which I have to explain what the different levels of modern local government are. The only reason I mentioned mediaeval "Stadtrecht" at all was to highlight the fact that in modern Germany, that status has no meaning, and that was just one sentence. I mention the status of "Markt" because there are nearly 400 towns with that status in Bavaria (while in the whole of the rest of Germany there are only about 60 towns with an equivalent status -- Flecken or Marktflecken) -- that status also has no significance in modern Germany, although one town in my area did campaign for years to be granted that status.

[@barvdw]

Yeah, to be given city rights holds nothing special except for the title, as it is in Belgium. Still, at the Jubilee of our independence, quite some cities revelled in the fact they got them, or got them back.Some of them are really tiny, though.

[@Shirokroete]

Ob es wohl Blauke war?

[@buddybama7810]

Live in a city of 2 000

[@wookietreiber7971]

what did you do in germany?

[@freebirdflytosky3311]

Arbeiten

[@squirrelknight9768]

I'm not a patreon...patron, but I would like to ask your opinion on the "Große Koalition" and its percieved negative influence on the democratic process.

[@ThomasKossatz]

It's a wrong perception, that's all. Democatic process means: Government by majority, free elections. If electots vote stupid, so be it. If you don't like SPD/CDU coalitions, why vote for one of them at all? If you want a center-right coalition, vote FDP, if you want a center-left one, vote for Gruene. But it seems many voters have forgotten about strategic voting. I remember the 70s when I voted for the candidate of Party A and the party list of the smaller Party B. If you want something new, like the Jamaica coalition SPD GRUENE FDP), you have to join these parties and help change the general party lines. Same is true for a far left coalition. The problem, in short is: People vote the same, but expect another result. Such behaviour, as Einstein once said, is the definition of stupidity.

[@squirrelknight9768]

LiquidMatrix and who might you be talking to?

[@squirrelknight9768]

Thomas Kossatz​ vollidiot. Pass mal auf... 1. lösche ich jetzt (zusätzlich zu den ersten zwei die ich schon gelöscht habe) deinen letzten Beitrag. und 2. werde ich dich auch noch sperren damit du keinen weiteren geistigen Durchfall hier verbreitest.

[@MonkeyDRuffy82]

Neben dem Bundestag steht noch der Bundesrat der aus den 16 Vertretern der Bundesländer gebildet wird. aber nicht gewält wird

[@fremejoker]

Bundestag und Bundesrat sind gleichberechtigte Verfassungsorgane. Der Bundesrat steht nicht über dem Bundestag und er besteht nicht aus den Ministerpräsidenten, sondern aus von den Landesregierungen bestimmten Vertretern.

[@MonkeyDRuffy82]

Ah stimmt, ich sollte nicht mehr so früh am tag kommentieren sorry^^

[@fremejoker]

Nicht schlimm, aber wenn du schon korrigierst, dann tu es doch bitte auch richtig. Ein Bundesland entsendet soviele Vertreter, wie es Stimmen im Bundesrat hat. Momentan können im Bundesrat 69 Stimmen abgegeben werden, folglich gibt es auch 69 Vertreter der Landesregierungen.

[@jesusgonzalez6715]

KPS1982 I'm in favor of direct elections to the Bundesrat

[@InterCity134]

The lowest level should be municipality, the next level up county. That aligned with the similarly named levels in much of the English speaking world I think. Parish is just confusing and misleading even to native English speakers much less the rest of the audience.

[@rewboss]

Not where I come from. For me, the lowest level is "civil parish", the level up from that is "district", and then comes "county".

[@georgsimon1102]

it's not parishes, is it....

Georg Simon Yeah, municipality fits the overall system better.

[@rewboss]

It really depends: "Parish" is used in some countries, "municipalities" in others, to describe a similar thing. In the UK, it's called "civil parish" to avoid confusion with ecclesiastical parishes, which is probably what you're thinking of.

[@TremereTT]

+Georg Simon It is parishes. :) in translation.... But read-as-written it's "community". And we use the same word for ecclesiastical communities on several levels and on the lowest level of administration! It's about having something in common...faith, the same city, same hobby. Works for everything!

[@georgsimon1102]

ok... :)

[@ThomasKossatz]

Jaja

[@eroticnetwork1421]

Well, are you german or british?

[@peterg.8941]

both 😉

[@user-up1dz5cv5u]

Dual British-German citizen

[@weltsauerstoff]

Is the Bundestag, the federal parliament, really part of the government at 0:25)? The german word Regierung includes only the executive power (= Regierung), but not the legislative power (= Parlament).

[@rewboss]

It depends on your definition of "government", of course. Technically you're correct, but what word would you use to describe all the branches together? In the US, for example, they talk of the "three branches of government".

[@weltsauerstoff]

I don't know which word to use in English. It may well be that in English the word "government" includes all these branches, as you called them. The german word "Regierung" does not cover them, whence I got irritated. :)

[@alexku8452]

rewboss Don't we talk about the "Gewaltenteilung" here, as it is called in Germany? So the we have the "Legislative", which is the Bundestag and Bundesrat (and also the Bundespräsident) and thus the part which we refer to as government in Germany as one part. We have the "Judikative" which are the courts with their judges, which are by definition supposed to be independent from the government (something other countries lately officially abandoned) and last but not least the "Executive" which is mostly police forces.

[@weltsauerstoff]

Yes, the "Exekutive" is formed by the Bundespolizei and the Polizeien der Länder, but most importantly by the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Government on the federal level and on the level of the Länder by the prime ministers and their governments.

[@joachim7742]

Dann hat das Schulsystem in eurem Staat versagt !

[@peterg.8941]

Wieso das denn?

[@obsessivelyoli]

Am I the only Filipino?

[@freebirdflytosky3311]

No, there are many other Flip Flops!

[@pega17pl]

Die Bundesregierung gehört zur Exekutive und ist lt. Grundgesetz (Trennung von Legislative, Exekutive, Judikative) nicht im Bundestag (Legislative) stimmberechtigt. Das ist nicht der einzige offizielle Verstoß gegen die Verfassung...

[@montanus777]

nö, wir haben gewaltenverschränkung (keine reine gewaltenteilung), wodurch teile der legislative in personalunion auch die exekutive vertreten. das ist im grundgesetz genau so geregelt.

[@pega17pl]

+montanus777 Seit wann steht im GG, daß die Mitglieder der Bundesregierung im Bundestag mit abstimmen dürfen?

[@montanus777]

sie stimmen in ihrer funktion als parlamentarier ab - und das seit 1949. das ist in einer parlamentarischen demokratie (im gegensatz zur präsidialen demokratie) relativ normal. es gibt auch schutzmechanismen, die den umstand berücksichtigen, dass die gewaltenteilung nicht 100% vorliegt: a) misstrauensvotum b) zweikammersystem (bei uns der bundesrat, bei dem die regierungsmitglieder nicht vertreten sind) c) die tatsache, dass man zur änderung des GG eine 2/3-mehrheit in beiden parlamenten braucht.

[@pega17pl]

+montanus777 Das habe ich nicht gefragt.

[@fremejoker]

+pega17pl Im GG steht das Bundesregierung und Bundestag zwei verschiedene Verfassungsorgane sind. Mitglieder des Bundestages sind Abgeordnete und besitzen für vier Jahre ein Abgeordnetenmandat. Mitglieder der Bundesregierung üben ein ihnen übertragenes Amt aus. Einzig das Amt des Bundeskanzlers wird durch den Bundestag durch eine Wahl an eine Person vergeben, die Mitglied des Bundestages sein kann, für gewöhnlich auch ist, aber nicht sein muss. Die übrigen Mitglieder der Bundesregierung können ebenfalls gleichzeitig ein Mandat haben, haben es für gewöhnlich auch, müssen es aber nicht haben. Sofern ein Gesetz im Bundestag beschlossen wird, können jene Mitglieder der Bundesregierung, die gleichzeitig auch Mitglieder des Bundestages aufgrund ihres Mandates natürlich an der Abstimmung teilnehmen. Juristisch ist dagegen nichts auszusetzen, da es die Verfassung erlaubt. Natürlich ist die Trennung von Mandat und Amt wünschenswert, aber die Realität sieht anders aus. Ein Verfassungsverstoß ist das allerdings nicht.