The Weimar Constitution is carried
On 31 July 1919 the delegates voted Germany's first democratic constitution through in its final form, in the Nationaltheater. It was signed somewhere else entirely.
Three dates belong to this constitution and they collapse easily into one — which is how a signing ends up being placed in a building where it did not happen.
31 July: the vote
The delegates approved the text in its final form in the Nationaltheater on 31 July 1919.[1] This is the Weimar date and the one the building has a right to. The Bundestag's account has them carrying it by a large majority and after heated debates,[2] which is the shape of the whole enterprise: a chamber of people with irreconcilable views arriving at a single document.
11 August: the signature, elsewhere
Reich President Friedrich Ebert signed the constitution on 11 August, and the Bundesarchiv is precise about where: at Schwarzburg, in Thuringia.[3] Not in Weimar and not in the theatre. It came into force three days later, on 14 August, with its publication.
Three dates, not one
The three dates collapse easily into one, and the collapsed version puts a solemn signing under the proscenium of a theatre in Weimar. It is tidier and it is wrong: the vote, the signature and the date the constitution took force belong to three different days and, for the signature, a different town entirely.
Sources
- Geschichte — Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar, retrieved 29 August 2026
- Weimarer Nationalversammlung — Deutscher Bundestag, retrieved 29 August 2026
- Unterzeichnung der Weimarer Verfassung — Bundesarchiv, retrieved 29 August 2026
Historical figures
Historical figures
1860–1925 • constitutional lawyer • liberal politician
The text the delegates carried in the Nationaltheater was substantially his,[^dhm-lemo-preuss] though he had produced it in Berlin and his government had resigned before the vote.
1871–1925 • politician • statesman
Ebert signed the constitution on 11 August 1919 at Schwarzburg, not in Weimar.
Historic sites
Historic sites
Theaterplatz 2, 99423 Weimar
The document the tablet commemorates.
It commemorates the constitution carried in 1919 in the theatre opposite.
Theaterplatz 2, 99423 Weimar
The final vote of 31 July 1919 was taken in this house; the signing was not.
Stages and venues
Theaterplatz 2, 99423 Weimar
The theatre's own history records the delegates' final vote on 31 July 1919 in its converted auditorium.
Period
In Weimar's history
In Weimar's history
On 6 February 1919 the assembly elected to write Germany a constitution met for the first time, in a court theatre eleven years old. Weimar was chosen because Berlin was too dangerous.
The vote closed the work the assembly had convened in the same hall to do, five months earlier.
On 3 and 4 July 1926 the party held its first congress after being refounded, with Hitler present, in the hall where the Republic had voted its constitution seven years earlier.
The constitution was carried in this room in 1919; the party congress was held in it seven years later.