Splendour and parliamentary democracy

The job was to be done in a secluded place, somewhere that would allow focused and undisturbed work – and what could have been more suitable than an island? When around 30 men gathered in August 1948 to draw up a draft for what would later become the Basic Law, they did so on Herreninsel, one of three islands in Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria. 

The “Old Palace”, where the constitutional convention met, had previously been a monastery – one of the oldest in Bavaria. Monks lived there from the 8th century onwards. In the early 19th century, the ruling elector dissolved the monastery and the building passed into state ownership.

The island was purchased by Ludwig II in 1873. He wanted to build a kind of second Versailles there, fascinated as he was by France’s “Sun King”, Louis XIV. He commissioned the construction of the “New Palace”, though it was never fully completed. 

The members of the constitutional convention met in the Old Palace in a rather modest wood-panelled assembly hall. Today, this structure forms part of a “Constitution Museum” that is visited by around 60,000 people every year.

The convention consisted of delegates from the eleven federal states of the three western occupation zones, as well as constitutional and financial experts. They deliberated for 13 days, working round the clock. In doing so, they laid the groundwork for the work of the Parliamentary Council in Bonn, which drew up the proposal for the Basic Law. Large sections of the constitutional convention’s draft later appeared in the final version, including Article 1 on the inviolability of human dignity. The Basic Law was adopted on 23 May 1949.

Today, Herreninsel is a popular excursion destination. Visitors can experience two very different sides of German history there: the New Palace, symbolising royal detachment and grand dreams that were never fulfilled, and the Old Palace, where democracy was shaped in a sober and pragmatic manner.