Articles Dealing with Unification


Article 23 (Jurisdiction of the Basic Law)

For the time being, this Basic Law shall apply in the territory of the Laender of Baden, Bavaria, Bremen, Greater Berlin, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, Wuerttemberg-Baden and Wuerttemberg-Hohenzollern. In other parts of Germany it shall be put into force on their accession.

Under this article, intended as a vehicle for German unification by the drafters of the Basic Law, German states were to join the Federal Republic, as Saarland did in the 1950s.


Article 146 (Duration of validity of the Basic Law)

This Basic Law shall cease to be in force on the day on which a constitution adopted by a free decision of the German people comes into force.


This final article of the Basic Law provided for its own invalidation when a future constitution would be written by a united German people. Such a means of unifying the FRG and GDR would have entailed the writing of a new constitution, in which the GDR presumably would have taken part.