Weimar: Questioni costituzionali e prospettive dell'integrazione europea

The essay analyses the constitutional debate during the age of Weimar after the end of Kaiserreich and the loss of its organic integration on the ground of the monarchic principle. At the core of the debate there was the problem of the conditions of pluralism in a democratic form of government. The essays considers in particular Rudolf Smend’s integration doctrine and H.Heller’s concept of social homogeneity as the necessary condition of democracy. Smend’s doctrine and Heller’s theory of State are analysed in comparison with Kelsen’s normativism. The Weimar’s crisis appeared as the consequence of the absence of a social homogeneity and the impossibility of the “material” integration theorised by Smend. Significant is also the consideration of the Weimar debate on the part of the constitutional jurisprudence of BVerfG about the conditions of the European integration.