The birth of German democracy
"The German Empire is a republic. The power of the state shall emanate from the people." These words begin the constitution of the Weimar Republic, Germany’s first democracy. A new stamp pays tribute to this historic event.
To mark the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the Weimar Constitution, the Federal Ministry of Finance and Deutsche Post issued a special stamp in August 2019. vista won the internal competition to design the stamp. The jury liked the concept of using only the first two sentences of the constitution in the national colours of black, red and gold.
“Commitment to the republic and the sovereignty of the people sounds self-evident today, but this obscures how revolutionary these words were in 1919. They ended a millennium of monarchy in Germany and transformed the seemingly entrenched Hohenzollern empire into a modern democratic state. The constitution established fundamental social and economic rights, some of which went far beyond the Basic Law. This was a problem for many authoritarian-minded people, and so the Weimar Constitution was fiercely attacked by its enemies – and at the same time celebrated internationally as the most democratic constitution in the world. And rightly so: the Weimar Republic was the first major state to introduce women’s suffrage. The constitution established fundamental social and economic rights, some of which went well beyond the Basic Law.”
— Michael Dreyer / Andreas Braune, Weimar Republic Research Centre, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Client: Federal Ministry of Finance, Berlin & Deutsche Post AG, Bonn
Services: Concept and design
Year: 2019
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