the Bundestag can override with a simple majority. End under National Socialism In the course of the National Socialist takeover in 1933, the states of the German Reich went through the process of Gleichschaltung (Nazification). Prussia had been taken over by the government under Reich chancellor Franz von Papen in the 1932 Prussian coup d'état; on the basis of the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933, the new Nazi regime set up governments led by appointed Reich commissioners in all the states . Since the commissioners appointed members of the Reichsrat, the Nazis quickly had a large majority that it then used to rubber stamp the Enabling Act passed by the Reichstag on 24 March 1933. The act allowed Hitler as chancellor to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the parliament. The Provisional Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich of 31 March 1933 significantly curtailed the influence of the state parliaments. With the Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich () of 30 January 1934, the state parliaments were abolished and the sovereign rights of the states transferred to the Reich. Since the law affected the constitution, the Reichsrat, which by that point consisted only of Nazi representatives, had to approve it. It did so in its last session on 30 January 1934. Since the states were now only administrative units of the central state, their representation had lost its meaning. The Reichsrat's abolition was then possible since the Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich gave the Reich government the right to determine constitutional law. The Reich government formally dissolved the Reichsrat on 14 February 1934 through the Law on the Abolition of the Reichsrat (). Under the centralized Nazi regime, there was no longer any place for a chamber representing the states. After World War II In the Federal Republic of Germany, the Bundesrat has represented the states since 1949. In the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) the Chamber of States () carried out the function from 1949 to 1958. References Weblinks Germany, Reichsrat Politics of the Weimar Republic Government of Nazi Germany 1919 establishments in Germany 1934 disestablishments in Germany