Working Committee of German Associations, a group of 2,000 organizations that included the Catholic Caritas Internationalis, the Association of German Cities (Deutscher Städtetag) and the Working Committee of Patriotic Associations. A national consensus emerged against any kind of German admission of guilt. The original focus on the war and its perpetrators expanded to include the question of responsibility for Germany's defeat. Instead of assigning a state court to clarify the question, a resolution to establish a committee was passed on 20 August 1919 at the 84th session of the Weimar National Assembly that had adopted the new Weimar Constitution just nine days previously. The procedures of the committee of inquiry were not governed by the Rules of Procedure of the Reichstag but by the Work Plan for Committees of Inquiry of 16 October 1919. In the resolution of the National Assembly, the committee was given the task "to determine, by gathering all evidence: what events led to the outbreak of the war, caused its prolongation and brought about its loss, in particular: what opportunities presented themselves in the course of the war for arriving at peace discussions and whether such opportunities were handled without due diligence; whether fidelity and good faith were observed in the communication among the political agencies of the Reich leadership, between the political and the military leadership, and with the people's representatives or their confidants; whether in the military and economic conduct of the war, measures were ordered or tolerated which violated provisions of international law or were cruel and harsh beyond military and economic necessity." The investigating committee was constituted one day later, on 21 August 1919. It had the right to summon any German for questioning and to inspect all official files. Those summoned were usually referred to as respondents; they stood somewhere between defendants and witnesses. No defense attorneys were appointed. The procedure in the investigative committee was to be similar to that of the criminal trial. The first chairman was the Hamburg senator Carl Wilhelm Petersen of the center-left German Democratic Party (DDP), later Walther Schücking, also DDP, and in the final phase Johannes Bell of the conservative Catholic Centre Party. Ludwig Herz was initially appointed managing director but was replaced shortly thereafter by , also for a time a member of the DDP. The committee was staffed according to the distribution of seats in the National Assembly and then, after it