Preliminary remark: The Baden constitution of 1818 had created a parliamentary two-chamber system. In contrast to the representatives of the estates assembled in the first chamber, the representatives of the people in the second chamber were elected by universal suffrage, in which the mass of citizens could cast their votes. The political debates in the Ständehaus in Karlsruhe were to play a not insignificant role in the upswing of the liberal movement in the first half of the 19th century. In 1904, direct suffrage was introduced for the second chamber. With the end of the constitutional monarchy, the first chamber of the Landtag disappeared. The Baden constitution of 1919 abolished class voting rights and introduced women's suffrage. On 30.1.1934, the history of the Badischer Landtag came to an end after 115 years with the National Socialist law on the abolition of the popular representations of the Länder. The archives of the Landtag were delivered to the General State Archives in 1934 and 1942, the photos of the members of parliament in 1943. These photos can be found under the heading No. 40k Members of the Estates. The minutes and invoices of the first and second chambers are summarized in fonds 231. The petitions of the population to their members of parliament, some in alphabetical order and some in chronological order, are very extensive. The present index was converted into an online find book in 2009 with funds from the German Research Foundation and then edited by Michael Bock. Karlsruhe, October 2009Dr. Rainer Brüning
