In German history, a Reichsexekution (sometimes "Reich execution" in English) was an imperial or federal intervention against a member state, using military force if necessary.[1] The instrument of the Reichsexekution was constitutionally available to the central governments of the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806), the German Empire of 1848–1849, the German Empire of 1871–1918, the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). Under the German Confederation (1815–1866) and the North German Confederation (1867–1871), the same right belonged to the confederal government and is called Bundesexekution.
- ^ Lars Vinx, The Guardian of the Constitution: Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on the Limits of Constitutional Law (Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 256, defines it as "the enforcement of the constitution of a federal state against the government of a constituent state, if need be with coercive means".