PART TWO. Fundamental Rights and Fundamental Duties of the Germans
Division One. THE INDIVIDUAL
Article 109
All Germans are equal before the law. Men and women have fundamentally the same civic rights and duties.
Public-law privileges or disadvantages of birth or of rank are to be abolished. Titles of nobility are considered only as part of the name and may no longer be conferred.
Titles may be conferred only when they designate an office or calling; academic degrees are not hereby affected.
Orders and decorations may not be bestowed by the state.
No German may accept a title or order from a foreign government.
Article 110
Citizenship in the Empire and in the Lands is acquired and lost in accordance with the provisions of an Imperial statute. Every citizen of a Land is at the same time a citizen of the Empire.
Every German has in each Land of the Empire the same rights and duties as the citizens of the Land itself.
Article 111
All Germans enjoy freedom of travel and domicile throughout the whole Empire. Every one has the right to stay end settle at any desired place in the Empire, to acquire land, and to pursue any livelihood. Restrictions require an Imperial statute.
Article 112
Every German is entitled to emigrate to foreign countries. Emigration can be restricted only by an Imperial statute.
As against foreign countries all citizens of the Empire within and without the territory of the Empire have a claim to the protection of the Empire.
No German may be delivered up to a foreign government for prosecution or punishment.
Article 113
The foreign-language elements of the population of the Empire may not be restricted by legislation and administration in their free, ethnological development, especially in the use of their mother tongue in education, nor in internal administration and the administration of justice.
Article 114
The freedom of the person is inviolable. A restriction or deprivation of personal freedom by public power is permissible only upon statutory grounds.
Persons who are deprived of their freedom are to be notified not later than the next following day by what authorities and upon what grounds the deprivation of freedom has been ordered; without delay opportunity is to be given them to object to the deprivation of their freedom.
Article 115
The home of every German is for him an asylum and inviolable. Exceptions are permissible only upon statutory grounds.
Article 116
An act can be punishable only when the penalty was fixed by statute before the act was committed.
Article 117
The privacy of letters and also that of the mail, telegraph and telephone are inviolable. Exceptions can be allowed only by Imperial statute.
Article 118
Every German has the right, within general statutory limitations, to express his opinion freely by word of mouth, writing, printing, picture or otherwise. No relationship of labor or employment may hinder him in this right, and no one may wrong him if he makes use of this right.
A censorship is not had; however, divergent provisions for moving pictures may be made by statute. And statutory measures are permissible for the suppression of trashy and obscene literature, and for the protection of young persons in public performances and exhibitions.
