Disestablishment
With the end of military rule in West Germany, the three western powers requested that state leaders should re-examine and finalise the borders that had been established during occupation. In the south west, it was undecided whether Baden and Württemberg should be re-established as separate states (with Württemberg absorbing Hohenzollern, since Prussia had been abolished) or merged to form a new state. In Baden, Wohleb was a strong opponent of a merger. In 1950, a referendum regarding the merger of the three south-western states was carried out. Within the pre-1945 borders of Baden, the merger was rejected and a restoration of Baden was elected. This vote in Baden was outweighed by the more populous Württemberg, where the merger was accepted. Following this referendum, the three south-west states were merged to form the modern German state of Baden-Württemberg on 25 April 1952.
Various legal contests were mounted against the referendum and the resulting merger. The newly-founded Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht) rejected a nullification of the referendum in 1951, after the judges' vote ended in a draw. In 1956, the court concluded that the referendum in (South) Baden was not accepted by the majority and should be repeated. The Baden-Württemberg government did not allow this repeat to take place until fourteen years later in 1970: eighteen years after the merger. This time, the vote in (South) Baden was 81% in favour of the status quo.
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