What Is Besoldung? Why Hesse's Six Percent Pay Raise Still Faces a Constitutional Test
Summary: This article explains what Besoldung means for German civil servants and why the new Hesse pay law for 2026 and 2027 is still described as incompatible with the constitution despite the raise.
Civil servants in Hesse are getting just under six percent more money under a law passed by the state's black-red coalition, hessenschau.de reports. The law covers Besoldung and Versorgung for 2026 and 2027. On paper, that looks like a serious response to years of complaints. Unions and legal experts say it is not enough.
Besoldung is the German word for the pay of Beamte, civil servants who hold a special status under public law. It is not a normal salary. Ordinary state employees have their wages set through collective bargaining. Civil servants do not bargain; their pay is fixed by statute. The state also has a constitutional duty to pay enough. The Basic Law, as interpreted by the courts, requires an amtsangemessene Alimentation: an income that matches the office, the rank, and the civil servant's family situation. That duty is known as the Alimentationsprinzip.
In Hesse, that principle has been contested for years. GEW Hessen, the union representing many teachers and other public servants, says civil servants and Versorgungsempfänger — retirees and surviving dependents of the civil service system — have been paid at an unconstitutionally low level for years. Since 2017, GEW and the other DGB-affiliated unions have asked their members to file Widersprüche, formal objections to their pay. The objections keep legal claims alive. Each pay statement can be challenged, and each challenge can force the state to justify its pay law in court.
The new law was supposed to settle the matter. The union answer is blunt: GEW Hessen states that Besoldung remains unconstitutional even in 2026. The legal basis for that claim is an opinion prepared by Prof. Dr. Anna Leisner-Egensperger of the University of Jena, commissioned by DGB Hessen-Thüringen. The opinion says the law does not restore the required level of alimentation. Its central criticism concerns the Doppelverdiener-Modell, a dual-earner model built into the law. The available materials do not say exactly which payments the model affects; the legal point is that the model itself is considered incompatible with the constitutional guarantee.
Why does the constitutional label matter? In Germany, Besoldung is not purely a budget decision. Pay laws can be reviewed by courts, and a civil servant who has filed a timely objection can claim back pay if the law is struck down. That makes the Widersprüche filed since 2017 more than a formality. If Hesse's law is judged unconstitutional, the state could face retroactive costs stretching back years.
The six percent increase is real. The structural question is still open. Hesse's pay law may fill a gap in the current budget, but it has not ended the legal dispute over what the constitution actually requires.