 The Weimar Constitution of 1919 provided for the separation of state and religion.After the system of state churches had disappeared with the monarchies in the German states, the question arose why the Protestant church bodies within Germany did not merge.Besides the smaller Protestant denominations of the Mennonites, Baptists or Methodists, which were organised across state borders along denominational lines, in 1922 there were 29 (later 28) church bodies organised along territorial borders of the German states or Prussian provinces.