Unlike the American political system and the British political system which essentially have existed in their current form for centuries, the current German political system is a much more recent construct dating from 1949 when the American, British and French zones of occupation were consolidated into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). In 1990, the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) joined the Federal Republic.
However, the 1949 constitution embraces a central feature of the original German constitution of 1871 - which brought together Prussia with Europe's other German states (except Austria) - and the Weimar Constitution of 1919 - which involved a sharing of power between the central government and local Länder (states) - namely a disperal of authority between different levels of goverment. So the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) of 1949 deliberately distributes power between the central government and the Länder.
