Rechtsstaat (the law-based-state) and Rechtsstaatlichkeit (the German variant of the rule of law) are core concepts of German constitutional thought. Canonized together with the principle of democracy, the concepts of the republican, federalist and social welfare state and the indispensable guarantee of the human dignity they refer to a 200-year-tradition. From the perspective of a formal understanding, the term Rechtsstaat describes the type of state architecture and political order system in which all publicly applied power is created by the law and is obliged to its regulations and underlies numerous fragmentations of power and control mechanisms ("Bindung und Kontrolle"). Rechtsstaatlichkeit in this sense is a collective term for numerous (sub-)principles that allow the taming of politics by the law and shall avoid arbitrariness. From the perspective of a more substantive understanding, Rechtsstaatlichkeit also expresses democratic concerns and the respect to individual human freedom and equality and thus the commitment to a liberal and just constitutional order. In Germany, both perspectives are represented and both relate to the totalitarian unlawful regime established inbetween 1933-45 as an anti-model. The discourse is strongly characterized by the self-certainty of a role model Rechtsstaat formed by the Grundgesetz (GG), the German constitution. From this, integrating the German state into transnational networks will always require adequate provisions for the strict law-based exercise of power.