The Fürstenenteignung was the proposed expropriation of the dynastic properties of the former ruling houses of the German Empire during the period of the Weimar Republic. These princes had been deposed in the German Revolution of 1918–19. Dispute over the proposed expropriation began in the months of revolution and continued in the following years in the form of negotiations or litigation between individual royal houses and the states (Länder) of the German Reich. The climactic points of the conflict was a successful petition for a referendum in the first half of 1926, followed by the actual referendum for expropriation without compensation, which failed.