"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (234 page)

9.
Freisler was in charge of
Referat I
(General Affairs) within Dept. 1, as well as that of the Departments of Penal Legislation (2), Administration and Execution of Criminal Justice (3), Reich Legal Examination Office (7), and the Hanns Kerrl Community Camp; State Secretary Schlegelberger headed the Departments of Organization and Administration (1) (with the exception of
Referat I
), Civil Code (4), Commercial and Economic Law (5) and Budget (6) (Sauer,
Das Reichsjustizministerium
[1939], 23 ff.). See also Kluge and Krüger,
Verfassung und Verwaltung
(1941), 425.

10.
See memorandum from the Prussian Ministry of Justice,
Nationalsozialistisches Strafrecht
(1933); Frank,
Nationalsozialistisches Handbuch für Recht und Gesetzgebung
(1934), introduction, which explicitly called the Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals of November 24, 1933 (
RGBl.
I 995), and the law of April 24, 1934 (
RGBl.
I 341) (Establishment of a People’s Court), the “beginnings of National Socialist penal reform”; Frank,
Nationalsozialistische Strafrechtspolitik
(1938); Frank,
Nationalsozialistische Leitsätze
(1935), pt. 1, 1st–3d ed.; H. Welzel, “Tradition und Neubau in der Strafrechtswissenschaft,”
Dt. Rechtswiss
. 1938, 113 ff.; Bühler and Frank, “Nationalsozialistische Strafrechtspolitik” (1939); Schwarz, “Der nationalsozialistische Strafprozeß” (1934); O. Kirchheimer, “Criminal Law in National Socialist Germany,”
Studies in Philosophy and Social Science
8 (1939–40): 444 ff.

11.
For more details on penal reform, see Bracher, Sauer, and Schulz,
Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung
(1962), 530 ff.; Johe,
Die gleichgeschaltete Justiz
(1967), 41 ff.; Broszat, “Zur Perversion der Strafjustiz” (1958), 391 ff. The main thrust of National Socialist penal reform was ostensibly to revive the so-called Germanic principles of justice, such as honor, loyalty, community, and so forth. But this signified nothing other than establishing the primacy of the state, the political apparatus, and the interests of the “
Volk
community” and thus anchoring the racial principle in penal law. The memorandum by the Prussian Ministry of Justice,
Nationalsozialistisches Strafrecht
, 60 f., for example, envisaged the introduction of a new comprehensive crime of “offenses to national honor,” including “intentional lies detrimental to the German people, insults to the memory of the historical achievements of the German people” (“falsification of history with offensive intent”). Rosenberg,
Der Mythos des 20. Jahrhunderts
(1933), 565 f., proposed the offense of “abuse of the German people,” which “according to the seriousness of the case should be punished by imprisonment, penal servitude, or execution.”

For full details on general legal reform, see A. Wagner, “Die Umgestaltung der Gerichtsverfassung” (1968), 348 ff.; in the contemporary literature before 1945, a good overview will be found in E. Schäfer, “Der Stand der Strafrechtserneuerung: Der Bericht der amtlichen Straftrechtskommission über den ‘Besonderen Teil’ des kommenden Deutschen Strafrechts,”
DJ
(1935): 773 ff., 952 ff.; E. Schäfer, “Der ‘Allgemeine Teil’ des kommenden Deutschen Strafrechts,”
DJ
(1935): 1515 ff. (Schäfer was
Ministerialdirektor
in the Reich Ministry of Justice).
Grundzüge eines Allgemeinen Deutschen Strafrechts, Denkschrift des Zentralausschusses der Strafrechtsabteilung der Akademie für Deutsches Recht
, in
Schriften der Akademie für Deutsches Recht
, no. 1 (1934).

12.
See H. Hattenhauer, “Zur Gründung des Reichsjustizamts,” in Bundesministerium der Justiz, ed.,
Vom Reichsjustizamt zum Bundesministerium der Justiz
(1977), 9 ff., 80.

13.
See Frank,
Nationalsozialistisches Handbuch für Recht und Gesetzgebung
, introduction and “Guiding Principles.”

14.
Official
draft of a General Penal Code (
Allgemeines Strafgesetzbuch
), including preamble. Published by order of the Reich Ministry of Justice, in two parts, Berlin, 1925.

15.
See, for example, Hueber, “Justiz im Führerstaat” (1942).

16.
Memorandum from the Prussian Ministry of Justice,
Nationalsozialistisches Strafrecht
(1933); see further the official draft by the Reich Ministry of Justice penal law committee of a new penal code with preamble, two parts in one volume, 1936. Parallel with this, the Reich Legal Desk of the Party published the
Nationalsozialistische Leitsätze für ein neues Deutsches Strafrecht
(pt. 1, 1935; pt. 2, 1936); see also full details in Oetker, “Grundprobleme der nationalsozialistischen Strafrechtsreform” (1934), 1317 f.; numerous actions and correspondence regarding the reform of penal procedure by the Official Reich Ministry of Justice Commission may be found in BA R 22/1039, 1083.

17.
For a fundamental treatment, see Dahm and Schaffstein,
Liberales oder autoritäres Strafrecht
(1933).

18.
Oetker, “Grundprobleme der nationalsozialistischen Strafrechtsreform,” 1318. Frank,
Nationalsozialistisches Handbuch für Recht und Gesetzgebung
, introduction, xxi.

19.
Sec. 2 of the new version of the Penal Code contained in the amending law of June 28, 1935 (
RGBl.
I 839), was worded as follows: “Any who commit an act punishable under the terms of the law or which deserves punishment according to the basic premise of penal law and the ‘sound sentiment of the people,’ shall be punished. If the law contains no directly corresponding provision, the act shall be punished under the terms of the law that applies most closely to it.” Regarding the question of analogy, see, for example,
Supreme Court for Criminal Cases
(RGSt 74, 45); Becker,
DJ
(1937): 457 ff.; Mezger,
Deutsche Rechtswissenschaft
(1939): 259 ff.; Graehl,
Deutsches Strafrecht
(1940): 49 ff.; Peters,
Deutsches Strafrecht
(1938): 337; Klee,
Deutsches Strafrecht
(1941): 71 ff.; Siegert,
DR
(1943) (A): 739 ff.; G. Küchenhoff,
Nationalsozialistischer Gemeinschaftsstaat
(1934); Frank,
Nationalsozialistische Strafrechtspolitik
, 26; Lämmle, “Aus der Rechtsprechung des Volksgerichtshofs” (1944); Schmelzeisen,
DR
(1938): 261; see also Johe,
Die gleichgeschaltete Justiz
, 45; Thieme, “Führerprinzip in der Arbeitsverfassung” (1935), further demanded that the analogy based on the “sound sentiment of the people” be extended to other types of proceeding.

20.
Frank,
Nationalsozialistische Strafrechtspolitik
, 28 f.

21.
Dahm, “Verrat und Verbrechen” (1935): 283 ff., 288; G. Dahm,
JW
(1934): 904; Freisler, “Volksverrat im Lichte des Nationalsozialismus” (1935): 907.

22.
Diener, “Das System der Staatsverbrechen” (1934), 329 ff.

23.
Franzen,
Gesetz und Richter
(1935), 19 f.

24.
H. Frank,
Nationalsozialistische Strafrechtspolitik
, 28 f.

25.
F. W. Adami,
JW
(1935): 2348; Oetker, “Grundprobleme der nationalsozialistischen Strafrechtsreform,” 1318 f.

26.
Draft of the law (purely police law) and the implementing regulations in BA R 22/4428. Very few sanctions were proposed for “persons foreign to the community”—imposition of sentences of unspecified duration and subsequent custody in “police camps” (concentration camps) and “welfare institutions” (workhouses)—that would have constituted definitive legalization of the protective custody hitherto illicitly practiced by the police. The concept of “persons foreign to the community” was extended beyond all imaginable limits; it included not only all criminals (especially so-called habitual offenders) but also all who were “constitutionally incapable of being integrated into the community,” who “consistently violated the obligation toward the community incumbent on them,” such as, for example, by not making a living “in an orderly manner” or “through their own earnings,” in spite of work opportunities, as well as alcoholics, beggars, former offenders who had not been reintegrated, people with a “disorderly” way of life, etc. It was clear to all who had eyes to see that this law would have transformed the whole of Germany—in the words of H. Frank—“into a single concentration camp.” Furthermore, all
racially undesirable
persons could be included under the definition, and in fact the practice of the police against “alien” criminals, as will be demonstrated, was directed toward putting the intentions of the “Law on Aliens to the Community” into effect to the broadest extent possible.

27.
Regarding the equivalence of these terms, see
Vertrauliche Information der Parteikanzlei
, no. 45/597, of June 25, 1942, in
Verfügungen, Anordnungen, Bekanntmachungen
, vol. 2, 49 f. See also statements made by Hitler in his speech at the Reichstag on January 30, 1937, in which he demanded the severest punishment for those “antisocial elements who were determined to shirk their common obligations or who wronged the common interest” (
Dok. der deütschen Politik
5: 33).

Part Two. Section 1. A. II. “Non-German” Offenders

1.
RGBl.
I 1146.

2.
Sec. 6 of the First Executive Decree of November 14, 1935, to the Blood Protection Law (
RGBl
. I 1334); for more details, see Gütt, Linden, and Maßfeller,
Blutschutz und Ehegesundheitsgesetz
(1937), 225, 227 f.; marriage “would not be permitted” if “foreign blood was particularly dominant.”

3.
Amending decree of February 16, 1940 (
RGBl.
I 394); regarding the First Implementing Regulation of November 14, 1935, to the Blood Protection Law (
RGBl.
I 1334), see also the Reich Ministry of Justice directives issued by the senior public prosecutor, Hamburg, at a meeting of presiding judges in Hamburg on December 1, 1939 (report in Nuremberg doc. NG-629). The non-prosecution of the German woman was reportedly based on a directive by the Führer, “since as a rule the woman was the victim.”

4.
Gütt, Linden, and Maßfeller,
Blutschutz und Ehegesundheitsgesetz
, 15.

5.
According to the article by G. Mauz, “Unaufgefordert vollkommen entkleidet,” in
Der Spiegel
of August 4, 1975, between 1936 and 1943 legal proceedings were brought against 1,580 persons, 429 of whom were convicted. A recent full treatment of the judicial practice in “racial defilement” (
Rassenschande
) cases in Hamburg will be found in Hans Robinsohn,
Justiz als politische Verfolgung
(1977). According to Freisler, “Ein Jahr Blutschutzsprechung in Deutschland” (1936), 385 ff., 299 cases leading to conviction were tried under the law between September 15, 1935, and October 15, 1936; 125 further cases were pending. See also Leppin, “Der Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre” (1937); Sandrock,
DR
(1940) (B): 261 ff.

6.
See the circular instruction of April 2, 1936, from the Reich Ministry of Justice to all chief public prosecutors and senior public prosecutors (quoted by Robinsohn,
Justiz als politische Verfolgung
, 124 ff.) (penal servitude to be the standard penalty; Jews to be treated particularly harshly); circular instruction of September 1, 1936, from the Reich Ministry of Justice to all presiding judges of the courts of appeal (quoted in ibid., 125 f.), with a further reminder to pass severe sentences and instructions to create special criminal courts. See also R. Freisler, “Rasse als Träger und Ziel des deutschen Volksrechts unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Strafrechts,”
DJ
(1936): 803 ff.; Freisler, “Ein Jahr Blutschutzsprechung in Deutschland”; also Kuhn, “Das Blutschutzgesetz in der strafrechlichen Praxis,”
DJ
(1936): 1005 ff. Kuhn worked in the Reich Ministry of Justice.

7.
See the ministerial commentary by Gütt, Linden, and Maßfeller,
Blutschutz und Ehegesundheitsgesetz;
Gütt, “Gesundheits- und Rassenpflege im Dritten Reich” (Gütt and Linden were senior officials in the Health Department of the Reich Ministry of Justice). See also the series “Rasse und Volk” in
DJ
(1936): 801 ff.

8.
More in Crohne, “Die Strafrechtspflege 1936” (1936), 7 ff.; R. Freisler, “Ein Jahr Blutschutzsprechung in Deutschland”; summaries in Leppin, “Der Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre”; Sandrock,
DR
(1940) (B): 261 ff.

9.
Sec. 5 of the First Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law, November 24, 1935 (
RGBl.
I 1333).

10.
Reich Supreme Court, June 5, 1941,
DR
(1941) (A): 2413 f.

11.
Reich Supreme Court, September 2, 1936,
DJ
(1936): 1470 f.; December 23, 1940,
DR
(1941) (A): 772 f.; April 11, 1938,
JW
(1938): 1583; November 21, 1938,
DJ
(1939): 431; July 15, 1940,
DR
(1940) (A): 1668.

12.
For more on the definition, see A. Schönke, Penal Code, 1944, sec. 172, note 1.

13.
Reich Supreme Court, Großer Senat, December 9, 1936, RGSt 70, 375 (
DJ
[1937]: 122 f.). See also Augsburg
Landgericht
(district court), December 19, 1935,
JW
(1936): 750 f. (punishment for racial defilement in cases of unnatural sexual intercourse).

14.
Reich Supreme Court, April 24, 1939, 1326; the Jewish defendant had made a prostitute walk backward and forward in front of him, naked or dressed, and carry out different body movements. The Supreme Court reversed the acquittal by the criminal court.