The prosecution of criminal cases
in Nazi Germany has been the subject of countless
investigations, which up to now have given an
undifferentiated picture, in which the judges appear as
“murderers in robes”. This picture has gained credence
because up to now practically all investigations have
concentrated on the “special courts” (Sondergerichte) whose
young, fanatical and career-conscious judges were installed
after the Nazis gained power. However the biggest proportion
of all the political cases were decided in district courts
(Landesgerichte), but up to now nobody has systematically
researched if these decided in the same way. With the aim of
finding this out, I have therefore systematically researched
both the way prosecutions were handled by the public
prosecutor and the decisions of the judges, using as an
example the district court of Ulm. The surprising result
showed a criminal justice system that had two faces 1. The
political section of the Public Prosecutor’s Office under the
leadership of a fanatical high ranking storm trooper
relentlessly pursued critics of the Nazi regime, without
concern for the facts of the case or legal positions. In
order to obtain the greatest possible punishments even
trivial offences were, without clear grounds, passed over to
the “special courts” and the Volksgerichtshof (the court set
up by the Nazi regime to judge cases of treason), even though
in up to 50% of cases the transfer was eventually refused. 2.
By contrast, the judges of the District Court in Ulm took a
clearly distanced position to the Nazi regime and repeatedly
and successfully refused to implement Nazi punishment norms.
The District Court did not deliver a single death sentence in
a political case. Whereas the “special courts” ordered a
death sentence in up to 80% of cases of theft during the
(air-raid) blackout, even for theft of small animals or
bicycles, the District Court in Ulm merely imposed prison
sentences. The judges of the District Court refused to
implement the totally excessive Nazi punishments, because
they had all been trained in and influenced by the German
empire. They continued to feel themselves constrained by the
classical concept of guilt and refused to join the Party.
This alone gives evidence for a...