"the cooperation of all judges in the revision of German law" Free of all shackles" judges must remain beyond the reach of the spirit of trade unionism and narrow professionalism.'" "'" that they would "'strive as German jurists to follow the course of our Fiiehrer to the end of our days.'
And, should a "so-called judge," fail to rule how he was expected to rule:
In April 1942, Hitler claimed the right to intervene to correct judicial decisions and to remove judges who did not "understand the demand of the hour.
"Furthermore, I expect the German legal profession to understand that the nation is not here for them but that they are here for the nation, that is, the world which includes Germany must not decline in order that formal law may live, but Germany must live irrespective of the contradictions of formal justice."
Hitler Gives Broad Powers to his Jeff Sessions:
In August 1942 Hitler issued a decree which gave the new Reich Minister of Justice broad powers to bring the administration of justice into conformity with Nazi ideology:
A strong administration ofjustice is necessary for the fulfillment of the tasks of the Greater German Reich. Therefore, I commission and empower the Reich Minister of Justice to establish a National Socialist Administration ofJustice, and to take all necessary measures in accordance with the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery and the Leader of the Party Chancellery. He can hereby deviate from any existing law.
Judges Follow Proscution Orders:
As late as 1942, the Security Police sent a secret report to Hitler which argued that additional "political and ideological adjustment of the judiciary" was required in order to insure that their decisions fully complied with principles of National Socialism."
'Prosecutors typically met with judges prior to trial in order to instruct them as to the expected disposition of the case. The President of the Berlin Court of Appeal wrote Justice Minister Schlegelberger in 1942 complaining that these meetings were undermining trust in the judiciary and suggested that they should be conducted with greater circumspection one day prior to trial.'
Tyrants Are Never Satisfied
The Fuehrer, however, harbored continuing suspicions concerning the competency of judges and regularly found it necessary to intervene to correct sentences. (If only Hitler had had Twitter.)
The Nazification Of The Legal Profession
Hitler had low-regard for the legal profession. Ingo Muller writes:
He detested lawyers as pen-pushers who filled whole volumes with tangled commands and prohibitions and always had their noses buried in ridiculous tomes. He once confided to a gathering of confidants that going to law school must turn every rational person into 'a complete idiot,' and that for his part he would 'do everything he could. . . to make people despise a legal education.
The Final Solution to the Justice Problem Came Very Quickly
By 1935, their ranks had been devastated. Ingo Muller writes:
Justice as an ideal disappeared from Germany with the "elimination" . . . of the Jewish, socialist and democratic members of the legal profession, who made up one fifth of the total number and were the group at which Hitler's attacks were chiefly aimed. What remained was a mutilated and perverted sense of justice, characterized . .. by glorification of power, brutalization of the climate of opinion, and in- humanity " which shared Hitler's aversion to "legal-mindedness.
James Wilford Garner, writing in 1933, observed that, like Trump, Hitler replaced smart, professional jurists with, well, useful dopes.
The result of the Nazi "purge" has been. . . to denude the German universities of the great majority of the professors of international law, "Aryans" and "non-Aryans" alike, whose reputations extended beyond the frontiers of Germany. Of those who have been undisturbed, only a few are known even by reputation to American international lawyers". The vacancies created by the removals have been filled for the most part (if at all) by men without distinguished reputations and who are largely unknown outside Germany, but whose loyalty to Naziism is at least publicly professed.
The Courts Get "Reorganized."
The Hitler regime immediately organized various extraordinary courts. Special Courts (Sondergerichte) were established in order to adjudicate the guilt of "opponents of the new regime. "
Two aspects of the Special Courts were designed to ensure immediate and certain punishment:
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