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1 Free World 395 (1941-1942)
Hitler's Criminal Code

handle is hein.journals/freewrld1 and id is 389 raw text is: Hitler's Criminal Code By ROBERT M. W. KEMPNER A CCORDING to the present German criminal code, a citizen of the United States in his own home town commits a crime if he signs an anti-Hitler petition, or if he joins an anti-Nazi organization, or if he criticizes destructively the activity of a leader of the foreign section of the National Socialist party in the United States. A German citizen in New York who marries a non-Aryan, or who listens to the British Broadcast, also com- mits a crime for which he must answer accord- ing to German law in Germany. Suppose the respective foreign or German citizen falls into the sphere of German sovereignty, for example by a forced airplane landing or as a prisoner of war, or by kidnapping, then the law would be enforced. These cases are in reality less absurd than they appear at first glance if one remembers that dur- ing the last months Polish and Yugoslavian na- tionals have been sentenced by German Criminal Courts for anti-German activities which were committed many months before the German troops entered those countries. The purpose of the far-reaching German jur- isdiction is, as the official comments reveal, to protect our inflexible moral code, to close existing gaps and to make the German law en- forcement system really all-inclusive. The re- sults are, on the one hand, punitive actions, as in Poland, and on the other hand preventive, as in the Americas. For this reason the Ger- man consulates in South America have an- nounced the special importance of the new world- wide German jurisdiction which is based on a decree of the German Defense Council, signed by its chairman, General Fieldmarshal Herman Goering. Specifically, the decree of May 6, 1940 claims world-wide jurisdiction of the German authori- ties over crimes of foreign nationals, regardless of where they are committed, if the case involves German interests. It claims world-wide un- limited jurisdiction of the German authorities over all crimes of German nationals, regardless of where they are committed. With this measure, the Third Reich has aban- doned the territorial principle, formerly recog- nized in the German Criminal Code. German law had enjoyed the respect of other countries, as well as the admiration of German citizens, because its basic principles were fair. This claim of world wide jurisdiction would be laugh- able if it were not fatally serious to those who have already been caught by it. The importance of this decree is augmented and made ridicu- lously incredible in American eyes by the speci- fication that its power is retroactive to a maxi- mum of thirty years. The building up of the new Nazi system of criminal justice, to which the decree belongs, was not completed until 1940 because only dur- ing times of emergency could the assistance of lay-judges (Sch6ffen) and the remainder of the due process system be abolished without any real argument. Furthermore, it was not until 1940 that the new generation of real Nazi jurists had grown up so that the enforcement of such a new type of justice could be entrusted to them. A survey of the new legal machinery gives the following picture: Preventive Measures to make crimes physi- cally impossible are first, protective custody (Schutzhaft), to be ordered by the Central Agency of the Secret Police (Gestapo) against potential enemies of the State; second, pre- ventive custody (Vorbeugungshaft), to be ordered by the Reich Criminal Police Agency (Reichskriminalpolizeiamt) against potential criminals, anti-social individuals and work evaders. The police administration decides who is a potential enemy of the State. Criminal records are not essential. A judicial review or legal recourse is not allowed. In the confine- ment orders against Jews we can find given as reason, Jew, therefore, work-evader. Inde- terminate sentences result in confinement in con- centration camps which have been established in Germany and in the occupied countries. The number of political or criminal enemies of the State, confined by administrative decisions, is sev- eral hundred thousand. Sixty per cent of them are between the ages of 20 and 45. Because the administration does not trust these prisoners, they are not used for any military purpose, but are forced to work at stone breaking and at draining projects. The third preventive measure is internment in prisons, special institutions, or camps (Siche- rungsverwahrung), to be ordered by the Crim- inal Courts in connection with criminal cases. This procedure is based on the 1934 amendment 395

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