{"id":4448,"date":"2017-01-23T15:57:24","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T14:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/?page_id=4448"},"modified":"2017-01-23T16:02:25","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T15:02:25","slug":"important-provisions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/3-verfolgung\/important-provisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Important Provisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Important Provisions of Military Law during the \u00bbThird Reich\u00ab<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

<\/b>New Military Law for a New War<\/strong><\/p>\n

After coming to power in 1933, the new Reich government under Adolf Hitler began destroying the constitutional independence of the judiciary. At the same time, the regime and its leading jurists set out to change the legal norms in force. Military justice was reintroduced in May 1933 and adapted to the new set of conditions. The objective was to create a new criminal law that would be stricter and harsher than the provisions in force between 1914 and 1918 \u2013 the Nazis partly blamed a supposedly lax military judiciary for the German defeat in World War I. This is why military jurists developed legal principles geared towards the \u00bbF\u00fchrer state\u00ab. Adolf Hitler\u2019s will was to be the \u00bbhighest legal asset\u00ab. The ultimate goal was not finding the truth, but winning the war. Nazi criminal law theory no longer considered an offense the wrongdoing of an individual, but damage to the community. One of the questions to be considered before court was whether the defendant could remain part of the \u00bbnational (v\u00f6lkisch<\/i>) defense community\u00ab.<\/p>\n

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The \u00bbWartime Special Criminal Law Decree\u00ab<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In January 1936, experts presented the draft of a new military penal code; it was to replace the one that had been in force since 1898. This undertaking was later abandoned, as the code was considered not National Socialist enough, despite the fact that there were leading Nazi jurists on the responsible committee in the \u00bbAcademy for German Law\u00ab. Instead, the Wehrmacht armed forces high command had a new abbreviated wartime criminal law written\u00a0 in the course of preparations for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1938, the \u00bbWartime Special Criminal Law Decree\u00ab. At the same time, another decree significantly modified wartime criminal proceedings. Both decrees, makeshift at first, made military law radically harsher. The decrees remained confidential while Germany prepared mobilization and entered into force, just prior to the invasion of Poland, on August 26, 1939 \u2013 both in Germany and \u00bbannexed\u00ab Austria.<\/p>\n

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\u00bbUndermining the Military Forces\u00ab<\/strong><\/p>\n

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One of the central provisions of the Wartime Special Criminal Law Decree pertained to the offense outlined in paragraph 5: \u00bbundermining the military forces\u00ab. It ruled on how to deal with criminal offenses that, according to the German leadership, had been punished too laxly during World War I, contributing to the \u00bbsigns of disintegration\u00ab in 1918. The new provisions on \u00bbundermining the military forces\u00ab contained regulations previously found under \u00bbinducement to desertion\u00ab, \u00bbincitement to insubordination\u00ab, \u00bbinsubordination or defiance\u00ab, \u00bbself-mutilation\u00ab and \u00bbevasion of service through deceit\u00ab in the military penal code. Previously, these offenses were penalized with prison or death sentences, as long as they had taken place \u00bbin the field\u00ab \u2013 however, death sentences were not meted out as a regular punishment. The new Wartime Special Criminal Law Decree now introduced the threat of a death sentence as a general rule. The personal motivations of the defendant were considered marginal, the \u00bbmaintenance of discipline\u00ab and apparent needs of the \u00bbnational community\u00ab came into focus. The paragraph was made more stringent even further during the war. Beginning in March 1943, for example, the regular penalty range could be exceeded if the \u00bbhealthy national sentiment\u00ab called for it.<\/p>\n

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Adolf Hitler\u2019s Directive from April 14, 1940<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Shortly before the military campaign against France and the Benelux countries, the \u00bbF\u00fchrer\u00ab and commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht Adolf Hitler issued new guidelines for the punishment of deserters and those \u00bbundermining the military forces\u00ab. They defined under which circumstances a death sentence could be handed down, but also stated when mitigating circumstances should be taken into account. Countless verdicts speak to the importance of this directive, at the same time showing the leeway available to judges. The judges could decide whether \u00bbyouthful injudiciousness\u00ab or \u00bbdifficult domestic circumstances\u00ab were applicable as mitigating circumstances. Legal commentaries and instructions required that the \u00bbpersonality indicators\u00ab of a defendant be examined to establish whether the case at hand involved \u00bbcriminal activity\u00ab. If defendants were considered \u00bbasocial\u00ab in the National Socialist meaning, they would frequently be sentenced to death. In such cases in particular, not just the offense but the \u00bboffender personality\u00ab was judged.<\/p>\n

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Further Increases of Punishments in the Face of \u00bbTotal War\u00ab: The \u00bbD\u00f6nitz Decree\u00ab<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Adolf Hitler\u2019s guidelines for dealing with desertion crimes were made even more stringent three years later by a decree issued by supreme commander of the navy, Fleet Admiral Karl D\u00f6nitz, on April 27, 1943. Desertion was now considered a \u00bbfailure of treacherous weaklings\u00ab. D\u00f6nitz informed the navy judges\u2019 corps that he would \u00bbreject all acts of grace towards deserters\u00ab. This was probably the navy\u2019s reaction to the situation following the German defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943: While Reich Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels called for a \u00bbtotal war\u00ab, the Wehrmacht began to take even more brutal measures against \u00bbsigns of disintegration\u00ab. The \u00bbD\u00f6nitz Decree\u00ab manifests the Wehrmacht\u2019s proactive stance towards shaping their judicial practice of deterrence. The interests and aims of the leadership in the various branches of the armed forces were very close to those of the Nazi leadership \u2013 up until the end of the war.<\/p>\n

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Terror Unleashed in the Last Days of War<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As Germany\u2019s defeat seemed ever closer, the military leadership reacted to the uncertainty, desperation and combat fatigue with a wave of threats and arrest orders. Soldiers and civilians no longer prepared to risk their lives in a hopeless war were declared to be \u00bbweaklings\u00ab and \u00bbtraitors\u00ab, threatening \u00bbfinal victory\u00ab with their actions. How many lives were lost in this judicially sanctioned terror \u2013 in summary courts as well as through arbitrary killings by secret military police units, the SS and other formations \u2013 is not known to this day. The rights of the defendants, already vastly restricted by the Wartime Special Criminal Law Decree, were reduced to an absolute minimum; at the end of the war, even the right of pardon was voided.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Important Provisions of Military Law during the \u00bbThird Reich\u00ab New Military Law for a New War After coming to power in 1933, the new Reich government under Adolf Hitler began destroying the constitutional independence of the judiciary. At the same … Weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":627,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"showcase.php","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4448"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4451,"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4448\/revisions\/4451"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deserteursdenkmal.at\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}