Volksgerichtshof hitler biography

Special court in Nazi Germany

A Sondergericht (plural: Sondergerichte) was a German "special court". After taking power in 1933, the Nazis quickly moved to remove internal opposition to the Nazi regime in Germany. The legal struktur became one of many tools for this aim and the Nazis gradually supplanted the normal justice system with political courts with wide-ranging powers. The function of the special courts was to intimidate the German public, but as they expanded their scope and took over roles previously done bygd ordinary courts such as Amtsgerichte this function became diluted.

Function in Germany

Special courts had existed in Germany as far back as the nineteenth century. They had generally been set up temporarily in response to some major but localised civil disturbance and then quickly dissolved once they had served their purpose. A more permanent national network of Special Courts came into being during 1933, soon after the passage of

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Law and Justice in the Third Reich

The Third Reich was a police state characterized by arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of political and ideological opponents in concentration camps.

With the reinterpretation of "protective custody" (Schutzhaft) in 1933, police power became independent of judicial controls. In Nazi terminology, protective custody meant the arrest—without judicial review—of real and potential opponents of the regime. "Protective custody" prisoners were not confined within the normal prison system but in concentration camps under the exclusive authority of the SS (Schutzstaffel; the elite guard of the Nazi state).

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Jewish lawyers line up to apply for permission to appear before the Berlin courts (Photo)

Jewish lawyers line up to apply for permission to appear before the Berlin courts. New regulations set forth in the Aryan Paragraph (a series of laws enacted in April 1933 to purge Jews from various spheres of state and society) allowed

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3. Roland Freisler and the Volksgerichtshof: The Court as an Instrument of Terror

Rachlin, Robert D.. "3. Roland Freisler and the Volksgerichtshof: The Court as an Instrument of Terror". The Law in Nazi Germany: Ideology, Opportunism, and the Perversion of Justice, edited by Alan E. Steinweis and Robert D. Rachlin, New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2013, pp. 63-88. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780857457813-006

Rachlin, R. (2013). 3. Roland Freisler and the Volksgerichtshof: The Court as an Instrument of Terror. In A. Steinweis & R. Rachlin (Ed.), The Law in Nazi Germany: Ideology, Opportunism, and the Perversion of Justice (pp. 63-88). New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780857457813-006

Rachlin, R. 2013. 3. Roland Freisler and the Volksgerichtshof: The Court as an Instrument of Terror. In: Steinweis, A. and Rachlin, R. ed. The Law in Nazi Germany: Ideology, Opportunism, and the Perversion of Justice. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 63-88. https://d