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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great, January 2, 1999
This review is from: Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich (Paperback)
This book is written in a slightly dry way and is probably meant for an audience of lawyers. It is however written with passion and fire. The German Judiciary, prior to the First World War, had been a servant of the monarchy. Muller describes how between the wars, the judiciary was hostile to the Weimar Republic, and gave very light sentences to right-wing groups who were charged with treason, following attempts to overthrow the democratic government. After the Nazi party took power the courts became the willing servants of the regime. Muller notes that all but a tiny percentage of Judges and prosecutors had joined the Nazi party. The removal of Jews and former communists from the German bar and courts was accomplished without a whimper of protest. In fact German bar associations supported such moves by making it an ethical crime to practice with a Jew. With the promulgation of laws aimed at removing the civil rights of Jews and protecting the German race, the courts bent over backwoods to increase the scope and effectiveness of such laws. Muller quotes countless examples. One case relates to the court's approach to dealing with "Jews" convicted of having sexual relations with "Germans". The existing laws allowed only for a term of imprisonment is such cases. However, courts on their own initiative, would use provisions which allowed the death penalty to apply to repeat offenders to condemn Jews and Poles who had sex with Germans. Muller quotes one example of a young man who was unaware that he was in fact Jewish. He had a number of liaisons and it came to light that his birth records showed that his grand parents were "Israelites". The court hearing the matter decided that as he had a number of relations he should be sentenced to death. Muller quotes a number of case where the courts were criticized by the Nazi party itself for being overtly harsh. The language of the Judges was filled with the invective of anti-Semitism and the racism of the time. After the war, some Judges tried to excuse their behavior by suggesting that if they had failed to co-operate with the government they would have faced serious consequences. Muller in fact examined the record of all Judges and found one who refused to impose the Nazi laws. He was simply retired. Muller has convincingly argued that the members of the German Judicial System were enthusiastic supporters of National Socialism. The book is enthralling reading and is strong evidence for the proposition that what happened in Germany was not because of the Nazi Party, but a coalition of the parties of the right, who had a common perception of the world. The Judges indeed were some of Hitler's willing executioners.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
when the rule of law dies, October 10, 2005
This review is from: Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich (Paperback)
How the German legal profession abandoned the rule of law, notably in the special tribunals (Special Courts and People's Courts) in Weimar and Nazi Germany. Muller notes that this trend pre-dated Hitler, that the laws enabling it were in the name of national security, that it followed the replacement of liberal with conservative judges over several decades, pre-Hitler, and that the judges had come to accept public affairs as a "friend or foe" paradigm with no room for loyal opposition.
1933 and post-9/11 are not identical, of course. The 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree suspended numerous civil-liberty sections of the republic's constitution itself, and for all citizens of the republic, while the current U.S. military tribunals simply remove a class of enemy combatants from normal criminal or military jurisdiction. However, the Weimar courts had created courts of special jurisdiction, and types of national-security offenses, long before 1933. Hitler merely took this trend, and the state-necessity doctrine, to its next logical level, and Mr. Muller is very good at putting this in its context. The injustices pre- and post-dated Hitler.
U.S. readers should remember that the German legal system had considerable differences with Anglo-American jurisprudence, with the latter's greater reliance on precedential case law, neutral judges, and independent defense counsel. Still, here we see how a once-proud legal system turned rule of law into a blood-stained rule of force, dressed in legal robes. A valuable, if chilling, work.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, An Objective And Complex Look Into The Procedures And Statutes Of Nazi Germany, July 9, 2005
Due to my interest in the history of Europe in the first half of the last century, I have read quite a number of the standard histories through the second world war. As an attorney, I have also had a keen interest in legal theory over this same period of time. As to Germany, from the mid-1920's through the end of the war, I have generally run into two types of approaches on legal theory, both generally comprising a chapter or two of a larger history. Usually, the author either explained how judges had been "entangled" in the system and gave an almost sympathetic view of their position under the regime. These authors had the tendency to distinguish the more notorious judges from the judges in the lower courts. The other approach has generally cited a few outrageous rulings of courts during the period and leave the analysis at that. Muller has broken through these shallow approaches and finally given the insight into the courts that one would need to understand what conduct brought a citizen into the courts, what precisely happened to the citizen in the court and dynamic between the courts, law professors and the party in this context.
Muller cites to a breath-taking number of primary sources. I can only wonder how he could find the time to digest all those case records and case decisions. Indeed, I can't imagine how he found them. Regardless, as an attorney, I found his analysis totally objective and somewhat frightening.
As to legal theory, he is the first author I have run across who even tries to explain the transition of German constitutional law from the level directly tied to the age of the enlightenment in Europe to the Nazi regime. He sets out the evolution of the theories of leading law professors, the making and interpretation of statutory law and finally the impact of the utter breakdown of procedural due process to change the law concerned with human rights into a system concerned only with political self-survival of the state. He does not simply state who feel into what category on issues. He takes the arguments from the primary source material and sets out the actual decisions, theories and writings to support his conclusions.
One extraordinary part of Muller's analysis comes in the latter chapters. I had never read anything with any type of detail on this particularly issue, but through the use of primary sources, Muller cuts right into it. He addresses the impact of the Nazi legal system on German law after 1945. As an attorney, I found the analysis astonishing. The argument he lays out, and I cannot find anyway to disagree with, establishs that the large number of Nazi judges stayed in place and actually retired from the system long after the war. More importantly, many of the legal professors who helped develop the legal theories that enabled the crimes against humanity of the Nazi regime kept their positions and continued to teach their theories regarding such things as criminal law and procedure and constitutional law. The impact of the latter is profound in that these professors have taught a whole new generation of lawyers and judges who are in place today. I can only guess, but I have the gut feeling that this must have something to do with the current surge in far right-wing political activities in Germany over the last decade.
In summary, Muller gives an even analysis on an extraordinarily complex subject. He draws conclusions throughout, but explains precisely what he bases them on, so the reader can still draw his or her own conclusions. Again, I am most impressed with the primary source material that he has put together. In my humble opinion, this would be a satisfying book for anyone with an interest in history of the period or in legal theory. Muller manages to put forward the best elements of an historian and an attorney in his writing of this book. Believe me, that is a rare feat.
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