"After ten years of hard prison, a man is lost to the people's community anyway. Thus what to do with such a guy is either put him into a concentration camp, or kill him. In latest times the latter is more important, for the sake of deterrence."- Adolf Hitler
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Adolf
Hitler in Newsweek
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On this date, March
29, 1933, Adolf Hitler enacted Lex Van Der Lubbe: The Law for the Imposition
and Implementation of the Death Penalty. Keep in mind, I do not support the
Nazis but I just use this for educational purposes. I support the death penalty
with safeguards together with balances and checks and I DO NOT and NEVER
support extrajudicial trials. I will post information about this law from
several internet sources.
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German Law
on the imposition and execution of the death penalty on 29 March 1933 =
" Lex van der Lubbe "
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INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007894
Background: Law for the
Imposition and Implementation of the Death Penalty
Law
for the Imposition and Implementation of the Death Penalty
(Lex
van der Lubbe)
March
29, 1933
The
Nazi state enacted the Law for the Imposition and Implementation of the Death
Penalty on March 29, 1933, just a month after the Reichstag fire. Its first
stipulation made a key article of the Reichstag Fire Decree-that which changed
the punishment for certain crimes such as arson and high treason from life in
prison to the death penalty-retroactive to the beginning of Hitler's assumption
of power, thus violating the ex post facto rule of law and ensuring that those
who were accused of setting fire to the Reichstag would be executed if
convicted. The second article allowed the execution itself to be carried out by
hanging, considered a harsh and shameful mode of execution, in place of
beheading.
In
fact, Hitler pressed for this law, also known as Lex van der Lubbe, for purely
political reasons. He insisted upon the death penalty to underscore the
legitimacy of the regime's claim that the fire had been an act of rebellion
against the state. This was all the more important since Hitler had used the
fire to declare a state of emergency. This in turn allowed him to abolish many
longstanding constitutional guarantees. Working backward, the execution of the
alleged perpetrators of the Reichstag arson would justify to the public the
extreme measures that the Nazi regime had put into place.
The
Supreme Court's decision in the case reveals the ambivalence and complexity of
its role in the new Nazi regime. On the one hand, the court found Marinus van
der Lubbe guilty and permitted his hanging, accepting the unilateral changes to
the constitution that Hitler's government had enacted. On the other hand, it
found van der Lubbe's codefendants not guilty of the crime of arson, rejecting
the notion of “political necessity” as an overriding factor in deciding the
verdict. In this regard, the court declared that it would not be used to stage
politically important show trials. An outraged Hitler removed jurisdiction
for political crimes from the Supreme Court and established the so-called People's Court (Volksgericht) in Berlin instead, appointing Nazi judges to the bench to ensure the outcome of such cases in the future.
for political crimes from the Supreme Court and established the so-called People's Court (Volksgericht) in Berlin instead, appointing Nazi judges to the bench to ensure the outcome of such cases in the future.
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007895
Translation: Law for the
Imposition and Implementation of the Death Penalty
Law
for the Imposition and Implementation of the Death Penalty
(Lex
van der Lubbe)
March
29, 1933
Translated
from Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1933, Nr. 28, p. 151.
The
Reich Government has decided the following law that is hereby proclaimed:
Article 1
Section
5 of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the
State of February 28, 1933 (RGBL I, page 83) applies also to acts
committed between January 31 and February 28, 1933.
Article 2
If
someone should be sentenced to death due to conviction of a crime against
public security, the Reich or state authority responsible for carrying out the
sentence can order the sentence carried out by hanging.
Article
2 is a revision of Section 13 of the Criminal Code for the German Reich of May
15, 1871 (RGBL I, page 127), which determined that the death penalty is
to be carried out through beheading.
Reich
Chancellor: Adolf Hitler
For
the Reich Minister of Justice: Deputy Reich Chancellor v. Papen
