Case of Nathusius

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Title page of the Austrian Alpenländische Rundschau from November 29, 1924. "General Nathusius before the French court martial in Lille"

The Nathusius case (also known as the Nathusius affair , especially in France: l'affaire Nathusius ) describes the arrest and subsequent trial of a retired German officer before a French court martial in Lille in November 1924. Major general a. D. Wilhelm von Nathusius was charged with theft and convicted. The legal dispute ended in May 1925 with the suspension of follow-up proceedings before the Reich Court in Leipzig .

course

After the German troops left France in 1918, Nathusius was accused of stealing several items from an industrialist's house in Roubaix, which he and his staff had used as quarters . Because of this, a trial against him took place in 1921 in Nathusius' absence and without his knowledge, in which he was sentenced to five years in prison. When Nathusius wanted to visit the cemetery in France on November 1, 1924 at All Souls' Day , he was arrested at the border and brought before a court martial. The old trial was annulled, part of the original indictment was dropped, and for the remainder, Nathusius was sentenced on November 20, 1924 by 4 to 3 votes to one year in prison and to pay the costs. On November 25, the French government pardoned Nathusius, who returned to his place of residence in Kassel, where he was warmly received by the population.

The appeal for appeal submitted by Nathusius to the French Court of Cassation was rejected on February 5, 1925. “The Reich Law of December 18, 1919 on the Prosecution of War Crimes and War Offenses” obliged Germany to initiate proceedings at the Reich Court in Leipzig against persons who had committed the crime abroad. The trials went down in history as the Leipzig trials and rarely resulted in convictions. Following the law, General Nathusius was brought to trial after his arrest. The proceedings were discontinued on May 27, 1925 for lack of a criminal offense. The affair came to an end.

effect

The case occurred in the period after the First World War and especially after the occupation of the Ruhr area, both nationalistically and revanchistically charged, immediately before the Reichstag elections on December 7, 1924, and threatened to disrupt Franco-German understanding. He was cannibalized by the German national opposition in their election propaganda. Especially in national-conservative circles, people felt that France was not treating them correctly.

See also

literature

  • Heinrich von Feilitsch : The case of Nathusius. In: Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung. 1924, year 29.
  • IL Hunt: American Military Government of Occupied Germany, 1918–1920: Report of the Officer in Charge of Civil Affairs, Third Army, and American Forces in Germany. In: United States Army (Ed.): American Forces in Germany, 1918–1923. Volume 4.

Web links

Commons : Fall Nathusius  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ Alpenländische Rundschau, non-political weekly for the Alpine countries of Carinthia, Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Salzburg a. Styria , born in 1924, episode 60 of November 29, p. 1, publishing house Alpenländische Rundschau, Klagenfurt
  2. ^ Action française , No. 315 of November 10, 1924, or Les Faits sociaux , issues 314-364, Comité national d'études sociales & politiques (France), 1924, p. 27.
  3. ↑ Le Général By Nathusius devant le Conseil de Guerre , Le Midi Socialiste , Toulouse, No. 7.077, p. 2 of November 21, 1924 (pdf; 6.50 MB; in French; accessed on March 29, 2013).
  4. ^ Wartime Theft. Nathusius Sentenced. Year's imprisonment. Re-Trial G [r] anted (based on Reuters news on the course of the trial from Berlin, London and Paris from November 21, 1924), Northern Advocate , Whangarei ( New Zealand ), from November 22, 1924, p. 5 (in English: "The Court deliberated for an hour and gave its verdict by a majority of four votes to three"; retrieved from Papers Past of the National Library of New Zealand on March 29, 2013).
  5. ↑ La grâce du Général by Nathusius in the French weekly L'Illustration of November 29, 1924, editions 4257-4269, p. 485, 1924 (Google Books , in French; accessed March 29, 2013).
  6. ↑ James F. Willis: Prologue to Nuremberg. The Politics and Diplomacy of Punishing War Criminals of the First World War. Greenwod Press, Westport, CT 1982, p. 144.
  7. ↑ Nathusius spurns quarter; Reaching Cassel, German General Says He Has Protested to Herriot , New York Times, November 28, 1924, p. 2 (in English: "All Cassel was out to greet him at the railway station. Young women presented him with flowers and the Provincial Governor, Dr. Schwandter, made a speech ”; retrieved from a NYT archive website on March 29, 2013, for a fee).
  8. ↑ Le pourvoi de by Nathusius rejeté ( Memento of the original of January 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Journal de Genève , February 6, 1925, p. 8 (in French; accessed April 3, 2013).  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.letempsarchives.ch
  9. ^ Draft of a law for the prosecution of war crimes and war offenses , German National Assembly, documents No. 1742, 1743 (accessed on April 6, 2013).
  10. ↑ Harald Wiggenhorn: A debt with almost no atonement - memory of the Leipzig war crimes trials 75 years ago. Article in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit from Hamburg on August 16, 1996, pp. 9-11.
  11. ^ The case of Nathusius , National-Zeitung, Basel, No. 558 of November 27, 1924, Abendblatt, p. 2
  12. ↑ Wolff: Der Fall Nathusius , Der Bund , Bern, No. 219 of May 27, 1925, 2nd sheet, p. 2.
  13. ^ The Liller Trial , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , No. 1771 of November 26, 1924, noon edition, sheet 3.