Feme
The term feme (also veme from Middle Low German veime = punishment) is originally used for the jurisdiction of feme courts, a special form of medieval criminal justice , and the penalties imposed by them. The term is well-known in the so-called Fememorden during the Weimar Republic , which were committed by right-wing extremist groups for political reasons.
Origin of the term
The word has been used with certainty since the 13th century. It also meant "union, union of the free people belonging to the same court ". At the same time, it was also used as a name for peace in the country .
In the late Middle Ages, the following terms, combined with “veme”, developed in relation to the execution of sentences : vemer , vememeister as a paraphrase for the message or executioner , vemen for condemn, punish, vemestat for place of execution. Further names of the courts are: Femgericht, Femegericht, vemedinc as well as "Freigericht" or "Freistuhl" (more rarely: Vehmgericht, Fehmgericht, Vehmic Courts, Vehm or the holy Vehme).
Temporal and geographical allocation, material responsibility
The jurisdiction over life and death (blood spell) was a privilege of the king. As a blood ban loan , this privilege could be transferred to remote courts or their chairman, the ex-count (or chairman ). "As royal courts they claimed not only the usual jurisdiction within their judicial districts but also the power to try death-worthy crimes committed abroad in cases of denial of justice by the ordinary judge." The judges were the free judges , the place of jurisdiction was called the free chair . “The man sentenced to death was hanged immediately after the verdict.” “The remote courts reached the height of their power in the first half of the 15th century.” Evidence can be found primarily in the late Middle Ages (14th and 15th centuries) in the Low German-speaking area . There are individual additional documents from the adjacent centuries (13th and 16th centuries), occasionally up to the 18th century, and also from some Central German areas such as Upper Lusatia and Silesia . A conviction was not necessarily associated with the death of the convicted person for all offenses, the Femeschuld could also be compensated financially.
Legal remedies against a judgment of the free courts according to today's legal understanding were not possible. It was a legal move with only one instance. There was a limited opportunity to take action against formal errors; there are a number of examples of successful action against a defective load. Appearing in court despite a faulty summons cured this mistake, and the proceedings began.
Feme in medieval Westphalia
Often the medieval feme is equated with Westphalian feme courts. These were in fact the most historically significant Vemes courts and had peculiarities compared to the Vemes courts in East and Central Germany (see below): The Westphalian Feme developed from the jurisdiction of the Westphalian free courts . These were the successors of the high medieval count's court "bei Königsbann" (see county ), which had perished in the 14th century with the rise of the lands and the loss of authority of the king. The main seat of all veme courts for Westphalia was initially in Dortmund . The free chair was located here not far from today's Dortmund main station. The stone court square was lined with two linden trees, one of which was known as Femlinde .
With the growing influence of the Cologne electors and as a result of the Arnsberg Reformation of the Femegerichte of 1437, they moved to the Oberfreistuhl in Arnsberg .
Special elements of the Feme compared to the general free court arose due to the effects of the rural peace , due to the special jurisdiction for serious crimes derived from the old legal practice of the "handful act" and through the adoption of elements of an emergency court . The convict was sentenced to be executed by hanging . This sentence could be carried out immediately, if necessary immediately after the person concerned was caught (later). However, a distinction must be made here between hanging and hanging. Henken was sovereign throughout and inevitably led to death. This did not necessarily result in hanging; When the handful act was carried out, the punished person was "hung up" (not necessarily by the neck "until death"), but rather he was "hung up tied" (see old depictions e.g. in the Sachsenspiegel and medieval depictions of denunciation ); after a fixed period of time (three days), during which he could also be looked after by relatives, the punished person was (still) hanged up alive again (if he had survived this denunciation of punishment). If an accused did not attend the trial, he could be convicted in absentia. He then had to expect enforcement at any time without notification of the judgment. Furthermore, the Feme had elements of a secret process , often (in the late period even almost exclusively) the Feme courts were secret dishes. A vein court was staffed with a free count and seven free judges . All had taken the jury's oath. The applicant for the office of free judges had to be "genuine, right and free" and the guarantee of two lay judges was required.
The particular success of the Westphalian Feme in the whole empire resulted from the supra-local demands of Westphalian Feme courts. In contrast to other German courts, their summons were temporarily sent out to almost the entire German-speaking area, and plaintiffs from almost all over the Reich came to Westphalia. These plaintiffs had to be members of the Freischöffenstand. In the early 15th century, the claim to supra-local “inter-territorial jurisdiction” was enforced in many cases and was finally recognized under the law of the empire , although it was cautious and limited, in the Frankfurt Reich Decree of 1442.
The legal basis of this supra-regional claim is presumed that the Westphalian free courts were almost the only courts in the empire to adhere to the so-called direct ban on loan by the king. The free courts attributed their claim to competence to a loan from Charlemagne (disputed).
In 1422 the Archbishop of Cologne (at that time Dietrich II von Moers ) was given the right to oversee all actions. It is believed, however, that he could hardly enforce it effectively. In the late period of the Feme in the 15th century, the Feme courts wanted to expand their competence more and more, i.e. no longer judge just about serious acts of violence, but about all conceivable matters of dispute, as far as the locally competent courts were charged with denial of rights or legal delays. In 1431 King Sigismund was even summoned to appear before a vein court and a few years later Emperor Friedrich III.
Many princes were themselves members of the Feme, such as Emperor Sigismund , the Electors Friedrich I and II of Brandenburg, the Saxon Electors Friedrich I and II, Duke Wilhelm III. of Saxony , the dukes Heinrich the Rich and Wilhelm II of Bavaria , the Landgrave Ludwig II of Hesse , the Duke Wilhelm I of Braunschweig, the Count Palatine Ludwig II, Johann and Otto and others.
Feme in East and Central Germany
In East and Central Germany, the Veme Courts were special courts set up by the authorities to protect the peace. Most of the dishes originated in the 14th century. The term feme here mostly denotes the peace in the country, occasionally also the feme court. As early as the 15th century, the ordinary jurisdiction gradually took over the function of the Vemes courts. In the 16th century, the Vemes courts have almost completely disappeared.
Decline and end of the distance
The number of free judges in Germany at the height of the Feme is estimated at 15,000–30,000. In the second half of the 15th century, the influence of the Vemes courts declined significantly and was eventually almost completely eliminated. This process was largely completed by the middle of the 16th century.
Research traces the decline in Feme back to a bundle of mutually complementary different causes: disappointment of many plaintiffs with proceedings that are too slow, problems with the execution of judgments, attempts to defend the territories affected by Feme lawsuits (including preventing the appeal to Westphalia, efforts of counter-laws against Feme plaintiffs and Veme court), abuses of the feme through dishonorable elements (vendors, corruption, arbitrary decisions), confusion of jurisdiction in the femoral affairs, lack of codification of femoral law, rivalries between veme courts, after 1450 also a lack of support from the emperor and empire, at the end of the 15th century finally the proclamation a general peace and creation of a Reich jurisdiction ( Reich Chamber of Commerce ). Last but not least, the free courts had regularly denied the sovereignty of the king / emperor for empire-wide jurisdiction and were therefore no longer acceptable for the highest authority of the empire for an empire-wide exercise of law.
In some places, however, Westphalian vem courts persisted into the 19th century. Where they existed, however, they were now confined to a localized jurisdiction for petty matters. The last free chair court held the Dortmund free count Zacharias Löbbecke on January 11, 1803 at the royal court in Dortmund; with the Napoleonic legal reform they were finally disempowered and repealed.
20th century and present
In the current legal language, the concept of feme no longer plays a role, there is not even a corresponding specific criminal offense. However, the execution of a state illegitimate private justice is to be prosecuted anyway according to general criminal law norms. Exceptional courts, including state exceptional courts, are generally not permitted. The guarantee of the legal judge applies (in Germany Art. 101 I GG ). The judicial prosecution of criminal offenses is the sole responsibility of the state and its local authorities appointed for this purpose, usually on the basis of state investigations, in exceptional cases on the basis of private lawsuits . This monopoly of persecution can be derived from the state monopoly on the use of force and also from procedural guarantees based on the rule of law, such as the principle “ nulla poena sine lege ” (no punishment without law, in Germany Article 103 II of the Basic Law ; §§ 1, 2 I StGB ).
Nevertheless, in the course of the 20th century there were various secret procedures that were not legally legitimized or illegal killings following unclear procedures, which were journalistically referred to as "fememides" or "femetats". They did not have much in common with the historically present Feme, and the designation of these new acts as "Feme" did not follow any clearly recognizable system. Attacks and murders by armed radical groups of the Weimar Republic such as the Consul organization are often referred to as feme (also in the self-definition of the perpetrators: "traitors fall for the feme"). The female murders in the Weimar Republic temporarily occupied public and political life. The former member of the Black Reichswehr , Carl Mertens , uncovered several female murders within the nationalist associations in the magazine Die Weltbühne in 1925 . This led to arrests, criminal trials, a debate and a committee of inquiry in the Reichstag . The Supreme Court ruled in a judgment of 8 May 1929 but in favor of Fememörder, "that there is also a self-defense rights of the individual citizen against illegal attacks on the vital interests of the state are" ( RGSt 63, 215 (220)).
Apparently, there were also remote judgments within the Reichswehr . The term is not used for the murder of politically unpopular persons by the SA without a state court hearing from 1933 onwards. Judgments by state special courts under National Socialism , based on the ordinance of March 21, 1933, do not fall under the term `` femme ''.
In the post-war period, the murder of the renegade terrorist and undercover agent Ulrich Schmücker in 1974 was also known as Fememord.
See also
literature
- Eberhard Fricke: The Westphalian Veme. Aschendorff Verlag, 2012, ISBN 3402128667 .
- Eberhard Fricke, Heimatbund Märkischer Kreis (ed.): The Westphalian Veme, shown using the example of the free chair in Lüdenscheid. Altena, 1985, ISBN 3-89053-014-1 .
- Heiner Lück: Feme (Veme), Femgericht. In: Concise Dictionary of German Legal History , Volume I, Delivery 7, Sp. 1535–1543, Berlin 2008.
- Richard Gimbel: The imperial city of Frankfurt am Main under the influence of the Westphalian jurisdiction (Feme). Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-7829-0370-6 .
- Emil Julius Gumbel: Four Years of Political Murder. Lightning Source UK, 2011, ISBN 1179552490 .
- Emil Julius Gumbel, From Fememord to the Reich Chancellery. Schneider, Heidelberg 1962.
- W. Harnisch: Notes on more recent views on the distance. In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History . (GA) 102, 1985, p. 247.
- Ulrike Claudia Hofmann: “Traitors fall for the distance!” Fememicide in Bavaria in the twenties. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2000.
- Gerhard Köbler: Target dictionary of European legal history. 5th edition. Giessen 2009, ISBN 978-3-88430-078-7 .
- Karl Kroeschell: Feme. In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Volume 4, Col. 346-349.
- Theodor Lindner: The Feme. History of the "secret dishes" in Westphalia. , unchanged reprint of the edition from 1896, Paderborn 1989, ISBN 3-506-75200-6 .
- Irmela Nagel: Fememicide and Fememord Trials in the Weimar Republic. (Cologne historical treatises; 36.) Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1991.
- Georg Queri : Farmer's eroticism and farmer's distance in Upper Bavaria. Munich 1975.
- Judge: 200 official female murders. Internationaler Arbeiter-Verlag, Berlin 1928.
- Bernhard Sauer: Black Reichswehr and Fememicide. A milieu study on right-wing radicalism in the Weimar Republic. (Series: Documents, Texts, Materials / Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin; 50.) Metropol, Berlin 2004.
- O. Schnettler: The Veme. 2nd Edition. 1933.
- Ute Monika Schwob: Traces of remote jurisdiction in late medieval Tyrol. (Series: Schlern-Schriften; 345) Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2009.
- F. Ph. Usener: The free and secret courts of Westphalia. 1832.
- L. Veit: Nuremberg and the distance. 1955.
- Otto Weerth : The Veme or the free court in the area of the principality of Lippe. Detmold 1895 ( LLB Detmold ).
- AH Erhard: The effectiveness of the Fehm dishes in the Elbe areas . In: General Archive for the History of the Prussian State . Volume 4. Berlin / Posen / Bromberg 1831, pp. 53-69 ( books.google.de ).
- Friedrich Helbig : The German Fehm Courts in Truth and Poetry . In: The Gazebo . Issue 20, 1886, pp. 358-360 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
- The Vehmgerichte . In: The Gazebo . Issue 17, 1857, pp. 237–239 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
- Oskar Wächter: Vehmgerichte and witch trials in Germany . Verlag Spemann, Stuttgart 1882 ( Wikisource ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Brockhaus Encyclopedia . 17th edition. FA Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1968
- ^ Reichstag minutes , 1924 / 28.5 debate on January 23, 1926
- ^ Debate on January 23, 1926