Göttingen scale process
The Göttingen scale trial was a legal dispute from 1951–1953, which basically regulated the criminal liability of the student scale and the student duel for the student associations that re-emerged in the German post-war period .
background
Due to the difficulties and the negative attitude from different sides (politics, university) the first scales after the Second World War were fought secretly and with an unclear legal situation. Police persecution took place and equipment was confiscated .
course
In 1951, the student Wilfried von Studnitz ( Corps Bremensia Göttingen ) was reported to the criminal police after a school day in Göttingen. Without naming his counterpart, he confirmed that he had fought. There was an indictment before the regional court in Göttingen . Thereupon a trial took place before the Grand Criminal Chamber in Göttingen . The verdict of December 19, 1951 was an acquittal, since a Mensur is not a duel with deadly weapons. Bodily harm with consent is not punishable (§ 226a StGB old version; now § 228 ) and also not immoral . After a revision by the public prosecutor's office , the Federal Court of Justice confirmed the judgment on January 29, 1953 ( BGHSt 4, 24). The prerequisite for impunity, however, was that the length of the scale was not used to carry out honorary trades and that the protective measures used ( goggles , ruff, etc.) ensured that fatal injuries were excluded.
That is, the student censorship was exempted from punishment, the student duel was and remained forbidden. However, this decision did not end the dispute over the scale length.
On January 29, 1952, the three -person disciplinary committee of the University of Göttingen , chaired by Professor of International Law Herbert Kraus, imposed on von Studnitz the penalty of not counting a semester for beating the scale. The Hanover Administrative Court , Hildesheim Chamber , overturned the decision. This case was later used as a seminar exercise in Göttingen.
consequences
The renunciation of honorary trades with the weapon, i.e. the duel that was quite common among students up to around 1935, was then also agreed with the then German Federal President Theodor Heuss at a personal meeting on April 8, 1953 by the delegations of all the relevant trade union associations ( Kösener Seniors Convent Association , Weinheim Seniors Convent , German Burschenschaft and Coburg Convent ). The centuries-old student dueling was finally a thing of the past. Ehrstreitigkeiten have since more than ad hoc - Courts of Honor of the corporation associations handle.
While the criminal liability was thus discarded, the dealings of universities with weapons students were still being judged half a decade later: The Free University of Berlin wanted to refuse the enrollment of the student Udo Janssen (Corps Hannoverania Hannover, Corps Teutonia Berlin (WSC) ) because he wanted to Had known scaling. This decision was overturned on October 24, 1958 by the Federal Administrative Court.
swell
- Institute for University Studies , Kösener Archive, inventory N 7 (estate of Hans-Reinhard Koch )
- Henning Tegtmeyer : Jurisprudence on Mensuren , Bundes-Zeitung der Grünen Hannoveraner zu Göttingen, Volume 100 (New Series), October 2010, No. 2, pp. 19–28
Web links
- Archive portal of the Kösener and Weinheimer Corps with digital copies of the BGH ruling of January 29, 1953 and the BVerwG ruling of October 20, 1958
Individual evidence
- ^ Judgment of March 25, 1954, NJW 1954, 1384 = DVBl 1954, 680
- ↑ Minutes of the meeting of April 8, 1953 (PDF; 571 kB)
- ↑ BVerwGE 7, 287, with reference to the decision of the Federal Court of Justice.
