Courts of the American military government in Germany

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The courts of the American military government in Germany were American courts on German soil from 1948 to 1955 (in Berlin until 1989) .

With the occupation statute , the Federal Republic of Germany regained part of its sovereignty. This also applied to case law. This ended the possibility of criminal proceedings through American military courts on the basis of occupation law . In 1948, US Military Government Ordinance No. 31 established the courts of the US Military Government in Germany.

The American zone of occupation was divided into eleven judicial districts and a district court was set up in each of these judicial districts . The seats of these district courts were: Bremen , Berlin , Marburg , Frankfurt am Main , Heidelberg , Stuttgart , Augsburg , Munich , Regensburg , Ansbach and Würzburg . An appeal court was set up in Nuremberg .

The courts had jurisdiction over all civil law issues in which American military personnel were a party. In matters of criminal law, they could take any case to themselves and pronounce sentences up to the death penalty . The court also acted as the Rhine navigation court .

The district courts were staffed with a district judge and several police judges. In smaller cases they decided as a single judge and otherwise in panels of three judges. The appeals court consisted of a chairman and eight judges.

In 1951, due to Law No. 20, the eleven district courts were replaced by a single American court with seven districts (Bremen, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, Regensburg, Nuremberg) and the court of appeal moved to Frankfurt.

With the Paris Treaties in 1955, the provisions of the Occupation Statute ended and the courts of the American military government in Germany ceased their activities.

Only in Berlin did the Allied privileges continue to exist due to the city's four-power status . The United States Court for Berlin was established by Law No. 46 of the United States High Commissioner for Germany of April 28, 1955 . However, the court rarely took action. The first and best-known criminal case that the court drew was the plane hijacking of Gdansk in 1978 (film adaptation: A judge for Berlin from 1988).

literature

  • Friedrich Scholz: Berlin and its justice: the history of the higher court district 1945 to 1980 , 1982, ISBN 978-3-11-008679-9 , pp. 200–203
  • William Clark, Thomas H. Goodman: American justice in occupied Germany: United States Military Government courts . In: ABA Journal . tape 36 , 1950, pp. 443–447 ( full text in Google Book Search).
  • Court of Appeals reports , 1.1949–20.1954 / 55, ZDB -ID 217288-4 and ZDB -ID 217289-6

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ordinance No. 31, Courts of the American Military Government in Germany , August 1948, MilReg Ausg. K (September 1, 1948), p. 35 ; Republished as Law No. 10, American Courts of the Allied High Commission for Germany , October 19, 1950, OJ. AHK No. 38 (1950), p. 643
  2. ↑ Act No. 20, American Court and Court of Appeal of the Allied High Commission for Germany , of May 24, 1951, OJ. AHK No. 56 (1951), p. 919 with announcement No. 1, local jurisdiction of the American court of the Allied High Commission for Germany , from May 24, 1951, OJ. AHK No. 56 (1951), p. 935
  3. ↑ cf. Law No. 7, Jurisdiction in the Reserved Areas , of March 17, 1950, OJ. AKB No. 2 (1950), p. 11
  4. ↑ Act No. 46, American Court for Berlin , of April 28, 1955, OJ. AKB No. 71 (1955), p. 1056