Hindenburg amnesty

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The Hindenburg amnesty refers to certain amnesties for political offenders in the German Reich that were granted during the term of office of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg . Most often the term refers to the Hindenburg amnesty of 1925, which was by far the largest.

General

These pardons are named after President Hindenburg, who has been in office since 1925 and who pronounced the pardons . The general amnesties for political crimes passed in the Weimar Republic under Hindenburg's presidency include the nationwide amnesty laws of 1925, 1928, 1930 and 1932. The amnesty ordinance of the Reich President from 1933, which exempted right-wing extremist and National Socialist perpetrators from prosecution, has already been canceled the time of National Socialism . The Hindenburg amnesties include the Kapp amnesty (1920), the Rathenau amnesty (1922) and others. a. Part of the series of large “ Reich amnesties ” for political criminals between 1918 and 1933. The law on measures of the state emergency service of July 3, 1934, with which the murders in connection with the so-called “ Röhm -Putsch “were exempt from punishment . However, by this time Hindenburg had already withdrawn to East Prussia and, due to illness, hardly took part in political events.

Scope and context

Amnesty for political crimes was one of the key demands that the Council of the People's Deputies at the beginning of the November Revolution had placed in his appeal to the German people on 12 November 1918th In the period up to 1933, this demand recurred again and again in various constellations and led several times to legislative measures that exempted political perpetrators from prosecution.

A general remission of penalties related to the release of already arrested and possibly convicted perpetrators from prison, prison or fortress detention as well as to the exemption of persons against whom an arrest warrant had been issued for political offenses, but who have not yet been taken or in court had been asked.

One reason for the amnesties in the Weimar Republic was the massive accumulation of political crimes: The huge number of people involved confronted the German judiciary with the dilemma of not being able to prosecute and try all of the perpetrators. The amnesty was used to relieve the overburdened judiciary from this burden. The political one-sidedness of some convictions or acquittals, already perceived by contemporaries and criticized depending on their political point of view, also played a role. The release of possibly wrongly or too severely convicted perpetrators should serve political peace. The reduction in the number of political criminal proceedings should also improve Germany's reputation abroad. During the time of the republic, the amnesties became the subject of the political calculations of the various parties, which often sought to get their own supporters released from prison.

Among the prominent beneficiaries of the amnesties under Reich President v. Hindenburg included Hermann Göring , who had been wanted by arrest warrant since the failed Hitler coup in 1923, who went into hiding in Italy and Sweden and was able to return to Germany due to the first Hindenburg amnesty in 1926; furthermore Martin Bormann and Rudolf Höß , who were prematurely released from their prison sentences as a result of the Koch amnesty in 1928, which they served because of their involvement in a femicide .

Hindenburg amnesty (1925)

The 1925 amnesty came about at the instigation of practically all parties represented in the Reichstag at the time ( KPD , SPD , DDP , BVP , DVP , Zentrum , DNVP , NSDAP ) and extended to around 29,000 people from all political camps, who received pardons for certain political ones Criminal offenses.

Hindenburg himself tried to extend the amnesty to include war criminals from the First World War in 1925 . In August 1925, for example, he turned to the Reich Minister of Justice as to whether the perpetrators Karl Dithmar and John Boldt, convicted in the Leipzig trials , whose condemnation had outraged nationalist and military circles in Germany, could also be pardoned as part of the planned amnesty. The ministry refused to do so out of concern for the foreign public. However, both had escaped from custody three and a half years earlier and went into hiding with the help of Hermann Ehrhardt's organization . They were exempted from execution of sentences in a closed retrial in 1926 and acquitted in 1928.

Hindenburg amnesty (1927)

A smaller amnesty with 71 pardons from all political camps, including the communist Johannes R. Becher and the putschist Major a. D. Bruno Ernst Buchrucker , took place on the occasion of Hindenburg's 80th birthday in October 1927 and is sometimes also called the Hindenburg amnesty.

Further amnesties during Hindenburg's tenure

Koch amnesty (1928)

The amnesty for political offenders of July 14, 1928 ("Law on Exemption from Punishment of July 14, 1928", RGBl. 1928 I, p. 195 f.) Is named after Erich Koch-Weser , then acting Minister of Justice , to whom it essentially goes back , referred to as the "Koch amnesty". As a result of this pardon, in addition to the communist Max Hölz and the spy Gustav Wölkerling , the Rathenau murderers Ernst Werner Techow and Willi Günther were also released in 1930 . At the instigation of the governing parties at the time , the Erzberg killers Heinrich Tillessen and Heinrich Schulz were excluded from the amnesty. They were pardoned by President Hindenburg only after the National Socialists "seized power" through the impunity ordinance of March 21, 1933.

Rhineland eviction amnesty (1930)

In the mid-1930 on the occasion of the evacuation of the Rhineland occupied by the Allies , the "Rhineland-Evacuation Amnesty" ("Law amending the Law on Impunity of October 24, 1930", RGBl. 1930 I, p. 467) was a legal issue a mere extension of the Koch amnesty.

Art. 1 of the 1930 Act changed the 1928 Amnesty Act so that crimes against life now also come under the amnesty as long as they are not directed against members of the Reich government. The restriction of amnesties to political acts was subsequently weakened by the case law. This concerned, among others, the proceedings against the former submarine commander Helmut Patzig , the superior of the two former naval officers Dithmar and Boldt, who were acquitted in 1928, whose act (the murder of numerous castaways on the British hospital ship Llandovery Castle on July 27, 1918) after now The opinion of the Reichsgericht was "credibly political", so that its proceedings could be discontinued on March 20, 1931 with reference to the amnesty laws.

Schleicher amnesty (1932)

The amnesty enacted with the law on impunity of December 20, 1932 is commonly referred to as the "Schleicher amnesty" after the Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, who was in office at the time of the proclamation .

National Socialist Impunity Regulations

The amnesties issued during the time of National Socialism are usually not referred to as the “Hindenburg amnesty” in historical studies, although some of them still fall during Hindenburg's term of office as Reich President. In contrast to the general amnesties for political criminals adopted during the Weimar Republic, which they were formally modeled on, they only favored those who were politically close to the Nazi regime, while opponents of the regime were persecuted and murdered by the National Socialists at the same time. Unlike the Reich amnesties of the Weimar Republic, they were thus an instrument for establishing impunity for political crimes committed by an injustice system.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Christoph: The political Reich amnesties 1918-1933 (legal history series, volume 57). Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. [u. a.] 1988. Blurb:
    The eight Reich amnesty laws for political crimes in the period from 1918 to 1933 are examined: Revolutionary amnesty 1918, Kapp amnesty 1920, Rathenau amnesty 1922, Hindenburg amnesty 1925, Koch amnesty 1928, Rhineland eviction amnesty 1930, Schleicher amnesty 1932 and the 1932 amnesty Amnesty Ordinance 1933.
  2. ↑ List with individual explanations also from Cord Gebhardt: The case of the Erzberger murderer Heinrich Tillessen. A contribution to the history of the judiciary after 1945 (Contributions to the legal history of the 20th century, Volume 14). Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1995, pp. 205–207 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  3. ^ Daniel Koerfer: Vice Chancellery group against Hitler. In: FAZ , April 10, 2017; Retrieved April 14, 2017.
  4. ↑ Detlef Lehnert: The Weimar Republic. 1st edition, Reclam, Stuttgart 1999, p. 235.
  5. ^ Jürgen Christoph: The political Reich amnesties 1918-1933. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1988, p. 397.
  6. ↑ a b Harald Wiggenhorn: A debt almost without atonement. Remembering the Leipzig war crimes trials 75 years ago. In: Die Zeit 34/1996, August 16, 1996, pp. 9-11.
  7. ^ A b Katrin Hassel: War crimes in court. The war crimes trials before military courts in the British occupation zone under the Royal Warrant of June 18, 1945 (1945–1949) (Studies on the History of International Law, Vol. 19). Nomos, Baden-Baden, ISBN 978-3-8329-3825-3 , pp. 63-67 ("Excursus: The secret recovery of the 'Llandovery Castle' case from 1922 to 1931").
  8. ↑ Note 2 of the editors to the minutes of the ministerial meeting of July 3, 1928 in the online edition of the files of the Reich Chancellery in the Federal Archives .
  9. ↑ Author profile Johannes R. Becher in the literature portal Bavaria .
  10. ^ A b cf. Frank Neubacher: Criminological foundations of an international criminal jurisdiction. History of political ideas and dogmas, forensic legitimation, criminal law perspectives. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, p. 311 u. Note 18.
  11. ^ Cord Gebhardt: The case of the Erzberger murderer Heinrich Tillessen. A contribution to the history of justice after 1945. Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1995, p. 206 u. Note 189.
  12. ↑ Jürgen W. Schmidt: The Perleberg spy Gustav Wölkerling. In: Communications from the Association for the History of Prignitz , Volume 5, Perleberg 2005, p. 73 u. Note 30.
  13. ↑ Note 5 of the editors to the minutes of the ministerial meeting of July 3, 1928 in the online edition of the files of the Reich Chancellery in the Federal Archives.
  14. ^ Cord Gebhardt: The case of the Erzberger murderer Heinrich Tillessen. Tübingen 1995, p. 207 u. Note 190.
  15. ^ Frank Neubacher: Criminological foundations of an international criminal justice system. History of political ideas and dogmas, forensic legitimation, criminal law perspectives. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, p. 311.
  16. ^ Cord Gebhardt: The case of the Erzberger murderer Heinrich Tillessen. Tübingen 1995, p. 207 u. Note 191.