Lex van der Lubbe

Reichsgesetzblatt of March 31, 1933: Law on the imposition and execution of the death penalty

The Lex van der Lubbe is the colloquial name for the law on imposition and enforcement of the death penalty on 29 March 1933. The name comes from the fact that the law, the legal basis for the sentencing to death of Marinus van der Lubbe made that the 28th February 1933 was caught during the arson in the Reichstag .

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The Reichstag Fire Ordinance , which had been in force since February 28, 1933, contained a list of crimes for which the death penalty was to be imposed instead of a life sentence , as was previously the case . That based on the March 29, enabling act of the Hitler government adopted Law on the imposition and execution of the death penalty extended the period of application of this § 5 retroactively on 31 January 1933, and broke it down in Art. 116 of the Weimar constitution guaranteed principle of Non-retroactivity of criminal laws ( Nulla poena sine lege ). It could thus be applied to van der Lubbe, who had admitted in court that he had set fire to the Reichstag on February 27.

The Lex van der Lubbe allowed hanging as a method of execution; while according to the provisions of the Reich Criminal Code that were valid up to that point, the death penalty was “ to be carried out by beheading ” alone .

history

The law was passed specifically after the fire in the Reichstag in order to be able to sentence Marinus van der Lubbe and his co-defendants to the death penalty , although it had not yet been considered arson at the time of the crime. This was a deliberate disregard of long-standing principles of the rule of law , since the penalty was introduced retrospectively (cf. nullum crimen sine lege ).

On January 30, 1946, the Allied Control Council also repealed the Law on the Imposition and Execution of the Death Penalty through Control Council Act No. 11 .

literature

Wikisource: Law on the Imposition and Execution of the Death Penalty of March 29, 1933, (“Lex van der Lubbe”)  - Sources and full texts

• Volker Epping: The Lex van der Lubbe - at the same time a contribution to the importance of the principle “ nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege ”. In: The State . 34: 243-267 (1995).

Web links

• Alexander Bahar : The Reichstag Fire Trial, in: Groenewold / Ignor / Koch (Ed.), Lexicon of Political Criminal Trials , last accessed on March 20, 2020

Footnotes

1. ↑ Uwe Wesel : History of the law. From the early forms to the present . 3rd revised and expanded edition. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-47543-4 . P. 496 f.