Katowice Higher Regional Court

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Higher Regional Court of Katowice was in April 1941, a German Higher Regional Court in Upper Silesia during the Second World War . After the referendum in Upper Silesia , parts of Upper Silesia were incorporated into Poland. From 1922 to 1939 Katowice (German: Katowice) was the capital of the now Polish Województwo śląskie (German: Voivodeship Silesia). After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and as a result of the illegal annexation of Eastern Upper Silesia by the National Socialist German Reich in 1941, Katowice became the capital of the Upper Silesia district . The Katowice Higher Regional Court existed until the Red Army captured Upper Silesia in 1945. After that, the area belonged to the People's Republic of Poland .

history

The Katowice Higher Regional Court was established by decree of the executive Minister of Justice Franz Schlegelberger after the province of Upper Silesia became independent from the previously existing province with effect from April 1, 1941. It comprised the districts of the district courts of Beuthen-Kattowitz , Bielitz , Gleiwitz , Neisse , Oppeln , Ratibor and Teschen, divided into district court districts that previously fell within the jurisdiction of the Wroclaw Higher Regional Court . In addition, the district court Grottkau from the district court district Brieg to the district court district Neisse and the Upper Silesia part of the district court district Löwen belonging to the district court district of Leuven were added to the district court Opole. Since no sufficiently suitable premises were found for the Katowice Higher Regional Court, it resided in the cities of Katowice and Bytom, "which is why the later OLG president advocated renaming the district to OLG Upper Silesia ". Up until a corresponding criminal senate was set up in early July 1941, high - offenses and treason offenses continued to be tried at the Wroclaw Higher Regional Court.

On June 12, 1941, the inauguration of the first President of the Higher Regional Court Johannes Block and the first Attorney General Paul Steimer took place by State Secretary Roland Freisler and the Gauleiter of Upper Silesia Fritz Bracht .

Special courts in this OLG district existed in Katowice and Bielitz . The area of interest of the Auschwitz concentration camp , which was directly subordinate to the Schutzstaffel (SS) and therefore did not fall under the jurisdiction of the civil authorities, was also located in the district of Kattowitz . Competence disputes between the Gestapo Kattowitz and the Higher Regional Court led to judgments by the police stand trial (former name: Standgericht der Staatspolizeileitstelle Kattowitz), which also met in the Auschwitz concentration camp and sentenced most of the accused to death: although this police stand trial based on the Polish Criminal Law Ordinance exclusively Was allowed to judge non-Germans, so-called Volksdeutsche (i.e. German citizens, formerly Polish citizens) were also tried there. The attorney general at the Katowitz Higher Regional Court, Paul Steimer, complained to the Reich Ministry of Justice about this procedure in September 1942, but it was still practiced. According to the historian Maximilian Becker, police tribunals “used parts of the law enforcement competences beyond the legally established jurisdiction [...] that were used by the police to push back the judiciary. Compared to the stand courts , which sentenced most of the accused to death, the case law of the civil criminal justice system was rather cautious: the Gestapo stand court in Katowice alone imposed an estimated 5200 death sentences between the summer of 1942 and its dissolution at the end of 1944. "

Due to the rapid advance of the Red Army , plans were made to relocate all of the Kattowitz Higher Regional Court's offices at risk in the direction of Central Germany . On February 24, 1945, the city of Gera was established as a reception center for the judiciary from the Katowice franking area . Following this decision, after partial dissolution, all remaining offices of the Kattowitz Higher Regional Court were relocated to Gera in Thuringia .

President of the Higher Regional Court

Attorneys General at the Higher Regional Court

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Decree on the establishment of a higher regional court in Katowice of March 20, 1941 ( RGBl. I p. 156 )
  2. ^ A b Hans Michelberger: Reports from the Justice of the Third Reich , Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, Pfaffenweiler 1989, p. 145.
  3. Maximilian Becker: Fellow campaigners in the national struggle. German Justice in the Integrated Eastern Regions 1939–1945 , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-486-77837-3 , p. 62.
  4. ^ "Deutsche Justiz" magazine, ed. by the Reich Minister of Justice , No. 25 of June 20, 1941, p. 716.
  5. Martin Broszat : National Socialist Poland Policy 1939–1945 , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1961, p. 138
  6. cf. Sybille Steinbacher : Auschwitz: History and Post-History. Verlag C. H. Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-50833-2 , pp. 25, 58.
  7. Maximilian Becker: Fellow campaigners in the national struggle. German Justice in the Integrated Eastern Territories 1939–1945 , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-486-77837-3 , p. 147.
  8. Maximilian Becker: Fellow campaigners in the national struggle. German Justice in the Integrated Eastern Regions 1939–1945 , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-486-77837-3 , p. 297.
  9. ^ Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 53.
  10. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 118f.
  11. ^ "Deutsche Justiz" magazine, ed. by the Reich Minister of Justice, No. 35 of October 29, 1943, p. 500.
  12. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 599.
  13. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 218.