Show trial

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As show trials in general public are lawsuits refer to operations where the sentencing of the defendant is established in advance. The trial is therefore only carried out to preserve the appearance of a certain rule of law or for political reasons, which may include propaganda purposes or the public degradation and humiliation of a defendant. Show trials are used, among other things, to persecute political opponents or other undesirable persons and are a feature of undemocratic forms of government. A related phenomenon is the secret process .

definition

Show trials are particularly often used in dictatorial systems to eliminate unpopular people. They then often take place in disregard of all constitutional principles and serve to eliminate, humiliate and display the defendant in public. Therefore, they are often staged as a major media spectacle and serve to deter and discipline those who think differently.

In the essence of these processes lies the aggravation of alleged or insignificant offenses to state or society-destroying crimes. So z. B. Criticism of the current government is hyped up to high treason , espionage or the like. The other variant is the invention of any offenses that the accused are said to have committed.

The accused have practically no defense and the confessions are usually extorted in advance of the trial or given under torture . In most cases, the judgments have already been made. The charge is presented in polemical form and the verdict is disproportionately harsh.

Famous examples

The most famous historical show trials are:

  • The Ingelheim trial of 788 against Duke Tassilo III. von Baiern , which the Frankish King Charlemagne used to politically justify the complete incorporation of the previously relatively independent tribal duchy of Baiern into the Frankish Empire .
  • The Shakhty Trial in Moscow in 1928 was the first political show trial in the Soviet Union after 1922 and was directed against non-Communist experts. It was related to the transition to forced industrialization .
  • The “ Red Marine Trial” or “Eagle Hotel Trial” was a trial brought before the Hamburg Special Court in 1934 against 53 terrorism accused, including the Soviet secret agent Jan Valtin . The process ended with nine death sentences, seven life sentences and a further 350 years in prison. He is considered the National Socialist forerunner of the Moscow trials. The process was processed by Jan Valtin in his US bestseller “Out of the Night” in 1941. The book has been translated into numerous languages, German as the “Diary of Hell”. (See also Wandsbek's hatchet )
  • The Moscow trials of Stalin's political opponents during the Great Terror in the Soviet Union in the 1930s are a typical example of show trials. Almost all previous comrades in arms, especially Lenin's allies, large parts of party celebrities and millions of people were either executed or destroyed in the Gulag penal camps .
  • Following the example of the Moscow show trials, Stalin later had similar trials staged in the satellite states. These processes served primarily as a combat and propaganda instrument in the dispute with Tito , but also for general discipline , especially in foreign policy. The defendants were mostly accused of high treason and espionage in the service of Yugoslavia and the USA. These trials also ended in some cases with death sentences or long prison sentences. These trials took place at the height of the Cold War in the late 1940s and 1950s, for example: in Hungary ( József Mindszenty , László Rajk ), in Czechoslovakia ( Slansky trial ) and in Bulgaria ( Trajtscho Kostow ). Similar draconian punishments were imposed in the show and secret trials in the GDR , for example in the show trial of Foreign Minister Georg Dertinger , the Waldheim trials or the Solvay trial .
  • The proceedings against the Hitler assassins and conspirators of July 20, 1944. They took place before the People's Court under its President Roland Freisler . The trials were secretly filmed for Hitler and the newsreel with a hidden camera, but were not shown in the cinemas because the trial, led by an angry shouting of Freisler, was perceived by the National Socialist propaganda as not being open to the public. In any case, the recording of Freisler's voice was heavily distorted by his extreme roar and was therefore difficult to understand.
  • In Italy before, the dictator Benito Mussolini in Verona Trial (January 8 to 10 1944) five of its prominent party members, including his own son Galeazzo Ciano enforce, sentenced to death and the sentence immediately shooting can (11 January 1944) because they were previously in a meeting of the Grand Fascist Council on 24./25. July 1943 in Rome with a large majority (19: 8) had forced his deposition and the transfer of power to the king.
  • In the People's Republic of China , at least until recently, such trials have mostly taken place against smugglers , drug traffickers and other petty criminals, but also against serious criminals, in order to demonstrate to the population that the state leadership is maintaining “ order ” in the country . Then were in these processes several defendants in summary proceedings for relatively small offenses or even, although the question of guilt was controversial, to death or long prison sentences convicted.

Web links

References and footnotes

  1. ^ Ingelheim trial
  2. ↑ McKitterick, Rosamond: Karl der Große, S. 117. Translated from the English by Susanne Fischer. Darmstadt 2008
  3. ^ "The Russian show trials, prior to which, for the sake of the record, the accused are broken by torture, are very similar to the first trials (the Rote Marine Prozess ) staged under the Nazis ..." - American Jewish Committee, Commentary , Volume 54, 1972
  4. ^ Katharina Werz: The show trial in the 20th century in Germany. Concept, function and structure based on selected examples. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag 2016, ISBN 978-3-8305-3611-6 .
  5. ^ As a result of the intervention of the Germans, Mussolini had come to power again after three months in northern Italy and had brought some of the "rebellious" members of the former Fascist Grand Council into his power.