Arbitration Chamber Proceedings

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"Followers" (1948)
Service regulations for the investigative committees and the Chamber of Judges of the State of Baden , ed. from the "State Commissioner for Political Cleansing", Freiburg 1947.

Arbitration chamber proceedings were proceedings with the aim of denazification that were carried out in the three western occupation zones of Germany after the end of National Socialism .

prehistory

The main culprits were convicted under Control Council Act No. 10 by criminal courts that the individual Allies set up in their zones of occupation. Following the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals , an American military tribunal in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice conducted 12 follow-up trials against other main culprits such as doctors, lawyers, the military and administrative officials. The Dachau trials were directed against former concentration camp personnel . In the British zone of occupation , military courts negotiated on the basis of the Royal Warrant of June 14, 1945. In the French zone of occupation , military administrative courts were established. A large part of the jurisprudence took place at the Tribunal général in Rastatt. From September 1948, the Tribunal de première instance pour les crimes de guerre took over this task.

Arbitration proceedings in the US zone

"Homecoming amnesty": Based on the information in your registration form, you are not affected by the Act on Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism of March 5, 1946.

With the law for the liberation from National Socialism and militarism of March 5, 1946 (Law No. 104, "Liberation Act"), which was passed by the State Council of the American Occupation Area, the Americans began in their zone of occupation ( Bavaria , Greater Hesse and Württemberg-Baden ) with partially handing the denazification into German hands. The ruling chambers, which functioned as lay courts, were set up for this purpose. The chairmanship was held by the “public plaintiffs” who were qualified to hold judicial office or at least had to be qualified for higher administrative service and who had a clean past. These were appointed by the Minister for Liberation . In addition, there were two assessors who should be familiar with the local conditions.

After the Liberation Act came into force at the beginning of March 1946, 13 million Germans of legal age in the US zone had to fill out questionnaires stating whether they were a member of the NSDAP, one of its branches or affiliated associations and what the professional and financial situation was like. A more extensive questionnaire with 131 questions, according to Klaus Bölling “the work of the American tendency to perfectionist solutions”, had been in use since mid-1945, but until then was only aimed at Germans in key positions in public life. Refusal or false information was a criminal offense. Completed questionnaires were acknowledged by the police authorities. The receipt had to be presented both to the issuing of grocery cards and to the employer as a prerequisite for continued employment or recruitment. Anyone who was a member of the NSDAP or of NS organizations had to justify themselves to the ruling chambers, which affected 3.6 million Germans. All others were considered “not affected”. Due to numerous amnesties (approx. 2.5 million) and the fact that no legal action was taken, a total of approx. 950,000 cases were finally heard.

In implementing the decisions of the Potsdam Conference , the Allies divided the NSDAP members into five main groups. In this way, uniform treatment in the various zones should be ensured for these people. Section II of the Control Council Directive No. 38 of October 12, 1946, with reference to Directive No. 24 of January 12, 1946, divided those affected into the following groups:

  1. Main culprits ( war criminals )
  2. Charged ( activists , militarists and beneficiaries)
  3. Less stressed (probation group)
  4. Followers
  5. Exonerated people who were not affected by the law.

The ruling chambers determined to which group an accused belonged and ordered the appropriate atonement measures . These consisted above all in the obligation to undertake reparation and reconstruction work (e.g. removal of rubble), the exclusion from public offices including the notary's office and the legal profession, the loss of legal claims to a pension payable from public funds, the confiscation of assets as well as the deprivation of the right to vote, the eligibility and the right to be politically active as a member of a party. According to the degree of responsibility, the atonement measures should be imposed "in a just and equitable manner" "in order to achieve the elimination of National Socialism and militarism from the lives of the German people and the reparation of the damage caused." perceived as "a form of social discrimination that is difficult to bear".

Anyone who was classified as particularly active National Socialist in group 1 or 2 could, after hearing the witnesses of the accusations and exonerations, and after taking evidence, be sent to a labor camp to carry out reparation and reconstruction work, the main culprits for a period between two and ten years, the incriminated up to five years. Labor camps were supposed to be set up by the German authorities, but this did not happen until February 1947. Her property was also to be confiscated as a contribution to reparation. In July 1946, the State Office for Asset Management and Reparation (BLVW) was founded in Bavaria for this purpose.

The ruling chambers did not pass criminal judgments, but served political cleansing . The imposition of expiatory measures by a tribunal did not rule out criminal prosecution and vice versa. Compared to criminal proceedings, the burden of proof was reversed in the arbitration chambers: the person concerned had to rebut the presumption of guilt with evidence and not the arbitration chamber to prove his guilt.

In 1948 the 545 regional regional chambers were dissolved, followed by the two central chambers in 1953.

Tribunals in the British Zone

In the course of 1946, the Liberation Act enacted in the US zone was extended to the other two western zones of occupation.

In the British zone, German judicial tribunals were not set up until February 1947 . The figures for the British zone are incomplete, however, since the classification of the accused in categories I and II could not be carried out by German judicial tribunals, but only by British military courts.

criticism

In the three western occupation zones, only 0.7 percent of those affected were classified in the first two categories. More than half of the arbitration chamber proceedings ended with a classification as follower or exonerated, which is why the arbitration chambers are also critically referred to as "follower factory". About 1/3 of the proceedings were discontinued. However, figures for the entire federal territory and comparative statistics between the three western occupation zones should be treated with caution, as the data basis is incomplete and the periods considered and the procedural practice differ greatly. What is certain, however, is that denazification was the strictest in the American zone, followed by the British and finally the French.

Due to the reverse burden of proof, many of the defendants tried to wipe their waistcoats in during the negotiations and to attach a "clean man" image by having written exoneration certificates issued by their social circle. The vernacular coined the term “ clean bill of health” for them . In this way, numerous accused have covered each other.

The questionnaires on which the arbitration chamber proceedings are based are also considered controversial. Although false statements were punishable by law, many did not take it too seriously when filling in the truth, and even regarded it as a " peculiar offense ". Only rarely could this be exposed, which led to honest, less incriminated party members being punished more severely than those who were seriously guilty and who did not shrink from lying. "With the help of their questionnaire, the Americans thought they could X-ray the Germans. They actually got some deep insights into the spiritual and moral condition of the defeated people. The full truth, however, remained mostly hidden from them despite the 131 questions."

Another reason why the proceedings were perceived as unjust by the population was that due to the huge abundance of proceedings, cases with a supposedly minor guilt were initially dealt with, in which - probably also under pressure from the USA - relatively harsh expiatory measures up to and including for ten years in a labor camp. In the course of time these turned out to be milder, of all times when it was the turn of the "big fish". The historian Cornelia Rauh-Kühne coined the phrase: "Those who came late were rewarded by life".

In the opinion of the publicist Klaus Bölling, the attempt to give everyone their just punishment or atonement was doomed to failure from the start.

“Their attempts to separate the guilty from the innocent, the followers from the convinced yes-sayers and to find a just punishment for each of these groups, but could not be successful in terms of the matter. They avowedly did not want to take revenge. You wanted to differentiate. They didn't just want to hold Hitler's party accountable. They wanted to make their mind go away. One day they had to realize that their resources were more limited than they believed at the moment. [...] Each individual case was different from the other, and a fair classification of party members in one of the categories would not have been possible even if the Allies had had a better knowledge of the many motives the Germans had in the twelve Years of Hitler's rule had prompted them to join the party. This knowledge was not theoretical, and after the defeat it could hardly be obtained empirically. [...] a just punishment of the incriminated would only have been conceivable after procedures that would have required a huge apparatus of lawyers and psychologists from the Allies. [...] However, they asked themselves whether, in view of the many complications of the procedure, they should now do without it altogether. That was impossible, for they had led a crusade to overthrow a criminal ideology, and they must at least try to get hold of the guilty party in order to prevent the regime's supporters from paying lip service to democracy to the most important positions of the new one German state crept in. [...] With their denazification directives, which changed from month to month, the Allies had entered a labyrinth [...] and they did not find their way into the open until the end. Many of the culprits were recognized and punished. Others were able to avoid the punishment they deserved because the system was too arbitrary. Still others were persecuted, although they had remained decent in the days of the violence. "

- Klaus Bölling : A people in front of the Spruchkammer. Denazification - the story of an unsuccessful operation

literature

  • Volker Friedrich Drecktrah: From Nuremberg to the provinces. The verdict of Stade 1946–1948. In: Helia-Verena Daubach (Red.): Leipzig - Nuremberg - The Hague. New questions and research on the relationship between human rights crimes, judicial cleansing and international criminal law. (= Legal contemporary history NRW. Volume 16, ISSN  1615-5718 ). Ministry of Justice of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf 2007, DNB 992024501 , pp. 117–129.
  • Niklas Frank : Dark soul, cowardly mouth. How scandalous and funny the Germans wash themselves off when denazifying themselves. Dietz, Bonn 2016, ISBN 978-3-8012-0405-1 .
  • Sven Reichardt , Malte Zierenberg: Back then after the war. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-421-04342-9 .
  • Sebastian Römer: Members of criminal organizations after 1945. The prosecution of organizational crime in the British zone by the judiciary courts. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2005. (Zugl .: Hannover, Univ., Diss., 2005)
  • Clemens Vollnhals (Ed.): Denazification. Political cleansing and rehabilitation in the four zones of occupation 1945–1949. (= German 2962 documents ). Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-423-02962-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Katrin Hassel: British War Crimes Trials under the Royal Warrant website of the International Research and Documentation Center on War Crimes Trials , accessed on September 10, 2018.
  2. ↑ War Crimes Trials in the French Occupation Zone in Germany (1945–1953) Website of the International Research and Documentation Center for War Crimes Trials , accessed on September 10, 2018.
  3. ↑ See Hans-Jörg Ruhl (Ed.): New beginning and restoration. Documents on the prehistory of the Federal Republic of Germany 1945–1949. dtv, Munich 1982, p. 279 f. ( online text of the law )
  4. ↑ Stephan Molitor: Judgment Chamber proceedings files. Tradition on denazification as a source for the Nazi era. In: Documents from the post-war period as sources on the history of the Third Reich. 2004, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Klaus Bölling : A people in front of the Spruchkammer. Denazification - the story of an unsuccessful operation. In: Die Zeit 38/1963. May 20, 1963, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Stephan Molitor: Judgment Chamber proceedings files. Tradition on denazification as a source for the Nazi era. In: Documents from the post-war period as sources on the history of the Third Reich. 2004, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Breakdown of denazification classifications in the western zones of occupation (1949-1950). In: DGDB . Accessed December 30, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Control Council Directive No. 24 ( Memento of August 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Removal of National Socialists and persons who are hostile to the efforts of the Allies from offices and positions of responsibility from January 12, 1946. verfassungen.de, accessed on September 4 2018.
  9. ↑ Art. VII Control Council Directive No. 38 of October 12, 1946.
  10. ↑ Klaus Bölling : A people in front of the Spruchkammer. Denazification - the story of an unsuccessful operation. In: Die Zeit 38/1963. May 20, 1963, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Christa Schick: The internment camps. In: Martin Broszat, Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Hans Woller (eds.): From Stalingrad to currency reform. On the social history of upheaval in Germany . Munich 1989, ISBN 3-486-54132-3 , p. 311f.
  12. ^ Paul Hoser: Denazification. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria. 5th February 2013.
  13. ↑ Stephan Molitor: Judgment Chamber proceedings files. Tradition on denazification as a source for the Nazi era. In: Documents from the post-war period as sources on the history of the Third Reich. 2004, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Joachim Szodrzynski: denazification - the example of Hamburg. In: Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg (FZH). 2014, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Breakdown of denazification classifications in the western zones of occupation (1949-1950). In: DGDB . Accessed December 30, 2020 .
  16. ^ S. Reichardt, M. Zierenberg: Then after the war. 2008, pp. 206f.
  17. ↑ Stephan Molitor: Judgment Chamber proceedings files. Tradition on denazification as a source for the Nazi era. In: Documents from the post-war period as sources on the history of the Third Reich. 2004, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Klaus Bölling : A people in front of the Spruchkammer. Denazification - the story of an unsuccessful operation. In: Die Zeit 38/1963. May 20, 1963, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Stephan Molitor: Judgment Chamber proceedings files. Tradition on denazification as a source for the Nazi era. In: Documents from the post-war period as sources on the history of the Third Reich. 2004, accessed December 30, 2020 .
  20. ↑ Cornelia Rauh-Kühne: Those who came late were rewarded with life: denazification in the Cold War. In: Germany and the USA in the Age of the Cold War 1945–1990. A manual. Edited by Detlef Junker. 2 volumes. Stuttgart / Munich 2001. Vol. 1, pp. 112-123.
  21. ↑ Klaus Bölling : A people in front of the Spruchkammer. Denazification - the story of an unsuccessful operation. In: Die Zeit 38/1963. May 20, 1963, accessed December 30, 2020 .