Impunity Act

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An impunity law is a law that provides for general remission of certain offenses for political or other reasons . Often an impunity law is enacted when certain criminal offenses are repealed. It can include amnesty , abolition, and failure to prosecute offenses that have not previously been the subject of criminal proceedings.

The last law on impunity was passed in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1970 when the criminal law on demonstrations was changed. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the federal government has competing legislative powers to enact laws on exemption from criminal acts in accordance with Art. 74 No. 1 GG.

Impunity laws in Germany

November Revolution

Weimar Republic  

  • 1920 " Kapp Amnesty" ( Law on the granting of impunity of 4 August 1920 , RGBl. 1920, p. 1487)
  • 1921/22 “pardon action” for convicted participants in the March uprisings 
  • 1922 " Rathenau Amnesty" ( law on impunity for political offenses of July 21 , 1922, RGBl. 1922 I, p. 595)
  • 1925 " Hindenburg Amnesty " ( law on impunity dated August 17 , 1925, RGBl. 1925 I, p. 313)
  • 1928 " Koch Amnesty " ( law on impunity of July 14 , 1928, RGBl. 1928 I, p. 195 f.)
  • 1930 " Rhineland evacuation amnesty " ( law amending the law on impunity of October 24 , 1930, RGBl. 1930 I, p. 467)
  • 1932 " Schleicher amnesty " ( law on impunity of December 20 , 1932, RGBl. 1932 I, p. 559)

National Socialism

For example, it granted the murderers from the Weimar Republic impunity and allowed them to return to the German Reich. The Offenburg Regional Court applied this ordinance after the end of the war on September 10, 1946 and refused to open the main hearing against Heinrich Tillessen , Erzberger's murderer .
Formally, the regulation was only repealed by Art. I. No. 6 of Act No. 55 of the Allied Control Council for Germany of June 20, 1947 ( OJ p. 284), as it was included in Control Council Act No. 1 regarding the repeal of NS- Law of September 20, 1945 was not listed.

German Democratic Republic

  • Law on the granting of impunity of 11 November 1949 ( Journal of Laws I p. 60)
On the occasion of the establishment of the German Democratic Republic , the Provisional People's Chamber had passed a law according to which imprisonment sentences of no more than six months and fines of no more than DM 5000, which were recognized before October 7, 1949, were issued. However, according to Section 4 of the Law on the Granting of Impunity, persons who, according to Control Council Directive No. 38, had endangered the peace for propaganda for National Socialism or militarism or were punished for boycotts under Article 6, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic, were excluded had been or still had to be punished.

Federal Republic of Germany

The law was one of the first two laws of the first German federal government and came into force on January 1, 1950. Under certain conditions, it pardoned all crimes and administrative offenses committed before September 15, 1949, the day Konrad Adenauer was elected as the first German Chancellor , which could be punished with imprisonment for up to six months or up to a year on probation.
After the Eighth Criminal Law Amendment Act of June 25, 1968, the provisions of the Criminal Code against high treason, endangering the state and treason had been reformed and the state security criminal law of the post-war period had been overcome, the Impunity Act of July 9, 1968 granted impunity for offenses according to regulations by that Eighth Criminal Law Amendment Act had been repealed or replaced.
  • Impunity Act of May 20, 1970 ( Act on Impunity (Punishment Act 1970 - StrFrhG 1970) )
This amnesty promised by the SPD during the election campaign included thousands who had been sentenced to up to nine months in prison for “demonstration offenses”. At the same time, the right to demonstrate was liberalized by the Third Law on the Reform of Criminal Law . Around 5,000 criminal proceedings became obsolete, mainly against apo demonstrators and students like Günter Amendt , who, however, requested the continuation of proceedings against him that had been suspended due to the amnesty.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Order of the Federal Constitutional Court of April 22, 1953 on the Law on Exemption from Punishment of December 31, 1949 (BVerfGE 2, 213 - Law on Exemption from Punishment)
  2. ^ A b Jürgen Christoph: The political Reich amnesties 1918–1933 (legal history series, volume 57). Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. [ua] 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.
  3. ↑ Detlef Lehnert: The Weimar Republic. 1st edition, Reclam, Stuttgart 1999, p. 235.
  4. ↑ 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).
  5. ↑ a b c reference and legal title after Norbert B. Wagner: Reine Staatslehre. States, fictitious states and the Germany paradox (Juristische Schriftenreihe, Bd. 278). Lit Verlag, Berlin 2015, p. 97, note 405.
  6. ↑ Friederike Goltsche: The draft of a general German penal code of 1922 (draft Radbruch) (Juristic Contemporary History, Section 3, Vol. 35). De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2010, p. 45 f.
  7. ↑ a b reference and legal title after 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, note 18.
  8. ^ Source and title of the law after Sabine Stampf: The delict of high treason in the Nazi state, in the GDR and in the Federal Republic of Germany. Inaugural dissertation, Münster 2016, p. 112, note 337.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ↑ Law No. 55
  11. ↑ RGBl. I p. 529
  12. ↑ RGBl. I p. 309
  13. ↑ RGBl. I p. 378
  14. ↑ RGBl. I p. 433
  15. ↑ RGBl. I p. 1023
  16. ^ Law on the granting of impunity of November 11, 1949, documentArchiv.de, accessed on September 21, 2016
  17. ↑ First ordinance on the implementation of the law on granting impunity of November 23, 1949, documentArchiv.de, accessed on September 21, 2016
  18. ↑ Law on the granting of impunity of December 31, 1949. documentArchiv.de, accessed on September 19, 2016
  19. ↑ BGBl. 1949 p. 37 ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Website of the Federal Archives , accessed on September 20, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundesarchiv.de
  20. ↑ Walter Naasner, Christoph Seemann: Background information ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Website of the Federal Archives , accessed on September 20, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundesarchiv.de
  21. ↑ Norbert Frei : Politics of the Past. The beginnings of the Federal Republic and the Nazi past , Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-41310-2 . Review of the 2012 re-edition by Klaus-Jürgen Bremm, literaturkritik.de, accessed on September 20, 2016
  22. ↑ a b both repealed by Art. 50 No. 1 and 2 of the law on the further amendment of federal law of December 8, 2010 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 1864 )
  23. ↑ BGBl. 1968 I p. 741
  24. ↑ Ingo Müller : The reintroduction of the NS state protection law in 1951 and its elimination under Gustav Heinemann 1968 Friedrich Ebert Foundation , 2013
  25. ↑ BGBl. 1968 I p. 773
  26. ↑ Federal Law Gazette 1970 I p. 509
  27. ↑ BGBl. 1969 I p. 505
  28. ↑ One for all . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 1971, p. 36 ( Online - Jan. 18, 1971 ).