Tyrannicide
The term tyrannicide denotes the killing - usually by assassination - of a ruler who is perceived as unjust (tyrant, cf. Tyrannis ), who violently suppresses the people or the citizens. He's a political murder .
Already in ancient philosophy it was discussed whether tyrannicide was a legitimate means of liberating citizens. The ethical question arises as to what is more difficult to answer for the members of a community (whether it is a polis or a kingdom ): that their fellow citizens suffer oppression, violence or even death by the tyrant or that they are guilty of murder , when the ruler is eliminated by an assassination attempt. Because this also fundamentally calls into question the existing state order (sole rule as a monarchy or dictatorship ), the “monarchies” of modern times vehemently rejected tyrannicide as the last resort of politics.
Since 1968, the German Basic Law has contained a right of resistance in Article 20 (4) ( see explanation on Article 20 of the Basic Law). It is controversial in constitutional law whether this also includes the right to attack or even kill. Some opinions affirm this, provided the goal is to restore the constitutional free democratic order .
history
The first tyrannicide, well known for a long time, happened in the year 514 BC. Chr. Harmodios and Aristogeiton carried out an assassination attempt on the tyrant brothers Hippias and Hipparchus ; Hipparchus died in the process. The attack is considered to be the birth of democracy in Athens . The Athenians dedicated a monument to the assassins in the form of a group of figures in the strict style , which has been preserved in the form of modern Roman copies. The older, original figure group of the Antenor no longer exists. Cicero reported that this tyrannicide was on everyone's lips up to that of Julius Caesar . The killing of this Roman dictator on March 15, 44 BC. BC is one of the most famous examples of tyrannicide.
Within scholasticism , Johannes von Salisbury , Francisco Suárez , Luis de Molina and Thomas Aquinas were particularly concerned with the subject. The problematic starting point was that the Christian tradition after the Romans (13.1-7 EU ) and the first Peter (2.13-17 EU ) saw the secular authorities, be they gift or scourge of God, as inviolable. Obedience to her is required and there is no right of resistance. Taking into account the distinction that goes back to Aristotle between an illegitimate and a legitimately come to power tyrant (Tyrannus usurpationis / Tyrannus regimis), scholasticism developed points of distinction for the moral evaluation of resistance to tyranny and tyrannicide. The assessment of the killing of tyrants, however, remained controversial.
According to Thomas Aquinas, violent resistance to tyranny should not be described as unlawful rebellion (Seditio) when tyranny has reached an unbearable level (excessus intolerabilis), no nonviolent means are available and no help from a higher authority is available. The resistance to tyranny must not be so disordered (inordinate) that it causes more injustice and suffering than the tyranny one wants to eliminate. For Thomas Aquinas the tyrant is the rebel (seditiosus) when he brings discord and rebellion among the people and embezzles the common good. Against a tyrant who has legitimately come to power, one may not proceed out of private presumption (Praesumptione privata), but only through a legitimate public authority (Auctoritate publica). If this is the case, the usurper may be fought with all means and in extreme cases also killed.
In the early modern period (16th / 17th century) various state theorists advocated a right of the people to resist a legitimate ruler who abused his power . In extreme cases, the so-called monarchomachies advocated killing him and gave the removal of unjust rule a status quasi natural .
Immanuel Kant mistrusted the right of resistance: it could easily become an excuse for individuals to oppose the state. The right to resist was also suspicious of 19th century German legal positivism ; however, the rebel Friedrich Schiller (see below) supported it. In contrast, the United States, France and Great Britain considered it legitimate in unjust states .
In the 19th century, revolutionaries across Europe, including the Russian Bakunin and the French Paul Brousse , developed the theoretical foundations of anarchism and nihilism under the catchphrase propaganda , which led to a series of political murders. Anarchism is a political doctrine of ideas or philosophy that rejects the rule of people over people and any kind of hierarchy as a form of suppression of individual and collective freedom . For example, anarchists committed the following murders:
- Narodniki carried out attacks on Tsar Alexander II ; he died in a bomb attack in 1881.
- On June 24, 1894, the young Italian immigrant Sante Geronimo Caserio killed the French President Carnot .
- Leon Czolgosz shot President William McKinley on September 6, 1901 in Buffalo, New York . This died eight days later.
Assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944
Among the people active in the resistance against National Socialism , for example in the Kreisau Circle , the legitimacy of an assassination attempt on Hitler has been discussed for a long time and very seriously. It was not until 1942 that military personnel like Henning von Tresckow and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg were able to bring themselves to a consistent stance in favor of tyrannicide.
The attack on Hitler on July 20, 1944 was controversial after 1945. While advocates of Nazi propaganda viewed the assassins as traitors and believed that one shouldn't stab the supreme general in his efforts to turn the fortunes of war around, a majority, which grew ever larger as World War II went on , held the assassination attempt on Hitler for justified. Only with Hitler's death could the massive deaths in the hopeless struggle at the front, in concentration camps and in the hail of bombs from the air raids have ended earlier. The assassins were in an emergency situation that justified natural law .
Allen Welsh Dulles (1893-1969), influential director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961, advocated political assassinations. Dulles was ambassador for the Office of Strategic Services in Bern in neutral Switzerland during the Second World War . He served as a contact point for informers and resistance fighters from Germany , worked on the clarification of German plans and activities and was in close contact with the co-conspirator of July 20, 1944, Hans Bernd Gisevius .
Tyrannicide in literature
The motif of tyrannicide is also taken up in the literature. Well-known examples include: a.
- Friedrich Schiller : The guarantee , the maiden of Orléans , Wilhelm Tell
- William Shakespeare : Julius Caesar
- Rolf Hochhuth : Judith
See also
literature
- Alexander Demandt (Ed.): The assassination in history. Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0339-8 .
- Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Assassin - Change the world with a bullet. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-412-03003-1 .
- Jörg von Uthmann: Assassination attempt - murder with a clear conscience. Siedler, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-572-01263-5 .
- Dirk Lange: The politically motivated killing , Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-631-56656-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Gilbert Gornig : Der Tyrannenmord , in: Festschrift for Georg Brunner, Baden-Baden 2001, pp. 603–626.
- ↑ Aristotle: Politika , III, 1279, b, 4–10; IV, 1295, a, 1-24.
- ↑ Thomas Aquinas: Summa theologica, II-II, 42.2 ad 3.
- ↑ Thomas Aquinas: II Commentary on sentences, d. 44, loc. 2, q. 2.
- ↑ Thomas Aquinas: De regimine principum, I, 7 and 6.
- ↑ Handwortbuch der Kriminologie , Volume 4 (1977/1979), p. 166 f.
- ↑ Caroline Fetscher : Osama, Obama and the Tyrannicide , Zeit Online , May 9, 2011.
- ^ Deutsches Historisches Museum : The course of the war .
- ↑ Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Heerführer: the German Supreme Commanders in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 , Oldenbourg Verlag 2007, p. 134.