Ordinance to supplement the penal provisions to protect the military strength of the German people

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The ordinance supplementing the penal provisions for the protection of the military force of the German people of November 25, 1939 ( RGBl. I, p. 2319) resulted in damage to military equipment, disruption of an important company, participation in a hostile association, private dealings with prisoners of war and endangerment of the armed forces friendly states threatened with high penalties.

With the exception of § 3 on "anti-military connection", the regulations in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia also applied to persons who did not have German citizenship .

Prohibited handling of prisoners of war

Section 4 (1) of the ordinance, which restricted contact with prisoners of war or made it punishable as "prohibited contact", was of far-reaching importance for German nationals:

Anyone who deliberately violates a regulation issued to regulate the handling of prisoners of war or otherwise interacts with a prisoner of war in a way that grossly violates the healthy public sentiment is punished with imprisonment, in serious cases with penitentiary .

An ordinance on dealing with prisoners of war of May 11, 1940 (RGBl. I, p. 769) made it clear that any dealings with prisoners of war and any relationship with them was prohibited unless this was necessarily due to an employment relationship.

In an internal letter on January 31, 1940 , Heinrich Himmler had instructed the state police headquarters and other departments under his control to "take offensive German women into protective custody until further notice and to send them to a concentration camp for at least one year ". Any social intercourse, for example a meeting at dance festivals, should be viewed as a “gross violation of the healthy people's feeling ”. A local public denunciation and forced head shear should not be prevented by the police. Polish prisoners of war who “got involved with German women” were to be released from captivity, transferred to the Gestapo and “initially” taken into protective custody. In doing so, Himmler implemented proposals that he had discussed with Adolf Hitler in September 1939 . Execution was planned for the Polish man .

A few months later, Himmler corrected his procedure, which the judiciary had completely ignored. German women who had got involved with prisoners of war were now to be brought to the courts after their arrest. Only when the court rejects or revokes an arrest warrant should the accused be taken back into protective custody and sent to a concentration camp.

Prisoners of War and "civilian workers"

At the end of 1940, around 1,200,000 prisoners of war (including French, British and Belgian nationals) were working in the German Reich , mostly in agriculture and construction. Increasingly, civil workers were recruited or pressed for labor and used for forced labor . At the end of 1942 around 4.6 million foreigners were working in the Reich; In 1944 there were 5.9 million, including 2 million women. As Eastern workers, many of them were subject to special police rights through the Poland decrees .

There was no formal law prohibiting contact with Polish, Russian or Ukrainian civil workers . However, the Gestapo and special courts arbitrarily extended the access restrictions for German Reich citizens to include this group of people. Anyone who was accused of forbidden contact with Eastern European civilian workers could also be taken into “protective custody” and sent to a concentration camp. The special courts subsequently extended the offense restricted to prisoners of war in the regulation to also include civil workers.

Convictions

Memorial for a Polish slave laborer in Hamburg-Poppenbüttel

The special courts were responsible for offenses related to the forbidden handling of prisoners of war. The general clause “healthy public sentiment” made it possible for the judges to punish any assistance given to the Polish and Russian prisoners of war who were considered “racially inferior”. Even minor violations were punished, for example a packet of tobacco as a Christmas present to a Polish prisoner of war or writing a postcard to two Eastern workers. German women who had love affairs with prisoners of war met particularly severe judgments. The Kiel special court usually imposed two to three year penal sentences in cases in which the partner was a Belgian or French prisoner of war.

The consequences of a love affair for the “ alien ” male partner were even harder . For Polish - later also Russian - prisoners of war, sexual contact with a German-blooded woman was a capital crime that could be punished with the death penalty. The Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) did not succeed in legally introducing this severe punishment for prisoners of war from Western European countries. The RSHA ordered the execution of the man, which was usually carried out by hanging in front of Polish workers, who were found to be “not capable of Germanization”.

In the secret situation reports of the security service it was complained that the prisoners of war had gained confidence through their behavior and their work and that therefore the “German national comrades forgot the necessary political distance”. Violations of the prohibition of access turned into a “mass crime”: within 1940 came there were 4,345 convictions; in the first half of 1943 there were 5,763 convictions. Almost all of the proceedings had been started by denunciation ; Without the reports from the “ Volksgemeinschaft ”, often for private reasons , these “crimes” would have gone undetected.

Repeal

The ordinance was formally repealed by the Control Council Act No. 11 of January 30, 1946. In Act No. 21 for the reparation of National Socialist injustice in the administration of criminal justice of May 28, 1946, the Bavarian State Government stipulated that in particular all persons were exempt from punishment after Section 4 of the ordinance had been convicted of dealing with prisoners of war. Their behavior was only punishable according to the National Socialist view.

In the Act to Repeal National Socialist Injustice Judgments in the Administration of Criminal Justice in 1998, all convicting criminal judgments that were made “in violation of elementary ideas of justice” were repealed; here the ordinance to supplement the criminal provisions for the protection of the military strength of the German people is explicitly listed.

literature

  • Ulrich Herbert: Foreign workers - policy and practice of the 'deployment of foreigners' in the war economy of the Third Reich. New edition Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8012-5028-8 (further).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ordinance on dealing with prisoners of war of May 11, 1940 (RGBl. I, p. 769)
  2. ^ Klaus Hesse, Pamela Eve Selwyn, Topography of Terror Foundation: Topography of Terror. Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office in Wilhelm- and Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse - a documentation. Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-941772-06-9 / document printed, p. 265.
  3. ^ Klaus Hesse, Pamela Eve Selwyn, Topography of Terror Foundation: Topography of Terror. Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office in Wilhelm- and Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse - a documentation. Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-941772-06-9 / letter from Himmler of January 27, 1940, document printed, p. 265.
  4. ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Foreign workers - politics and practice of the 'deployment of foreigners' in the war economy of the Third Reich. New edition Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8012-5028-8 , p. 91 - The date is narrowed down "around September 10, 1939".
  5. ↑ Order of May 7, 1940 see Gerhard Paul, Alexander Primavesi: The pursuit of the "Fremdvölkischen". In: Gerhard Paul, Klaus Michael Mallmann (eds.): The Gestapo - Myth and Reality. Unv. Special edition Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 3-89678-482-X , p. 389.
  6. ↑ Michael Wildt: Police of the "People's Community". In: Klaus Hesse, Pamela Eve Selwyn, Topography of Terror Foundation: Topography of Terror. Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office in Wilhelm- and Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse - a documentation , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-941772-06-9 , pp. 282f.
  7. ↑ Forced labor (accessed July 28, 2012)
  8. ↑ Hans Wüllenweber: Special Courts in the Third Reich. Frankfurt / Main 1990, ISBN 3-630-61909-6 , pp. 193/194.
  9. ^ Gisela Diewald-Kerkmann: Political Denunciation in the Nazi Regime. Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-8012-5018-0 , p. 119.
  10. ↑ Hans Wüllenweber: Special Courts in the Third Reich. Frankfurt / Main 1990, ISBN 3-630-61909-6 , pp. 193/194.
  11. ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Foreign workers - politics and practice of the 'deployment of foreigners' in the war economy of the Third Reich. New edition Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8012-5028-8 , p. 146.
  12. ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Foreign workers - politics and practice of the 'deployment of foreigners' in the war economy of the Third Reich. New edition Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8012-5028-8 , p. 148f.
  13. ↑ Heinz Boberach (Ed.): Messages from the Reich. The secret situation reports of the security service of the SS 1939–1945. Volume 11, Herrsching 1984, ISBN 3-88199-158-1 , pp. 4316f. (October 12, 1942)
  14. ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Foreign workers - politics and practice of the 'deployment of foreigners' in the war economy of the Third Reich. New edition Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8012-5028-8 , pp. 141ff.
  15. ^ Gisela Diewald-Kerkmann: Political Denunciation in the Nazi Regime. Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-8012-5018-0 , p. 119.
  16. ^ Gisela Diewald-Kerkmann: Political Denunciation in the Nazi Regime. Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-8012-5018-0 , p. 122.
  17. ↑ Law No. 21 on the reparation of National Socialist injustice in the administration of criminal justice