People's Court (Austria)

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The People's Courts (not to be confused with the People's Court ) were extraordinary courts of justice that were set up in post-war Austria after the end of World War II from 1945 to 1955 to punish Nazi crimes.

background

Based on the Moscow Declaration , which stated Austria's responsibility to the Nazi regime, the Provisional State Government announced in its government declaration on April 27, 1945 that

“Those who, out of contempt for democracy and democratic freedoms, have set up and sustained a regime of violence, spying, persecution and oppression over our people, who have plunged the country into this adventurous war and abandoned it to devastation and want to continue to abandon it , [...] cannot count on leniency. You will be treated according to the same exceptional right that you have imposed on others and are now supposed to find good for yourself. Those, of course, who only went with them out of a weak will, as a result of their economic situation, out of compelling public considerations against their inner conviction and without participating in the crimes of the fascists, should return to the community of the people and have nothing to fear. "

Prohibition Act and War Crimes Act

One of the primary concerns of the government was therefore the prosecution of Nazi crimes, which should be carried out by so-called people's courts . The new government deliberately leaned their designation on the National Socialist People's Courts in order to use this similar name to indicate a similarly strict procedure against National Socialists as they had practiced against opposition members.

As early as May 8, 1945, just a few hours before the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , the Cabinet Council of the Provisional Government had passed the Prohibition Act (VG) (which is still partially valid today ) , which was directed against National Socialist organizations and their members. On June 26, 1945, the Prohibition Act was supplemented by the War Crimes Act (KVG) , which provided for the punishment of the following Nazi crimes:

  • War crimes in the narrower sense (§ 1 KVG),
  • War incitement (§ 2 KVG),
  • Torture and abuse (§ 3 KVG),
  • Violations of human dignity (Section 4 KVG),
  • Expulsion from home and participation in the deportation of Jews (Section 5a KVG),
  • abusive enrichment, under which the so-called " Aryanization " can be subsumed (§ 6 KVG),
  • Denunciation (§ 7 KVG) and
  • High treason (§ 8 KVG).

In addition to the KVG and VG, which were specifically enacted to punish Nazi crimes, the Austrian Criminal Law (StG) and the German Reich Criminal Code (RStGB) also formed the substantive legal basis for people's jurisdiction. In 1945, Wilhelm Malaniuk established the legal-dogmatic basis for the admissibility of the non-application of the prohibition of retroactive effects in the War Crimes Act and Prohibition Act for Crimes of the Nazi Regime: "Because these are criminal acts that violate the laws of humanity so grossly that such lawbreakers are not entitled The crimes of the National Socialist regime also represent violations of treaties and international law ".

Establishment of the People's Courts

The people's courts were set up at the regional courts at the seat of the higher regional courts (as early as 1945 in Vienna and from 1946 - after recognition of the Provisional Government by the Western Allies - also in Graz , Linz and Innsbruck ). For the people's court proceedings, the provisions of the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure on appeal and nullity complaints were suspended. Only the President of the Supreme Court had the opportunity to overturn the sentence.

The people's courts were Schöffengerichte consisting of three lay judges and two professional judges, one of whom was in the chair. The lay judges were initially nominated by the three political parties that formed the Provisional Government in 1945. The judicial staff had to be politically "unencumbered"; In other words, it must not have been involved in the Nazi criminal justice system. The people's courts suffered from a constant shortage of staff, as the proportion of National Socialists in the judiciary was particularly high.

Proceedings and judgments

The focus of persecution of these courts, in addition to the points mentioned above, was:

From 1945 to 1955, 136,829 preliminary inquiries and preliminary investigations were initiated before the people's courts in Vienna, Graz (including the external senate Leoben and Klagenfurt), Linz (including the external senate Salzburg and Ried / Innkreis) and Innsbruck in 136,829 cases on suspicion of National Socialist crimes or "illegality", of which just under 80 percent by early 1948. A total of 23,477 judgments (against around 20,000 people) were passed in these trials, 13,607 of which were guilty.

341 penalties were in the upper range: 43 defendants were sentenced to death, 30 death sentences were carried out (25 of them in Vienna, four in Graz and one in Linz), and two convicts committed suicide before they were carried out. The last execution took place in 1950. 29 defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment and 269 to prison terms of between ten and twenty years. Many of the latter were given amnesties in 1955 after the People's Courts were abolished following the conclusion of the State Treaty and Allied influence ceased.

Others

In 2006 the Vienna City and State Archives took over 170 meters of criminal files from the Vienna State Court for Criminal Matters . After development work, the Vienna City and State Archives showed an exhibition on the proceedings before the People's Court in Vienna from 1945 to 1955 until May 2010.

See also

literature

  • Thomas Albrich, Winfried R. Garscha, Martin Polaschek (eds.): Holocaust and war crimes in court. The case of Austria. Studienverlag, Innsbruck et al. 2006, ISBN 3-7065-4258-7 .
  • Marianne Enigl : Terror and Death - The files of the people's courts were opened for the first time. In: Profile May 8, 2010, online .
  • Heimo Halbainer, Martin F. Polaschek (Ed.): War Crimes Trials in Austria. An inventory. CLIO Association for History and Educational Work, Graz 2003, ISBN 3-9500971-5-5 ( Historical and socio-political writings of the CLIO 2 association).
  • Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider: “The people sit in court.” Austrian justice and Nazi crimes using the example of the Engerau trials 1945–1954. Studienverlag, Innsbruck et al. 2006, ISBN 3-7065-4126-2 ( Österreichische Justizgeschichte 2).
  • Hellmut Butterweck: Condemned and pardoned - Austria and its Nazi criminals. Czernin, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7076-0126-9 .
  • Roland Pichler: People's jurisdiction and denazification - with special consideration of the proceedings against women before the Vienna People's Court . Dissertation. University of Vienna. Vienna, 2016 (PDF, othes.univie.ac.at; 8 MB).
  • Jeanette Toussaint: Seen nothing - knew nothing. The legal prosecution of former SS guards by the People's Courts in Vienna and Linz. In: Gehmacher, Johanna / Gabriella Hauch (eds.): Women's and gender history of National Socialism. Questions, perspectives, new research (cross sections, vol. 23). Vienna 2007, pp. 222–239. ISBN 978-3-7065-4488-7 .
  • Jeanette Toussaint: Investigations by the Linz People's Court against former SS guards at the Lenzing satellite camp (1945-1949). In: Baumgartner, Andreas / Ingrid Bauz / Jean-Marie Winkler (eds.): Between mother cross and gas chamber. Perpetrators and fellow travelers or resistance and persecution? Vienna 2008, pp. 121–131. ISBN 978-3-902605-07-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. u. a. Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider in: Nazi Trials and the German Public - Occupation, Early Federal Republic and GDR (2012), p. 415; Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider “The people sit in court” (2006), p. 55ff; Malaniuk, textbook, p. 113 u. 385.
  2. ↑ Brigitte Rigele: Arrested. Sentenced. Getting away - Volksgericht Wien 1945 - 1955. , Publications of the Vienna City and State Archives, No. 80, Vienna 2010.
  3. ↑ Brief information on the exhibition wien.gv.at, accessed on February 18, 2011.