People's Court (Bavaria)
The People's Courts (not to be confused with the People's Court under National Socialism ) were special courts that were set up in November 1918 as a result of the November Revolution in Bavaria under Kurt Eisner for the accelerated sentencing of serious crimes.
After the defeat of the Munich Soviet Republic by Württemberg associations, units of the newly formed Provisional Reichswehr and Bavarian Freikorps , the people's courts were initially confirmed by law by the government under Social Democratic Prime Minister Johannes Hoffmann . They were made up of two professional judges and three laypeople; four votes were required to convict them. If this majority was not achieved, then the proceedings had to be referred to the ordinary courts.
In May 1919, 56 participants in the “ Speckputsch ” had to answer before the people's court in Bayreuth, which was set up specifically for this purpose . In March 1920 Gustav von Kahr - the only success of the Kapp putschists - overthrew the Hoffmann government and replaced it with a right-wing nationalist regime under its own leadership.
Both the Kahr cabinet and the following conservative governments took over the people's courts. These later tended to be one-sided when it came to political crimes. So was Hitler for his failed right-wing nationalist coup attempt by the People's Court of Munich I only imprisonment condemned the "honorable" than was necessary while Communists and former Räterepublikaner felt the full force of the law. This was perceived and criticized as class justice during the Weimar Republic and afterwards on the left of the political spectrum . In May 1924 the Bavarian people's courts were dissolved after they had passed a total of around 31,000 judgments. The Bavarian special courts are nowadays assessed as clearly unconstitutional because they violated the Weimar Imperial Constitution.
literature
- Franz J. Bauer: People's Courts, 1918–1924 . In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria
- Franz J. Bauer, Eduard Schmidt: The Bavarian People's Courts 1918–1924. The problem of their compatibility with the Weimar constitution. In: Journal for Bavarian State History . Volume 48, 1985, pp. 449-478 ( online ).