The Tribunal of the people ( of Volksgerichtshof , VGH) was a special court, more precisely a court political aiming at the judgment for high treason and reached to the state security against the Nazi regime.
It was set up by Adolf Hitler after the episode of the fire of the Palais of the Reichstag, caused by the Nazis with an aim of justifying the suppression of individual freedoms which followed.
The court sat then in the buildings of the Neues Kammergericht (“new Court of Appeal”), built of 1909 to 1913 in the district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg to Berlin. After the war, this one sheltered the Conseil of interallied control, and more particularly starting from the blockade of 1948, the organism in charge of the control of the air lanes leading to Berlin. Since 1990, the Neues Kammergericht took again initial destination, since it accommodates from now on the Constitutional court of Berlin.
At January 1st, 1943, the Court of the people included/understood forty seven professional judges and ninety-five “voluntary” judges, including thirty officers, four police officers and forty-eight SA, S, NSKK and chiefs of the Jeunesses hitlériennes. In 1944 the number of the assessors was assembled to hundred soixante-treize and the number of prosecutors of Reich with a hundred and seventy-nine.
Presidents
- Fritz Rehn from July 1st, 1934 to September 18th, 1934.
- Otto Georg Thierack as from 1936.
- Roland Freisler of August 1942 at February 3rd 1945. It is under its presidency that the greatest number of judgments were marked.
- Harry Haffner from March 14th to April 24th, 1945.
Main victims
- Robert Abshagen
- Hans-Jürgen Graf von Blumenthal
- Eugen Bolz
- Klaus Bonhoeffer
- Bruno Binnebesel
- Alfred Delp
- Erich Fellgiebel
- Reinhold Frank
- Eugen Gerstenmaier
- Carl Friedrich Goerdeler
- Albrecht von Hagen
- Nikolaus Christoph von Halem
- Paul von Hase
- Robert Havemann
- Erich Hoepner
- Helmuth Hübener
- Marie-Shines Jahn
- Rudolf Kriss
- Hans Conrad Leipelt
- Wilhelm Leuschner
- max Josef Metzger
- Christoph Probst
- Siegfried Rädel
- Alexander Schmorell
- Hans Scholl
- Sophie Scholl
- Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg
- Eva Schulze-Knabe
- Bernhard Schwentner
- Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld
- Robert Stamm
- Berthold Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg
- Adam von Trott zu Solz
- Robert Uhrig
- Joseph Wirmer
- Eleonore Wolf
- Johannes Wüsten
- Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg
- Erwin von Witzleben
The Court of the people and the justice of post-war period
In 1956, the federal constitutional Tribunal granted to the members of the Court of the people the “privilege of the judge” ( of Richterprivileg ) according to whom nobody could not be condemned because of an infringement to the law or other offenses penal, if it had been held some with the laws then in force and the criminal character of its action had not recognized. In 1991, the public ministry of Berlin definitively adopted the procedures of investigation, although the Bundestag, on January 25th 1985, unanimously qualified the Court of the people of “instrument of terror having been used for the imposition of the despotism national-Socialist”. It is only into 1988 that the judgments of the Court of the people and other courses special were abolished by a law. None of some five hundred and seventy judges and prosecutors was constrained to be explained. Only four people were accused by the Federal Republic of Germany for assistance and denunciation.
Related articles
-
red Orchestra
- Hans and Sophie Scholl
- the white Rose
External bonds
, with a video- Exposure " Volksgerichtshof - court political of Hitler"
- Seminar on Volksgerichtshof (pdf)
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