SS Court Main Office
Allgemeine-SS |
The SS Court Main Office (
History
Early in the Nazi regime, SS personnel were charged with breaking the law through the performance of their duties at the Dachau concentration camp in 1934. Under such circumstances, the Nazi Party realised it would be expedient to remove the SS and police units from the jurisdiction of the civilian courts. This was achieved with a petition to the Reich Ministry of Justice.
This legal status meant all SS personnel were only accountable to the Hauptamt SS Gericht. This effectively placed the SS above German law and able to live by its own rules and conventions.[2]
Organization
The SS Court Main Office was an extension of the SS Gericht (SS Court), an organization that administered surveys of the SS and police forces and their codes of honor. The organisation had four departments (German: Ämter or Amtsgruppe):[3]
- Amt (Department) I: Legal affairs - SS-Oberführer Reinecke
- Amt II: Organisation, personnel & disciplinary matters - SS-Obersturmbannführer Hinderfield
- Amt III: Pardons, reprieves and the execution of sentences - SS-Sturmbannführer Burmeister
- Amt IV: Liaison office - SS-Obersturmbannführer Krause
The SS Court Main Office headquarters were the high court offices in Munich. The organisation had over 600 lawyers that passed sentences on members of the German armed forces and SS, though Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, would intervene as he saw fit when it came to conviction and the sentencing phase.[4] By 1944, the number of the "SS Main Offices" within Germany had grown from 8 to 12.
SS and Police Courts
The SS Court Main Office administered also 38 regional SS courts throughout Nazi Germany under legal jurisdiction which superseded civilian courts. These laws extended to all SS and police force members operating in Germany or throughout occupied Europe.[5]
The SS and Police Courts were the only authority that could try SS personnel for criminal behaviour. The different SS and Police Courts were as follows:
- SS- und Polizeigericht: Standard SS and Police Court for trials of SS officers and enlisted men accused of minor and somewhat serious crimes
- Feldgerichte: Waffen-SS Court for court-martials of Waffen-SS personnel accused of violating the military penal code of the German Armed Forces.
- Oberstes SS- und Polizeigericht: The Supreme SS and Police Court for trial of serious crimes and also any infraction committed by SS generals.
- SS- und Polizeigericht z.b. V.: The Extraordinary SS and Police Court was a special tribunal that was assembled to deal with highly sensitive issues which were desired to be kept secret even from the SS itself.
The one exception to the SS and Police Courts jurisdiction involved members of the SS who were serving on active duty in the Wehrmacht (armed forces). In such cases, the SS member in question was subject to military law and could face charges before a standard military tribunal.[6]
Investigations by Judge Georg Konrad Morgen
In 1943 SS-
In 1944, while investigating the
Morgen, who had been an SS judge and investigator, later testified at the
References
- ^ McNab, Chris (2009). The SS: 1923–1945, p. 37
- ^ McNab, Chris (2009). The SS: 1923–1945, p. 41
- ^ McNab. The SS: 1923–1945, p. 41
- ^ McNab, Chris (2009). The SS: 1923–1945, pp. 37, 40, 41
- ^ Höhne, Heinz. The Order of the Death's Head, The Story of Hitler's SS. London: Pan Books Ltd
- ^ McNab. The SS: 1923–1945, p. 41
- ^ "SS-Hauptscharfuhrer Konrad Morgen - the Bloodhound Judge". BBC. Retrieved 2009-06-25.
- Toland, John(1976). Adolf Hitler, pp. 845–846