Sex Crimes under the Wehrmacht

2. The Military Administration of Justice, 1933-39

CHAPTER TWO The Military Administration of Justice, 1933–39 During the revolutionary upheavals of 1848, German liberals criticized special military jurisdiction as a violation of the liberal constitutional principle of the equality of citizens. In the Imperial German era, socialists regarded the military administration of justice as a central feature of Prussian militarism—as a tool employed by reactionary forces for the maintenance of the traditional social and political structure.1 The Social Democrats took the lead in the battle against military jurisdiction after the November Revolution of 1918, and Article 106 of the Weimar Constitution abolished the military administration of justice, except on board ship and in time of war.2 After the National Socialist seizure of power on January 30, 1933, however, the prerequisites for the reintroduction of military jurisdiction appeared to be at hand. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before the German Armed Forces (Reichswehr), once informed of Hitler’s future military and foreign political plans, set about rebuilding the military administration of justice.3 The Defense Ministry (Reichswehrministerium) began designing a new military penal code immediately after General Werner von Blomberg took office as Defense Minister on January 30, 1933. On April 24, 1933, von Blomberg presented a draft to Hitler’s cabinet . In support of his outline for the new military judicial system, he stated, “Since the political situation has changed, the time has come to reintroduce military jurisdiction in order to prevent the danger that would arise during war in this area, but also to guarantee the absolute requirements for the new, presumably changed, armed forces.”4 Von Blomberg referred in this passage to the perceived lessons Germany had taken from the First World War. In right-wing circles, the opinion had been widespread that it was not a superior opponent that had defeated the Imperial German Army in 1918. On the contrary, defeat had been caused, in part, by a weak military judiciary that allowed “thousands upon thousands of deserters, psychopaths, and malinger- 20 PA R T I ers to loaf around behind the front,” traitors who “finally shoved a knife into the back of the fighting troops.”5 The war weariness and defeatism that spread through the ranks, the legend held, could be attributed not to the military leadership’s poor strategic choices but instead to an ineffective military administration of justice eviscerated by weak penal codes and lenient judges. Leniency would now be replaced by severity, and the penal codes intensified. “Wehrmacht jurists brought to expression their conception of . . . military law: harshness rather than mildness, freedom of form rather than 100 percent legal guarantees, speed rather than detailed thoroughness, and the priority of military interests rather than the interest of the individual.”6 The new military administration of justice would be the opposite of its predecessor. Passed on May 12, 1933, the Law for the Reintroduction of Military Jurisdiction, one of the regime’s earliest legislative measures, became effective on January 1, 1934.7 Denied the opportunity to pursue their craft during the Weimar Republic, former military jurists, primarily right-wing nationalists, expressed overwhelming joy for this “gift from the Führer.” Through modifications on November 23, 1934, and July 16, 1935, the German Armed Forces adapted the Imperial German Military Criminal Code of 1898 to fit the new requirements referred to by von Blomberg.8 Most of the mitigation clauses that the Social Democrats had forced on Kaiser Wilhelm II during the First World War were expunged.9 Despite much discussion and planning, however, the Defense Ministry never created a new National Socialist military criminal code.10 To the military leadership and its new jurists, the Imperial German (that is, Prussian) codes, having been purged of all liberal elements, appeared quite sufficient for their purposes.11 From the beginning, Nazi Germany’s military jurists had been driven to atone for what many on the right perceived as the military judiciary’s failure during the First World War to maintain discipline. The military administration of justice, supposedly hampered by burdensome formalities and lenient sentencing provisions, allowed discipline to disintegrate after 1917, ultimately contributing to the November Revolution of 1918 and the mythical stab in the back.12 For militarists and right-wing nationalists, the numbers told the story. During the Great War, British courts-martial had imposed T H E M I L I TA R Y A D M I N...