What happened to the German legal system under the nazis?

Answer 1

How did the German Legal system change as a result of Nazi 'leadership'?

Fear-mongering was the main tool used to change the law, and to undermine civil liberties. So, where the constitution was changed, the code of criminal procedure was also changed, extraordinary powers were vested in the Executive, including extensive police powers; and the powers of an independent judiciary were destroyed.

This was all done based on a "terrorist menace." And exactly what the menace was, shifted from time to time during the Nazi period. It was a matter of opportunism, or convenience.

Judges couldn't be impartial anymore. They used only Nazi interpretations in making their decisions. In the everyday practice of law the ideas of the Fuhrer (Hitler) were silently but loyally followed. People feared the legal system, but nobody could - legally - stop Hitler. And even Nazis no longer had the civil rights once guaranteed by the German constitution.

Hitler was asked - In September 1931: "How do you imagine the setting up of a Third Reich?" His reply was, " We will enter the legal organizations and will make our Party a decisive factor in this way. But when we do possess constitutional rights then we will form the State in the manner which we consider to be the right one." Hitler was asked: "This too by constitutional means ?" Hitler replied: "Yes."

Nazi conspirators participated in German elections, the legal system, and in the Reichstag to undermine the parliamentary and judicial system of the German Republic and to replace it with a dictatorship of their own.

On 30 April 1928, Goebbels wrote in his paper "Der Angriff": "We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, inside the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. We become members of the Reichstag in order to paralyze the liberal Weimar sentiment with its own assistance. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and per diem for the this "blockade" (Barendienst), that is its own affair." Later in the same article he continued: "We do not come as friend nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies: As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come."

Answer 2

The nazis were the German legal system. Fortunately, they didn't survive and Germany managed to regain a proper judicial system, eventually.

Answer 3

It became a tool of the political party. Not such a good thing. Ask the Attorney General.

Answer 4

So it did, even if gradually -- that frog in cold water thing.

I have to recommend to you Stanley Kramer's 1961 film Judgment at Nuremburg, whose subject is your exact question.

Answer 5

Did You tell the big bully in the class to get the H outa here ? or did you sit like a scared rabbit he'd pick on you ?
Dont ask Stupid Questions.