We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Ein Rückzugsgefecht des Rechtsstaats 1934.
- Authors
Weitkamp, Sebastian
- Abstract
On 16 November 1934, the Landgericht [district court] Osnabrück sentenced SS-Sturmbannführer and former Concentration Camp Commander Heinrich Remmert to three months of prison for the mistreatment of prisoners in the Esterwegen Concentration Camp. The preceding investigations had revealed the shocking conditions in the early Emsland region Concentration Camps and the Osnabrück public prosecutors (with the political backing of Prussian Prime Minister Hermann Göring) were aiming at penalising this violence on a grand scale. The protection of the Berlin ministries faded, however, and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler ultimately prevented all further proceedings in this matter. The trial is a mostly unknown chapter in German judicial history and in research on the Concentration Camps. How was it possible that a German court sentenced a former Concentration Camp Commander for mistreating prisoners in November 1934? The article looks into the investigations of the prosecutors and the attempts of the Nazi Party, SA and SS to sabotage the trial. The Remmert Trial thus turned into a showdown between the remnants of the Rechtsstaat [rule of law] and the Nazi dictatorship during the early stage of the Nazi regime.
- Subjects
GERMANY; REMMERT, Heinrich; ESTERWEGEN (Germany : Concentration camp); CONCENTRATION camps; WORLD War II; RULE of law; NAZI Germany, 1933-1945
- Publication
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 2018, Vol 66, Issue 1, p43
- ISSN
0042-5702
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/vfzg-2018-0003