Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T11:35:10.016Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - The SS Jurisdiction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2020

Herlinde Pauer-Studer
Affiliation:
University of Vienna
Get access

Summary

The SS was a state within the state, the heart of terror, persecution, and murder. From a legal viewpoint it is significant that, from October 1939 (soon after the outbreak of World War II), the SS had its own military jurisdiction (for Waffen-SS members and special SS and police units). This chapter examines the normative framework of this jurisdiction, which was formally based on the military penal code though highly susceptible to SS ideology and Himmler’s perverted code of “decency and manly uprightness.” Especially challenging for the SS jurisdiction were crimes and murders committed by SS officers in the occupied parts of Poland, as well as the increasingly evident fact that orders for the mass murder of Jews came directly from the highest SS court instances, Himmler and Hitler himself. We discuss the reflections of SS Judge Norbert Pohl on the foundations of the SS jurisdiction, and how SS Judge Konrad Morgen tried to cope with his knowledge about the extermination camps and the murder of concentration camp inmates generally.

Type
Chapter
Information
Justifying Injustice
Legal Theory in Nazi Germany
, pp. 178 - 202
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×