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Why It Is High Time to Reform the Homicide Statutes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Heiko Maas

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The Bremen Regional Court is located in a monumental building – the Altes Gerichtshaus (Old Courthouse). A stone slab has adorned its facade since time immemorial. It has been placed directly under the jury courtroom – where the capital crimes come to trial. The inscription on the slab reads: “Thou shalt not kill.” During the National Socialist dictatorship the ruling powers wanted to take down the slab and destroy it. But some citizens of Bremen stopped them. Instead, the commandment against killing was merely covered with a stone slab and not uncovered again until after 1945. The admonition can still be seen today at the Bremen Regional Court. This episode from Bremen's judicial history brings to light three things. First, “Thou shalt not kill” – one of the ten Biblical commandments – is the archetype for all rules associated with human coexistence. Second, the commandment did not suit the agenda of the National Socialists, who perfected the killing of human beings in their extermination camps with industrial means. Third, the people sensed intuitively that rejecting the commandment against killing was a fatal error that would lead to barbarism. That is why they made sure the commandment stayed where it was, even though it became invisible during the Nazi dictatorship.

Type
Speech
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 6 , 01 October 2014 , pp. 1029 - 1034
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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