1. For a bibliographical essay on the now quite substantial literature on the administration of justice in the Nazi period, see the introduction to Stolleis, Michael, The Law under the Swastika: Studies on Legal History in Nazi Germany, trans. Dunlap, T. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).Google Scholar

2. This was, for example, the position of Hermann Weinkauff, from 1949 to 1960 president of the Federal High Court (Bundesgerichtshof) of the German Federal Republic. See Weinkauff, Hermann, Die deutsche Justiz und der Nationalsozialismus: Ein Überblick (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968), 28–31.Google Scholar Weinkauff was also a senior judge during the Nazi period, serving on the highest regular court, the Reichsgericht.

3. Unger, Roberto, Law in Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory (New York: Free Press, 1976), 217, 220.Google Scholar It was precisely the willingness of courts to apply principles of good faith in civil adjudication that Weinkauff praises, although, unlike Unger, he sees this as exceptional rather than characteristic of adjudication in the Weimar period. Weinkauff, Die deutsche Justiz und der Nationalsozialismus, 31.

4. Unger, Law in Modern Society, 220. Unger's book deals with the Nazi period only briefly, but its conclusions are supported, at least in some degree, by more detailed studies. Rüthers, Bernd, Die unbegrenzte Auslegung: Zum Wandel der Privatrechtsordnung im Nationalsozialismus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1968)Google Scholar, also argues that “the development of the law in National Socialism was to a very considerable degree a result of interpretations that changed the law…. This is not compatible with a theoretical emphasis on a strict legal positivism” (99). Rüthers also stresses the ways in which the methods of the courts in the Nazi period in this regard followed precedents from Weimar (4). More recent studies come to similar conclusions. See, for example, Angermund, Ralph, Deutsche Richterschaft 1919–1945: Krisenerfahrung, Illusion, politische Rechtsprechung (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990), 119Google Scholar (“the position that judges were required to obey pre-National Socialist laws was no longer found in professional legal journals in the mid-1930s”), and Müller, Ingo, Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich, trans. Schneider, Deborah (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 296Google Scholar (the German administration of justice came to share “Hitler's aversion to all ‘legal-mindedness’”). Müller and Angermund's focus on instances of twisting of the law or deviation from it may also reflect an evidentiary problem, the difficulty of deciphering the political views of individuals living under a dictatorship. Willingness to twist the law to persecute racial or political enemies of the regime—or, for that matter, to protect them—is better evidence of the views of a judge or prosecutor than enforcement of the plain language of a statute.

5. By administration of justice I mean the Reich and state ministries of justice, as well as courts and prosecutors.

6. Gruchmann, Lothar, Justiz, im Dritten Reich 1933–1940: Anpassung und Unterwerfung in der Ära Gürtner (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1988), 289.Google Scholar The German term Rechtsstaat and the related adjective rechtsstaatlich are difficult to translate into English. “State governed by the rule of law” perhaps comes closest, but fails to convey the extent to which this aspect was understood as the defining characteristic of the state. As noted below, the term Rechtsstaat, perhaps because of the emotional weight it carries in Germany, came to have a range of meanings.

7. Article 103 of the Grundgesetz. See generally Tauber, Andrew, Tyranny on Trial: The Politics of Natural Law and Legal Positivism in the Federal Republic of Germany (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997), 21–113.Google Scholar Tauber argues that when West German courts punished Nazi officials, they often did so by reinterpreting Nazi statutes so as to deprive the officials in question of a legal sanction for their acts.

8. Zweites Gesetz zur Änderung des Gesetzes zur Regelung der Rechtsverhältnisse der unter Artikel 131 des Grundgesetzes fallenden Personen of September 11, 1957, Bundesgesetzblatt, Part 1, 1275. The law also made violation of principles of humanity a basis for denying pension and other rights. But the significance of this clause, given West German courts' generally positivistic interpretation of Nazi law, was limited.

9. Tauber, Tyranny on Trial, 84–101; Kasten, Bernd, “Pensionen für NS-Verbrecher in der Bundesrepublik 1949–1963,” Historische Mitteilungen 7 (1994): 262–82.Google Scholar Kasten notes that Gestapo members as a group generally lost all rights to pensions. For other general depictions of the widespread reluctance in the German Federal Republic to prosecute or in any way disadvantage even very senior Nazi officials, at least until the late 1960s, see Kruse, Falko, “Zur justitiellen Verfolgung von NS-Gewaltverbrechen in der Bundesrepublik,” in Der Unrechts-Staat: Recht und Justiz im Nationalsozialismus (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1979), 164–89Google Scholar, and Im Namen des Deutschen Volkes: Justiz und Nationalsozialismus, catalogue to an exhibit produced by the Ministry of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1989), 353–452.

10. For a more elaborate discussion of the central role of legal ideologies in molding German conceptions of state and society in the nineteenth century, see Ledford, Kenneth F., From General Estate to Special Interest: German Lawyers, 1878–1933 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), xxvi–xxvii, 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. The history of the concept of Rechtsstaatlichkeit is described by Maus, Ingeborg, “Entwicklung und Funktionswandel der Theorie des bürgerlichen Rechtsstaats,” in Der Bürgerliche Rechtsstaat, ed. Tohidipur, Mehdi (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978), 13–81Google Scholar; Dietze, Gottfried, Two Concepts of the Rule of Law (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1973), 9–51Google Scholar; Kelsen, Hans, Pure Theory of Law, trans. Knight, Max (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 313, 319Google Scholar; and Krieger, Leonard, The German Idea of Freedom: History of a Political Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957)Google Scholar, especially the chapter entitled “The Doctrine of the Rechtsstaat,” 252–61.

12. These debates are described and analyzed in Caldwell, Peter, “National Socialism and Constitutional Law: Carl Schmitt, Otto Koellreutter, and the Debate over the Nature of the Nazi State, 1933–1937,” Cardozo Law Review 16 (1994): 399⁁27Google Scholar, and Schellenberg, Ulrich, “Die Rechtsstaatskritik: Vom liberalen zum nationalen und nationalsozialistischen Rechtsstaat,” in Staatsrecht und Staatsrechtslehre im Dritten Reich, ed. Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang (Heidelberg: C. F. Müller, 1985).Google Scholar

13. Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang, “The Origin and Development of the Concept of the Rechtsstaat,” in his State, Society, and Liberty: Studies in Political Theory and Constitutional Law, trans. Underwood, J. A. (New York: Berg, 1991), 47–70, 69.Google Scholar

14. In part for this reason, Schlegelberger has been the subject of three recent biographies, one by the author of this article. See Förster, Michael, Jurist im Dienst des Unrechts: Leben und Werk des ehemaligen Staatssekretärs im Reichsjustizministerium, Franz Schlegelberger, 1876–1970 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995)Google Scholar; Nathans, Eli, Franz Schlegelberger (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1990)Google Scholar; and Wulff, Arne, Staatssekretär Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Franz Schlegelberger, 1876–1970 (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1991).Google Scholar

15. Förster's interpretation of Schlegelberger's intellectual development, in Jurist im Dienst des Unrechts, Stresses more the role played by ideas absorbed during Schlegelberger's student years and early in his career. According to Förster, Schlegelberger's criticism of liberalism and individualism during the Nazi period “did not involve a revision of his previous views, but was based on a foundation laid at the beginning of his scholarly activity. They were the fruits of the seeds sown by his teachers Gareis and Zorn” (20, 45). There probably is some truth in this, although Förster notes that Schlegelberger's earliest extant publication praised rather than damned the liberal and individualistic Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (Civil Law Code). The general point, that Schlegelberger's legal and political philosophy largely antedated the Weimar Republic, is certainly correct and suggests problems with Unger's interpretation.

16. Schlegelberger, Franz, Zur Rationalisierung der Gesetzgebung (Berlin: Vahlen, 1928), 15.Google Scholar

17. “Kunstschaffen und Gesetzgebung,” Deutsche Justiz 99 (1937): 1942–43.

18. Schlegelberger, Franz, Ein Volk erlebt sein Recht (Berlin: Vahlen, 1936), 10Google Scholar; “Kunstschaffen und Gesetzgebung,” 1943; Zur Rationalisierung der Gesetzgebung (Berlin: Vahlen, 1959), 23.

19. See, for example, Schlegelberger, , Ein Volk erlebt sein Recht and Die Entwicklung des deutschen Rechts im Dritten Reich (Berlin: Vahlen, 1938), 21.Google Scholar

20. After 1945, and in particular after 1957, Schlegelberger repeatedly described his own behavior in terms of a defense of Rechtsstaatlichkeit. A West German administrative court that ruled on state efforts to deprive Schlegelberger of his official pension on the grounds that he had violated the principles of Rechtsstaatlichkeit summarized Schlegelberger's argument as follows: he had “remained in office only with the intention of maintaining to the extent possible the principles of Rechtsstaatlichkeit.” Schlegelberger claimed he had consciously violated certain fundamental principles of Rechtsstaatlichkeit in order to fend off worse violations. Verdict of the Administrative Appeals Court in Lüneburg dated March 14, 1963, in the case regarding the revocation of Schlegelberger's pension rights, Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, AZ 5 K 198/59, Abt. 791, Nr. 244, 43.

21. See the discussion at footnote 12.

22. For example, Schlegelberger, Franz, Die Entwicklung des Deutschen Rechts in den letzten 15 Jahren (Berlin: Vahlen, 1930), 41Google Scholar, and, in particular, Schlegelberger, Franz, Abschied vom BGB (Berlin: Vahlen, 1937).Google Scholar

23. Franz Schlegelberger, Zur Rationalisierung der Gesetzgebung, 13. Such views were widely held in conservative circles. See Angermund, Deutsche Richterschaft, 39–40.

24. The title of Schlegelberger's article, the “rationalization” of legislation, is telling. It reflects his repeated claims that his approach was superior as a matter of logic and reason.

25. Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof (Nuremberg, 1948), 20:292.

26. Hattenhauer, Hans, “Vom Reichsjustizamt zum Bundesministerium der Justiz,” in Vom Reichsjustizamt zum Bundesministerium der Justiz: Festschrift zum WO jährigen Gründungstag des Reichsjustizamtes am 1. Januar 1877, published by the Ministry of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cologne: Bundesanzeiger-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1977), 97.Google Scholar In his article Hattenhauer quotes a small portion of Schlegelberger's unpublished memoirs.

27. As Schlegelberger put it in his memoirs, “at that point the head of state was not Adolf Hitler, but Hindenburg, who offered in his person a guarantee that the government would be properly led” (97).

28. Schlegelberger quoted Bismarck as calling the parties “an evil that is devouring the fatherland.” Schlegelberger, Franz, “Reichsjustiz im Zweiten und im Dritten Reich,” Deutsche Justiz. 97 (1935): 465–68, 467.Google Scholar

29. Minuth, Karl-Heinz, ed., Die Regierung Hitler: 1933/34, vol. 1 of Akten der Reichskanzlei. Regierung Hitler 1933–1938 (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1983), 165.Google Scholar

30. Memorandum entitled “Aufzeichnung zur Frage der Bestrafung der Täter, die am 27. Februar 1933 das Reichstagsgebäude in Brand gesetzt haben,” March 10, 1933, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Germany (hereafter BA) File R 43 11/294, 57.

31. Ibid., 52.

32. Schlegelberger's concern that the courts might come into conflict with the new regime was expressed even more explicitly a few weeks later, on the eve of the April 1 national boycott of all Jewish businesses. Schlegelberger feared that Jewish store owners might ask the courts to protect their businesses, or to order compensation for the damage they had suffered, and that some courts might agree with them. At the cabinet meeting of March 31, 1933, he proposed a law that would have made clear that the boycott was not an illegal interference with the Jews' right to conduct their businesses. “If such a law were not fashioned,” he told the cabinet, “the courts might have difficulties….” The cabinet found such a law unnecessary. Minuth, Die Regierung Hitler, 276.

33. Schlegelberger Testimony, Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof, 20:293. By contrast, Gruchmann speculates that when Gürtner discussed the killings with Hitler shortly after they took place, he must have raised questions that “deeply anguished” him (“…die [Gürtner] auf der Seele brennen muβten…”). Gruchmann, Justiz im Dritten Reich, 447. Gruchmann suggests that Gürtner supported the law that sanctioned the Röhm murders because he saw it, correctly, as the only way to preserve the “normative legal order” (452). Schlegelberger's testimony suggests that he, at least, viewed the law simply as correct, at least as it applied to the killings of SA leaders: the murders were justified. I disagree with Gruchmann's claim that adopting a law justifying the killings was, under the circumstances, the best way to uphold the rule of law. This conclusion fails to give sufficient weight to the role the retroactive sanctioning of the killings played in strengthening Hitler's dictatorial powers.

34. Transcript of the meeting of the Committee for Civil Law of the Akademie für Deutsches Recht, November 14, 1934, BA R 22/646, 13. It was precisely for “Gelegenheitsgesetzgebung” that Schlegelberger had attacked the Weimar Republic in a speech delivered only a few months earlier: “War and the post-war period, the destruction of the currency, inflation, deflation, the falling apart of morals and the disorder of the state all created such a mass of legislation for the moment, that it finally became unmasterable and not only foreign to the nation, but contemptible.” Schlegelberger, Franz, Vom Beruf unserer Zeit zur Gesetzgebung (Berlin: Vahlen, 1934), 11.Google Scholar

35. Schlegelberger, Franz, “Rechtsschöpfung,” Deutsche Justiz 94 (1934): 4.Google Scholar

36. See Schlegelberger, Franz, Was erwarten das deutsche Volk und der deutsche Jurist von der Vereinheitlichung der deutschen Justiz (Berlin: Vahlen, 1934).Google Scholar The unification of the administration of justice also removed several radical and ambitious leaders of the Nazi Party, with whom the Reich Justice Ministry had frequently clashed, from their positions as state justice ministers: Hans Frank in Bavaria, Hanns Kerrl in Prussia, and Otto Thier-ack in Saxony.

37. Magdeburger General-Anzeiger, March 14, 1936, BA R 22, Press Reports regarding Franz Schlegelberger, vol. 1. For other, similar statements, see Nathans, Franz Schlegelberger, 28–39.

38. Schlegelberger, Ein Volk erlebt sein Recht, 7.

39. Schlegelberger, Die Entwicklung des deutschen Rechts im Dritten Reich, 21. As with his advocacy of a revision of the civil code, this was not a new theme for Schlegelberger. During the Weimar period he had also attacked judges who refused to follow particular laws because they seemed unjust: “this must necessarily lead to legal anarchy.” Schlegelberger, Die Entwicklung des Deutschen Rechts in den letzten 15 Jahren, 27. Although Schlegelberger supported judicial willingness in the Weimar period to revalue debts on the basis of general principles of good faith, I do not conclude from this that he wished judges generally to be freed from a tight subordination to the law. Compare Förster, Jurist im Dienst des Unrechts, 30, 34.

40. Schlegelberger, Ein Volk erlebt sein Recht, 14.

41. Schlegelberger (as Gürtner's representative) to the President of the Berlin Court of Appeals (Kammergericht), April 13, 1935, BA R 22/263. Schlegelberger (as Gürtner's representative) to the President of the Cologne Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht), April 13, 1935, BA R 22/263. The quotation is from the letter sent to the president of the court of appeals in Cologne.

42. Schlegelberger, Vom Beruf unserer Zeit zur Gesetzgebung, 25. Similarly in Schlegelberger, Ein Volk erlebt sein Recht, 8.

43. Schlegelberger, Abschied vom BGB. As Förster notes, Schlegelberger's criticisms mirrored similar attacks made in the period when the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch first came into being in the Kaiserreich.

44. Schlegelberger to the Representative of the Führer, the Chief of the Reich Chancellory, Field Marshall Goering, the Foreign Minister, the Interior Minister, the Propaganda Minister, the Finance Minister, the Economics Minister, and the Minister for Food and Agriculture, December 12, 1938, BA R 22/728, 203; Schlegelberger to the Interior Minister and, for information purposes, to the other Ministers, July 19, 1939, BA R 43 II/135, 56 (back side). Schlegelberger signed both letters “In Vertretung,” or as representative of the minister, and one can assume that Gürtner was informed of and approved of Schlegelberger's actions. The right of the state secretary to sign correspondence on behalf of the minister was regulated by the General Code of Administrative Procedure. See Brecht, Arnold and Glaser, Comstock, The Art and Technique of Administration in German Ministries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940), 76.Google Scholar

45. Schlegelberger (as Gürtner's representative— “in Vertretung”) to Hitler, March 30, 1933; Schlegelberger (again as Gürtner's representative) to Hitler, April 5, 1933, both in BA R 43 II/1505.

46. American Military Tribunal Trial, German Language Transcript, 4339–4340. That Schlegelberger ever told Hitler that what he intended to do was “impossible” is highly doubtful; but one can believe that he did bring up the question of judicial independence in his final interview.

47. On this question, see generally Nathans, Franz Schlegelberger, 23–26.

48. Introductory remarks of Gürtner, October 24, 1939, BA R 22/4158, 62–67, 63.

49. Schlegelberger, Franz, “Kriegs-Zivilrecht, einst und jetzt,” Deutsche Justiz 101 (1939): 1881–82, 1881.Google Scholar

50. A draft of Schlegelberger's letter, which was sent to the head of the Reich Chancellory, Hans Lammers, on March 6, 1940, is contained in BA R 22/256. Since Schlegelberger signed the letter “In Vertretung,” one can assume that Gürtner supported the idea. Lammers replied to Gürtner that he did not wish to propose the idea to Hitler, on the grounds: 1) that the other free professions would likely demand similar rules, which would place an unnecessary burden on Hitler (who would have to approve dismissals); 2) that lawyers in private practice were not representatives of the state, and the state therefore had less of an interest in their undivided loyalty than was the case with civil servants; and 3) that attacks on the loyalty of individual attorneys might be used as a weapon in the struggle for business. Lammers to Gürtner, April 9, 1940, BA R 22/256. For civil servants, of course, no such doubts arose. Schlegelberger told senior prosecutors and appellate courts judges in April 1941 that “our duty is consciously and uncompromisingly to make the justice system more and more a part of the National Socialist state.” Schlegelberger speech of April 23, 1941, BA R 22/ 245, 57. Gruchmann does not mention Schlegelberger's (and, again, presumably Gürtner's) proposal regarding lawyers.

51. Shortly after becoming acting minister, Schlegelberger published a notice in Deutsche Justiz on the occasion of Hitler's birthday that evidences the effect of the German army's successes and, probably, his own sense of the weakness of his position, his need to demonstrate his full loyalty: “On the threshold of the new year of life the Führer looks back on military and political victories such as no other man has been granted in so short a time. Therefore we are dominated today by a feeling of indelible thanks to the man who gave back to the German people its unity, freedom, and honor…. All for Adolf Hitler and Germany!” Deutsche Justiz 103 (1941): 477.

52. Schlegelberger to Hitler, March 10, 1941, reproduced in Broszat, Martin, “Zur Perversion der Strafjustiz im Dritten Reich,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 6 (1958): 390–443, 418.Google Scholar

53. Meissner to Schlegelberger, April 22, 1941. Ibid., 418–19.

54. The judge reported after the war that Gürtner had told him: “If you cannot recognize the will of the Führer as the source of law, as the foundation of law, you can no longer be a judge.” Gruchmann, Justiz im Dritten Reich, 512.

55. Schlegelberger to Lammers, March 4, 1941, BA R/22 4209, 77–80, 79.

56. Introductory remarks of Schlegelberger, April 23, 1941, BA R/22 245, 56–61, 60.

57. “Alle Rechtspflege ist eine politische Tätigkeit.” Boberach, Heinz, Richterbriefe: Dokumente zur Beeinflussung der deutschen Rechtsprechung, 1942–1944 (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1975), 425.Google Scholar

58. Ibid, 425.

59. Ibid, 426. He also mentioned a third case in which execution was imminent.

60. Weber, Max, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie, ed. Winckelmann, Johannes, 5th rev. ed. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1976), 514 (chapter entitled “Politische Gemeinschaften”).Google Scholar

61. Schmitt, Carl, Der Begriff des Politischen (1932; Berlin: Duncker and Humboldt, 1996).Google Scholar

62. Schlegelberger claimed in his 1959 appeal of the revocation of his pension that the stenographer had made a mistake and had recorded him as the author of the words in question, instead of Roland Freisler, the second state secretary in the Justice Ministry. The suggestion that the stenographer mistakenly identified the leading figure in the agency is in the highest degree unlikely, and the content of the talk also makes clear that Schlegelberger was the speaker (among other things, it refers to Freisler in the third person). Verdict of the Administrative Appeals Court dated March 14, 1963, in the case regarding the revocation of Schlegelberger's pension rights, Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, AZ 5 K 198/59, Abt. 791, Nr. 244, 15.

63. Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof, 20:296–97. Schlegelberger stated that Hitler released him from his office because he knew that Schlegelberger disapproved of his attacks on the independence of the judiciary. He testified elsewhere that it was Hitler's speech of April 1942, attacking the judiciary and claiming the right to remove judges, that led him to the conclusion that he could no longer go along. Schlegelberger Interrogation of November 13, 1946, Interrogation No. 216, National Archives Record Group No. 238, 2.

64. Quoted in Hattenhauer, “Vom Reichsjustizamt zum Bundesministerium der Justiz,” 97. Schlegelberger also claimed, and here one can entirely believe him, that Hitler offered to appoint him president of the administrative court after the decision to appoint Thierack justice minister had been made, but that he had insisted on being retired. American Military Tribunal Trial, German Language Transcript, 4339.

65. Schlegelberger testified before the American Military Tribunal that “if one had attempted to refer to the Reich Civil Service Law, paragraph 60 of which gave one the right to resign, one certainly would not have been listened to.” American Military Tribunal Trial, German Language Transcript, 4463. Section 60 of the Civil Service Law provided that “the Civil Servant can demand his release at any time…. The demand must be granted, although the release can be delayed until the Civil Servant has finished his official business in an orderly way.” Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I (1937), 50. A March 1939 amendment to the Civil Service Law provided that “…until December 31, 1941, requests to be let go by civil servants (under Section 60 of the German Civil Service Law) need not be granted.” Gesetz zur Änderung des Deutschen Beamtengesetzes, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I (1939), 578. This clause was continued in force beyond December 31, 1941, by a subsequent law, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I (1941), 648.

66. This explanation, however, would have raised questions about why he did not reach such a decision earlier.

67. American Military Tribunal Trial, English Language Transcript, 10794.

68. Verdict of the Administrative Appeals Court dated March 14, 1963, in the case regarding the revocation of Schlegelberger's pension rights, Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, AZ 5 K 198/59, Abt. 791, Nr. 244, 4.

69. Ibid, 4; Im Namen des Deutschen Volkes—Justiz und Nationalsozialismus, 415–16.

70. Verdict of the Administrative Appeals Court dated March 14, 1963, in the case regarding the revocation of Schlegelberger's pension rights, Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, AZ 5 K 198/59, Abt. 791, Nr. 244, esp. 46–48.

71. lm Namen des Deutschen Volkes—Justiz, und Nationalsozialismus, 364.

72. Here referring to different findings by courts regarding the legal rights of Jews in the aftermath of the pogrom of November 1938. Schlegelberger (as Gürtner's representative) to the Representative of the Führer, the Chief of the Reich Chancellory, Field Marshall Goering, the Foreign Minister, the Interior Minister, the Propaganda Minister, the Finance Minister, the Economics Minister, and the Minister for Food and Agriculture, December 12, 1938, BA R 22/728, 203–4, 203.

73. As this suggests, and as Pierre Bourdieu has argued with respect to official ideologies generally, the form taken by the ideology of authoritarian legal order reflected “the social conditions of [its] production and circulation,” the functions it performed “for specialists competing for a monopoly over the competence under consideration.” Bourdieu, Pierre, “On Symbolic Power,” in Language and Symbolic Power, trans. Raymond, Gino and Adamson, Matthew (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 169.Google Scholar Of course, an ideology is only effective if it can appeal to a broader group than the specialists who create and propagate it. The suggestion that ideologies are shaped by the functions they perform for particular elite groups does not mean that this elite views it purely instrumentally. That was certainly not the case here.

74. Schröder, Rainer, “… Aber im Zivilrecht sind die Richter standhaft geblieben!” (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1988), 269–70.Google Scholar

75. Several examples have been noted above. These and other instances are discussed at greater length in Nathans, Franz Schlegelberger, 30, 73, and 80, and notes 52 and 80, as well as Förster, Jurist im Dienst des Unrechts, 157.