Timon de Groot has written a detailed and compelling book on the use of felony disenfranchisement (die Aberkennung der bürgerlichen Ehrenrechte). The book traces the history of a penal practice of removing civil privileges—voting rights, rights to civil service, rights to serve in the military, among other things—that survived the transformation of German state and society in the long nineteenth century. The focus of de Groot's argument is, however, not on the penal code itself but on its intertwinement with the code of honor. He argues that Germans reacted to the dishonoring impact of felony disenfranchisement in the ways that reflected and reinforced the existing social hierarchies, “while others used it to fight for reforms” (6). The book is therefore a contribution to the expanding literature on the history of honor. While many studies have shown the intimate connection between practices of honor with individuation (Ute Frevert, Kevin McAleer, Ann Goldberg) and others have shown the intertwinement of honor with civil society (Andreas-Holger Maehle, Heikki Lempa), de Groot places honor in the formation of German state, especially the concept of citizenship.

The book, grounded in close reading of legal treatises, codes, and petitions of those deprived of their civil privileges, is divided into six chapters that follow a loose chronological order. De Groot starts with the introduction of felony disenfranchisement into German penal codes and legal thinking between 1806 and 1871. In the center of his attention are the notions of honor and trust that would become the very foundation of felony disenfranchisement in Imperial Germany. De Groot probes the intellectual history of honor especially as it was articulated in legal texts. It is here, however, that he could have clarified the meaning of honor, the horizon of its meanings in the early nineteenth century. In particular, he overlooks the social meaning of honor, although the seminal thinkers Hegel and, later, Simmel and Weber saw honor primarily as a social category. In chapter 2, de Groot delves in the incorporation and justification of felony disenfranchisement in the Penal Code of Imperial Germany. He pays special attention to such institutions of honor as the army and social security system. Chapter 3 continues the analysis of Imperial Germany by shifting the attention to the application of felony disenfranchisement in the actual performance of sentencing. Here the critical question is who were sentenced and how were they sentenced. During the years of Anti-Socialist Laws and its immediate aftermath, the Social Democrats became the prime targets of disenfranchisement. The law became increasingly politicized and thereby raised the question of how honorable the Social Democrats were, whether they had a “dishonorable disposition.” This remained a point of contention throughout Imperial Germany. In chapter 4, de Groot examines the experiences of the felons, that is, how seriously and in what sense they understood their conviction as dishonorable. The material is here especially rich consisting of many petitions that the felons had made to restore their civil honor. De Groot also probes the debate over and experience of rehabilitation, that is, whether and how one's honor could be restored. The last two chapters center on the slow decline and fragmentation of the practice starting with the Great War and continuing in the Weimar Republic. During the Nazi era, felony disenfranchisement was completely politicized. In fact, since the membership in the Volk was now the defining aspect of a German—only Germans could have honor—disenfranchisement lost its meaning as a juridical tool of defining citizenship.

The study is an investigation of a legal code that reveals an insight into the inner workings of Imperial Germany in the same compelling manner as Ann Goldberg's study of private prosecutions (Privatklage). Yet it also allows new questions. Felony disenfranchisement was grounded in the all-encompassing culture of honor. This culture pre-existed the introduction of the code and it also changed during the time of its application. What was then honor? How was it defined? Was honor something Julian Pitt-Rivers understood as one's own opinion of oneself and that in the eyes of the others? Was it closer to Hegel's idea of one's sense as a member of a status group (Stand)? Or was it something Simmel understood as a membership in and belonging to a group? The question is then how honor was defined and practiced outside the legal realm. Was there perhaps a discrepancy or asymmetry between one's honor as a citizen or as a rascal or member of a club? These are the questions that find an excellent point of departure in de Groot's study.