Special Jurisdiction from the Bavarian Soviet Republic to the Hitler-Trial. Bavarian People´s Courts (1919-1924)

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Arnd Koch; Professor Dr. Martin Löhnig
• Subject Area: Principles of Law and Jurisprudence ; Criminal Law
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 525789955

Criminal justice is the yardstick for the rule of law in times of political up-heaval. "Undemocratic", "blind in the right eye", "political", these are the terms most often used to characterise the judicial practice of the Weimar period. However, there are no legal-historical works that could prove or disprove these evaluations on the basis of historical sources. The aim of the project is therefore to examine these evaluations using the example of the Bavarian drumhead courts martial (Standgerichte) and people´s court (Volksgerichte). The majority of criminal proceedings in Bavaria took place before these courts from 1918 to 1924. This also includes the proceedings against members of the Bavarian Soviet Republic (Räterepublikaner) (1919) or the so-called Hitler putschists (1923/24). The judicial practice will be examined on the basis of an analysis of the trial files. This includes those sources that allow conclusions to be drawn about which procee-dings were not carried out due to amnesties or service orders. The project combines the interests of procedural history with those of dogmatic history and social history. In this way, the evaluation of judicial practice can be placed on a broad scientific basis. The concept of „political justice“ will be clarified by pointing out the legal weaknesses in the design of the administration of justice and by gathering comprehensive information on the social backgrounds of those involved in the trials and the possib-le references to sentencing practice. After an initial random examination of the Bavarian file holdings, we cansurmise: A more differentiated evaluation of Bavarian judicial practice is required than has been the case so far. This, in turn, can give us reason to examine and differentiate common theories about the role of the judiciary in the functioning or failure of the Weimar Republic. In this context, moreo-ver, existing knowledge must be reclassified. On the one hand, the Hitler-Ludendorff trial is probably the best researched trial of a people´s court (Volksgericht). On the other hand, there is a lack of knowledge about its legal-historical and socio-historical context; only this context, however, makes it possible to comprehensively situate this trial in Weimar judicial practice. We want to accomplish this re-location as well as a diachronic re-evaluation of trial models and regulations on the rules of procedure that characterise the German special courts (Sondergerichte) as a juridical in-stitution – for example, with regard to proceduaral innovations such as lay participation in criminal proceedings.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants