Aus der Praxis des Reichskriegsgerichts. Neue Dokumente zur Militärgerichtsbarkeit im Zweiten Weltkrieg

The article is based on documents which were believed to have been lost or destroyed at the end of World War II. It is the first time that an author has been given the opportunity to conduct research in the Reichskriegsgericht files in the Czechoslovakian military archives in Prague, even though GDR secret and military services held microfilm copies. Contradicting a widespread myth according to which the Reichskriegsgericht was a place of juridicial honesty within a system of injustice, the sources give another picture: with about 1200 juridicial victims of capital punishment - half of them were foreigners - the Reichskriegsgericht played an important part within the ruling National Socialist system. The article not only deals with the organisation and structure of the highest military court but also reflects the history of those victims who belonged to the German resistance movement, among them members of the anti-Hitler conspiracy of 20th 1944, conscientious objectors (mainly 'Jehova's Witnesses') or oppositional Catholic priests of the city of Stettin. Mentioning the trials against Wehrmachtgenerals who surrendered in 1944 or the condemnation of members of the national resistance of several European occupied countries, the author reveals the wide range of unexamined aspects within the history of the Reichskriegsgericht, which was an integral part of the National Socialist system of persecution and repression.