Obviously the racial laws and suchlike were repealed in 1945, but after all, the Nazis were in power for 12 years. In all that time, *some *uncontroversial legislation must surely have been passed - laws that could just as easily have been passed in the Allied countries. Are any laws of that nature, passed by Hitler’s government, still in force in Germany?
Since Hitler, upon assuming power, was a driving (sorry) force behind the construction of the Weimar-envisioned Autobahn, I’m guessing that, at minimum, some Nazi-era traffic statutes must still be in effect.
No. The 1949 Constitution replaced all existing law.
Worth noting, though, that laws passed during the Weimar period were later used to convict war criminals.
The Reichskonkordat between the German Reich and the Holy See is still in force.
The 1949 constitution (adopted in 1990 by the Esat German states) superseded all previous constitutional law but generally all pre-Federal Republic statutes remain in force unless specifically abolished. (This applies not only to Nazi-era legislation but also to laws of earlier predecessors of the Federal Republic, e.g. a 2007 law tidying up the statute books repealed no-longer-needed statutes dating from as early as 1874.
The most egregious Nazi legisation was repealed by Allied Control Council law #1 of 20 September 1945 (the laws in question were mostly concerned with abolishing parties and other democratic institutions, discriminating against Jews and establishing the People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof), the main instrument of judicial terror).
With the 1949 constitutions (separately in West and East Germany) all contrary legislation became inapplicable, of course. Since then the normal process of tinkering with legislation means that almost no Nazi-era statutes remain unchanged.
A lot of Nazi-era legislation concerns matters that now (and also before 1934, when the states were for practical purposes abolished) were in the legislative competence of the states, i.e. it has been superseded by state law.
Off the top of my head, some few examples of legislative changes introduced in ithe Nazi era that were retained because they are not considered nazist in nature (but rather the normal result of ministry buerocrats beavering away ):
- pension insurance contributions collected from employers as payroll tax (beforehand people bought special receipt stamps and pasted them in a pension contribution receipt book)
- borders of the city of Hamburg significantly adjusted/enlarged by 1937 legislation
- the chimney sweep profession is regulated mostly as first introduced in a 1935 statute (before that regulation differed much between German states)
- a significant number of nature reserves (Naturschutzgebiete) were first protected by Nazi-era legislation
If any legislation enforcing elements of the Nazi ideology should lurk somewhere an an unrepealed, unamended statute it would be ruled unconstitutional if challenged before the Constitutional COurt.
Also any international treaties that Nazi Germany entered into would still be in force (with the Federal Republic as the party on the German end) unless specifically repudiated or superseded.
It’s my understanding that some territorial redistricting the Nazis did during the occupation of the Netherlands is still in place. At least, they transferred administration of some of the Frisian islands (Vlieland and Terschelling) from one province to another, and this state of affairs was retained after the liberation – once part of Noord-Holland, they’re now part of Friesland.
Here’s one such law. However, it’s not uncontroversial for some German parents:
Mandatory school attendance is actually an example of Third Reich legislation that is not in force anymore - schooling is a matter reserved to state (Land) legislation in Germany and mandatory school attendance is legislated separately in all 16 German states. (It was also legislated at state level prior to the states being abolished in 1934. Mandatory schooling was introduced in the 16th to 19th century (Strasbourg 1598, Saxony-Gotha 1642, Prussia 1717 to Saxony in 1835))
This is a frequently used talking point of homeschool advocacy, for use on the US public mainly (it gets no traction in Germany). I am a bit disappointed in the Guardian for regurgitatating that propaganda.
Does present-day germany still recognize citizenship by blood? (ancestry). if I were a “Volga German” (ancestors migrated to Russian in the reign of Catherine the Great)-would I qualify for german citizenship?
Yes, but that’s not relevant to the OP - German citizenship law (including ius sanguinis) wasn’t introduced in the Third Reich but in 1913 (previously to that there was no German citizenship at all but only the citizenship of the various German states.) Immigration of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe/the ex-USSR is mainly governed by a 1953 statute.
I recently read that Herman Goering had fox hunting banned. Was it brought back?
Yes, although Wiki doesn’t think so.
I recall hunting being mentioned in artcles on foxes, so it’s probably not banned. But they are shot not chased - what’s referred to fox hunting in the UK (chasing foxes on horse) isn’t practiced (the German Wikipedia article says it was outlawed at the beginning at the Weimar Republic, citing no specific statute.)
Hermann Göring’s interest in hunting is well known BTW - nowadays a major way to ridicule Göring in historical articles is to refer to him by his office as *Reichsjägermeister *(Reich’s chief huntsman)
So am I.
Thanks for the correction.
The Nazi version of Paragraph 175, outlawing gay & lesbian people, was not repealed after the fall of the Nazi regime, but remained in force.
In fact, many of the gays in concentration camps were transferred from the camps to normal German prisons, where they served out the remainder of their ‘sentence’.
If it’s true that Goring had banned fox hunting, I wonder if he did it out of personal embarrassment from an inability to participate competitively or flatteringly (i.e., it would have to be one very strong horse to carry Goring around!). Talk about animal cruelty…
Which sounds totally bizarre, but is in fact true.
There are people out there who have tried to make the case that the Nazi Antarctic Territory Claim might still have some validity, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary…
German law student (graduating next week, at least I hope so) speaking.
Lots of Third Reich legislation is still in force, especially on the field of civil law which is not too prone to Nazi ideology. The 1949 Grundgesetz only superseded previous legislation not compatible with the new constitution (in effect, abolishing everything enacted before would be impracticable - you have to run the state somehow!). Examples for civil law statutes which are still in force and were included during the Third Reich are the Scheckgesetz (a statute regulating bank checks) and the Wechselgesetz, which regulates bills of exchange. Both acts implement, however, international agreements concluded by many countries, including Germany, before the Nazis took power.
Until 1998 or so, the Ehegesetz (Marriage Act) was still in force, although provisions influenced by Nazi ideology had been removed from it by the Allied powers. The law of marriages was incorporated into the civil code a few years ago. There’s also Nazi law regarding the distribution of a couple’s common property after divorce.
In criminal law, some provisions which were enacted by the Nazis are still in force. An example of this is section 316a of the criminal code, which drastically increases the punishment for certain acts of robbery if committed against car drivers. the Nazis introduced it when car robberies became very frequent during their rule. The provision has been reworded after 1945, however.
To sum it up, there’s plenty, really plenty, of German law which goes back to the time of the Nazis. Of course provisions which are incompatible with the Grundgesetz have been abrogated, or they are interpreted differently from the way the Nazis planned them to be applied.