Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume IIIVarious
History
Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume III
Various
Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946; War crime trials -- Germany -- Nuremberg
First of all, the dualism between Reichstag and Reich President was
abolished. The Reich President is the victor. Under Hindenburg the
formation of the cabinet more and more came under the power of the
Reich President and that of the Reichstag decreased. The end of this
development was 30 January 1933. The Reichstag was no longer asked to
do any work. Purely formally, under article 53, the president appoints
the new government. Article 54 was no longer considered a serious
threat. The parliamentary system is dead and we have the first demoting
of the Reichstag. The second had already started in the meantime, as
I have shown. The Reichstag had already resigned more and more as a
legislative body; it is only the culmination of the development, what
we see in the law of 24 March 1933 [Enabling Act] and the aftermath,
the new reconstruction law [Neuaufbaugesetz] of 30 September 1934; the
division of powers is dead. The Reichstag in its original and foremost
function has been dethroned. What was its purpose now? In July 1933,
political parties were definitely prohibited. A genuine parliament
was no longer possible. The first Reichstag elected after this July
law, in November 1933, was the Reichstag of one faction only elected
by voters of one party only. It has been said that it was purely an
assembly of acclamation. The great dualism in the Reich ended thereby
and on the grave of the Reichstag there are three crosses. The small
dualism between Reich President and Reich Chancellor ended with the
death of Hindenburg and is expressed in the law of 1 August 1934,
concerning the head of State [Staatsoberhaupt-Gesetz]. The greatest and
most serious dualism between Reich and Laender in effect was eliminated
before that. Usually one says in the German constitutional science that
only the reorganization law of 30 January 1934 had turned the Laender
into Reich provinces but that is certainly not correct. Looking at the
facts themselves, that step was already taken by the Reich governor
law [Reichsstatthaltergesetz] of 7 April 1933. When one summarizes all
that and looks at those results together, the final phase is this--the
entire power of the State in the German Reich is combined in the hand
of that one man who quite arbitrarily can use that power to decide
individual cases or to set new norms. It depends only on him, from the
practical point of view of power, as to how long he refrained from
interfering in the field of judiciary. * * *
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