Capital punishment in Germany
[1] The current Constitution of Germany ("Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland"), which came into effect on 23 May 1949, forbids capital punishment.
[2] It is debated among constitutional jurists whether article 102 GG in combination with article 2 section 2 GG – "Jeder hat das Recht auf Leben und körperliche Unversehrtheit" (Every person shall have the right to life and physical integrity) prohibits any targeted killing on the part of the state (e.g. in the context of a hostage situation).
[4] The German Federal Court of Justice in 1995 has argued that "concerns" (Bedenken) related to the general nature of the death penalty "suggest" (legen den Befund nahe) that capital punishment should indeed be considered inadmissible already as a consequence of the guarantee of human dignity in article 1 GG.
Since the introduction of this provision, courts may in extreme cases declare special gravity of guilt which is meant and popularized as life without parole.
[9] Although article 21.1 of the constitution of the German state of Hesse provided capital punishment for high crimes, this provision was inoperative due to the federal ban on the death penalty ("Bundesrecht bricht Landesrecht."
III § 139 of the constitution stated: "Die Todesstrafe, ausgenommen wo das Kriegsrecht sie vorschreibt, oder das Seerecht im Fall von Meutereien sie zuläßt, [...], [ist] abgeschafft" ("Capital punishment, except when it is prescribed by martial law or permitted by the law of the seas in cases of mutiny, [...] [is] abolished").
Under the Nazi era, guillotine was streamlined According to Manfred Messerschmidt,[18] "from 1907 to 1932," i. e. including World War I, "Germany had issued 1547 death warrants, of which 393 were executed.
Crimes like treason, "sabotage" (Kriegsverrat, which was any action pandering to the enemy) and subversion of the military strength, which could be interpreted as to cover any critical remark, and was applied to any conscientious objector.
In addition to crimes declared capital by law or decree, a "dangerous habitual criminal" or individual convicted of rape could be executed "if the protection of the people or the need for just atonement so demands".
Aside from the use of capital punishment in legal contexts, death was a permanent feature of the concentration camp system and the broader police state, particularly the Gestapo.
In concentration camps, commanders could, as early as 1933, sentence prisoners to death for "disobedience" without needing to provide any additional justification or explanation.
In 2005, journalist Charles Lane wrote that many Germans, then and now, claimed that West Germany had thoroughly learned a lesson from the Nazi era, pointing to its abolishment of capital punishment as an example.
However, Lane said the real reason West Germany abolished capital punishment early-on was to protect Nazi war criminals from execution.
According to British historian Richard J. Evans, Seebohm "was thinking primarily of the executions of the war criminals, against which he and his party had so clearly opposed.
Lane noted that as late as the 1960s, polls showed that 71% of the West German public supported the reinstatement of capital punishment, which the CDU unsuccessfully tried to do.
[32] A 2017 study found that "judges more committed to the Nazi Party were more likely to impose the death sentence on defendants belonging to organised political opposition groups, those accused of violent resistance and those with characteristics to which Nazism was intolerant.
Despite the newly founded Federal Republic's protests, the Western Allied powers continued for some time to practice capital punishment in their separate jurisdiction.
The guillotine (called the Fallschwertmaschine, "falling sword machine") was used for the last time on sex murderer Günter Herzfeld in 1967, after which it was replaced by execution by shooting (an "unexpected close shot in the back of the head"; "unerwarteter Nahschuss in das Hinterhaupt").
