Law on imposition and enforcement of the death penalty

[1][2] The name derives from the fact that the law formed the legal basis for the imposition of the death penalty on Marinus van der Lubbe, who had been caught in the arson attack on the Reichstag on 28 February 1933.

[3] The Reichstag Fire Decree, which had been in force since 28 February 1933, had contained in § 5 a list of crimes for which the death penalty was to be imposed instead of life imprisonment as before.

The Law on the Imposition and Execution of the Death Penalty, passed by Hitler's government on 29 March on the basis of the Enabling Act, extended the period of validity of this § 5 retroactively to 31 January 1933, thereby breaking the principle of the prohibition of retroactivity of criminal laws (Nulla poena sine lege) guaranteed in Article 116 of the Weimar Reich Constitution.

The Lex van der Lubbe allowed hanging as a method of execution; whereas according to the specifications of the Reich Penal Code valid until then, the death penalty had been "to be carried out by beheading alone".

[1] The law was passed specifically after the Reichstag fire in order to be able to sentence Marinus van der Lubbe and his co-defendants to the death penalty, although it had not yet applied to arson at the time of the crime.