Documentation of the Reich Ministry of Justice: Wehrmacht and Foreign Affairs, 1933-1945

Documentation of the Reich Ministry of Justice: Wehrmacht and Foreign Affairs, 1933-1945
 
 The Reich Ministry of Justice became the central authority for the administration of justice in Germany, 1933-1935, thus taking control over this domain. With the Nazi rise to power, Franz Guertner, who had already served as State Minister of Justice under Papen and Schleicher, abandoned the principles of state justice, and supplied the SA, SS, and Gestapo with legal cover for their activities by introducing the deprivation of rights of Jews and special wartime penal codes. Following Guertner's death, on 29 January 1941, Franz Schlegelberger, the provisional State Secretary, continued the deprivation of rights of the Jews, and created the special Polish penal code and "Nacht-und-Nebel" ordinances (mass executions of hostages in retaliation for anti-German activities). Otto Thierack, the former President of the Nazi People's Court (where opponents of the regime were judged, and most of them executed), seized control of the office of State Minister of Justice, on 20 August 1941. In this capacity, he provided, among other things, for the handing over of the convicted to the SS for "annihilation through work" (Vernichtung durch Arbeit), and the total cancellation of rights for Jews, thus enabling their deportation to the East.
 
 The Record Group on Wehrmacht and Foreign Affairs contains files dealing with the legal foundation for the policy of Nazi dispossession and destruction in the occupied countries, as well as arrangements with other countries (on matters of extradition or correspondence with people who were exiled), which served as colonial precedents for laws for the protection of purity of the race and more.
 
 The Record Group in the Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) includes files from the previous Federal Archives in Koblenz under the old signature R 22, from before all the volumes of the Reich Ministry of Justice were combined under Signature R 3001 in the Bundesarchiv.