The legal system in the Reichskommissariat - The role of German criminal court judges in the Netherlands and Norway, 1940-1944 (National Socialism, occupation of Europe, administration)

In early summer of 1940 both the Netherlands and Norway were occupied by Ge rman military forces. In each country a prominent member of the Nazi Party was appointed Reichskommissar fur die besetzten Gebiete. In the Netherlands it was the Austrian lawyer and politician Arthur Seyss-Inquart, while in N orway his "colleague", Alter Kampfer Joseph Terboven headed the occupying r egime. Their primary task was to insure that citizens more or less accepted the German presence and respected German rules. To achieve their ends vari ous agencies in each country were given roles to play in repressing anti-Ge rman activities. This essay endeavours to compare the role of courts especi ally in combating resistance in the two countries. A comprehensive analysis of documents stored in archives in Germany, the Netherlands and Norway mak es clear, that there were striking differences. Whereas Seyss-Inquart, in t he summer of 1940, called upon the German Ministry of Justice to give Germa n courts jurisdiction to try disobedient Dutch citizens, Terboven gave the Wehrmacht and Sicherheitspolizei the responsibility for dealing with oppone nts of the occupying power. Since the eventual establishment of German cour ts in the occupied countries came about as a result of initiatives taken up by the German authorities, these differences can be explained to a large e xtent by the different personalities of the two Reichskommissare. Finally, as tensions in both countries grew, the differences diminished: repressive measures, punishments without recourse to the courts, reprisals and acts of revenge increased in both severity and number in both countries, till the final stage in which the Sicherheitspolizei became the predominant law and order enforcing agency.