Скачать или смотреть The prosecutor at the National Socialist Peoples' Court : Ernst Lautz

On 14 July 1934 in the building that had once housed the Prussian State Parliament, the judges of the National Socialist Peoples' Court were sworn in. This body was designed to execute National Socialist justice and to protect that political system.

The court was a major instrument of terror used to combat resistance to National Socialist rule. For the accused, there was no presumption of innocence. The defendant had few rights, including that of being able to choose a lawyer. A lawyer was appointed, sometimes only a few minutes before the case was to begin. Sometimes the lawyer would apologise to the court for having such a ‘client’ and demand a severe punishment.

Up until the collapse of the Third Reich, the Peoples’ Court passed around 5,200 death sentences for enemies of the regime. Death sentences were passed for a variety of offences, from those who attempted to overthrow the National Socialist regime on 20 July 1944, to such things as listening to foreign radio broadcasts. On 1 January 1943, the People's Court had 47 professional judges and 95 honorary judges, including 30 officers, four police officers and 48 various Nazi Party functionaries. It had 179 public prosecutors. Around 570 legal staff worked for the Peoples’ Court at one time or another. In 1943, of 3,338 cases brought before the court, 1,662 resulted in death sentences and only 123 found innocent.

None of the prosecutors was ever charged in West Germany, most of them even maintained their position in the justice system. Only one was charged by the Americans. He was the lead prosecutor in the Nazi Peoples' Court, a man called Ernst Lautz.

Lautz was born 13 November 1887 in Wiesbaden. He became a prosecutor at the People's Court on 1 July 1939.

One of his victims was Eduard Zachert. Born in 1881, he joined the Post Office where he worked until he went to the front during World War One. After the war he was elected to a local Berlin council and then to the Berlin city council and also the Prussian state parliament. After the Nazi seizure of power he was part of the social democratic underground. In July 1934 he was arrested, severely beaten up and released three months later. He then worked as an insurance agent. In October 1942, Eduard Zachert wrote to an innkeeper and warned him not to let his son become an officer. The innkeeper denounced him, whereupon he was arrested and put before the Peoples’ Court. He was charged with undermining military strength – a common charge which had a wide range of interpretations. Lautz demanded the death sentence which was granted on 30 April 1943. It appears that both the SS and the Gestapo suggested clemency but Lautz dismissed this. Eduard Zachert was executed on 22 July 1943 in Plötzensee prison. Lautz reported the killing to the Minister of Justice, Dr. Thierack: "The execution went without incident. It took ... 14 seconds."

Lautz represented the prosecution in the proceedings against those involved in the assassination attempt on 20 July 1944 and demanded the death penalty.

In his opening argument, eyewitnesses reported that in his speech Lautz kept his hands dignified over his body like a pastor and always looked at the ceiling of the courtroom when he emphatically invoked God: "A miracle of the Lord God saved the Fuehrer for us ... The defendants tried to gain control of the army by assassinating the Fuehrer, this failed through God's blessing ... One can only come to the conclusion that the punishment against the defendants must be death by hanging. "

Lautz, earned himself the nickname of "meat hook Ernst", although of course not in public. This name came from the way in which the victims of 20 July 1944 were hanged on meat hooks in the execution room of the Berlin-Plötzensee prison.

When it came to the resistance he was especially zealous. In such cases, he considered it appropriate to demand death not only for the accused, but also for others he or she might have known. For example, Lautz had not only applied for the death sentence by hanging of Major General Fritz Lindemann, who was part of the 20 July 1944 coup attempt but also those with whom he had stayed afterwards. Lindemann was seriously wounded whilst being arrested and died of his wounds before the trial could begin. Nonetheless, Erich and Elisabeth Gloeden, Elisabeth Kuznitzky, Hans Sierks and Carl Marks were all sentenced to death. They were executed by guillotine at Plötzensee Prison in November 1944. Their crime was to have hosted Lindemann after the coup attempt.

Together with Roland Freisler, he appealed to the German judiciary on 30 January 1945 to confirm their devotion to the Führer.

Lautz successfully sought the death of a defendant 393 times from Freisler.

After the war, Lautz was arrested and tried in by the US occupation authority at Nuremberg. On 14 December 1947, Lautz was sentenced to ten years imprisonment.