“(1) if the act was directed toward establishing or maintaining an organized combination for the preparation of high treason or
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“(3) if the act was directed toward influencing the masses by making or distributing writings, recordings, or pictures, or by the installation of wireless telegraph or telephone, or
“(4) if the act was committed abroad or was committed in such a manner that the offender undertook to import writings, recordings, or pictures from abroad or for the purpose of distribution within the country.”[600]
On 20 December 1934, the government promulgated the following enactment “Law on Treacherous Acts against State and Party and for the Protection of Party Uniforms,” which provided in part as follows:
“Chapter 1. Article 1. (1) Unless heavier punishment is sanctioned under the authority of a law previously established, imprisonment not to exceed 2 years shall be imposed upon anybody deliberately making false or grievous statements, fit to injure the welfare or the prestige of the government of the Reich, the National Socialist Workers’ Party, or its agencies. If such statements are made or circulated in public, imprisonment for not less than 3 months shall be imposed.
“Article 2. (1) Anyone who makes or circulates statements proving a malicious, baiting or low-minded attitude toward leading personalities of the State or the NSDAP, or toward orders issued by them or toward institutions created by them—fit to undermine the confidence of the people in its political leadership—shall be punished with imprisonment.
“(2) Statements of this kind which are not made in public shall warrant the same punishment—provided the offender figures on his statements eventually being circulated in public.”
A decisive step was taken by the “Law to Change the Penal Code,” which was promulgated on 28 June 1935 by Adolf Hitler as Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor, and by Dr. Guertner as Reich Minister of Justice. Article 2 of that enactment is as follows:
“Article 2. Whoever commits an act which the law declares as punishable or which deserves punishment according to the fundamental idea of a penal law and the sound concept of the people, shall be punished. If no specific penal law can be directly applied to this act, then it shall be punished according to the law whose underlying principle can be most readily applied to the act.”