During the pre-Hitler decades, the professional life of German jurists flourished. Independent societies were formed which published law reviews of high caliber and participated in international conferences of jurists and in international legal institutions, such as the International Arbitration Courts.
Originally, the judges of the various German States had separate professional organizations, but in 1908 these were combined into the Association of German Judges (Deutscher Richterbund). This organization sponsored lectures on new legal problems, on comparative law, on modernizing penal law, and similar subjects. The association edited the “German Judges’ Times” (Deutsche Richterzeitung), which published court decisions and articles by learned jurists. Another organization of German judges was the Association of Republican Judges (Republikanischer Richterbund), founded in 1926. Its members were primarily interested in the reformation of the German court system and in bringing German legal institutions into line with the democratic principles of the new Weimar constitution. They published the periodical “German Justice” (Deutsche Justiz).
Most practicing German attorneys at law belonged to the Association of German Attorneys at law (Deutscher Anwaltsverein), the largest professional organization of jurists. This association, founded in 1871, comprised about 15,000 members in 1933. It published the “Juridical Weekly” (Juristische Wochenschrift), which had thousands of subscribers inside Germany and abroad.
Before the Nazis came to power, all organizations of jurists consisted of members of all political parties and creeds. Their officers were eminent scholars or jurists, and many of them had a high international reputation. Their yearly meetings acted according to democratic principles without interference from the executive branch of the government.
Legal education and training in Germany maintained high standards. After studying law for 3 or 4 years at a law school of one of the State universities, the candidate served a law apprenticeship, lasting another 3 or 4 years, at various courts and law firms. Only then was he admitted to the Great State Examination, known as the Assessor Examination, which might be compared with our bar examination. The successful completion of this examination was the legal prerequisite for any appointment as judge, public prosecutor, or higher civil servant, or for admittance to the bar. The men and women who had passed this examination were highly respected by the German populace.
b. The Impact of Nazism
In the years immediately preceding the establishment of the Third Reich, the National Socialist Party started a nationwide campaign directed against the legal profession. The Nazi leadership realized that they could not gain absolute dictatorship by the seizure of the government alone, but that they must also completely subjugate German legal life. As an affiliate of the Nazi Party, a National Socialist German Jurists’ League (Bund Nationalsozialistischer Deutschen Juristen) known as the BNSDJ, was formed in 1928 by the late Hans Frank. In 1931, the members of this organization, then about 600 in number, or less than 1 percent of all German jurists, were instructed to report on the political attitude and behavior of judges and lawyers. The general attitude of the Nazi Party toward independent judges was reflected in the statement—
“One day, we will forget the independence of the judges which has no significance in itself.”[62]
There were many other occasions when Hitler and his henchmen expressed their distaste for law and the legal profession.
Immediately after the Nazis came to power, they started to pervert German legal life and to develop it as a tool of the totalitarian machine. This was accomplished in part by measures which have already been described, such as the dismissal of judges, prosecutors, and Ministry officials considered politically unreliable, and by depriving judges of the guaranties of independence and immunity from removal from office.