Germany to Scrap Nazi Treason Convictions

(AP)  Germany's governing parties agreed Wednesday on a blanket measure to overturn Nazi-era verdicts convicting people of treason, nearly 65 years after the end of World War II, and it will go before parliament next month.

Treason convictions carried the death penalty and were handed down in Nazi Germany for any act deemed harmful to the nation or helpful to the enemy. Under that umbrella, people were convicted of treason for political resistance, aiding Jews, helping prisoners of war and scores of other acts.

Since the end of the war in 1945, the treason convictions had to be handled on an individual basis with a prosecutor weighing whether they should be overturned.

In 1996, for example, Berlin justice officials formally exonerated the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged in Bavaria in April 1945 for his role in plotting the attempted assassination of Hitler. The ruling also covered other resistance figures, including Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, who was sentenced and hanged with Bonhoeffer.

Some members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats and the Bavarian-only sister Christian Social Union had been against a blanket measure overturning the convictions, however, arguing some of those sentenced may have harmed comrades in arms.

But after a study of the issue concluded that it was impossible to determine whether the acts for which people were sentenced "harmed a third party," they signed off on the draft legislation.

"In fact, the general offense of treason was used as an instrument of arbitrary Nazi justice, whereby almost any politically unpopular act could be punished with death," the legislation reads.

Thomas Oppermann, a spokesman for the Social Democrats - the partners of Merkel's CDU in the country's coalition government - said now that both parties had agreed upon the proposed legislation it would go before parliament in August.

Lala Suesskind, chairman of Berlin's Jewish community, called for all parties to support the legislation.

"The Jewish community of Berlin welcomes the cross-party legislation to rehabilitate the so-called war traitors," she said in a statement. "This group of people took part in, for a variety of motivations, resistance against the Nazi regime."

[borg99]

Wow. Thanks, guys. Right on time.

[gravyboat4000]

armyoftwelve and au_fait.

Because it's important.

When one is convicted of treason and put to death by an oppressive Govt. it's important to get your good name back. It's taken a long time, and there are a lot of reasons why it did, but I'm glad Germany is doing this.

It was a long, nasty war...

The unification of Germany continues.

[ToolMangler1]

I truly hope that germany can get it right this time without falling under the spell of some false 'Fuhrer'. I really like Germany and the Germans themselves.

[au_fait]

why even waste time on this business?

[armyoftwelve]

Too late for this measure and at thispoint in history it's totally irrelevant.......

[pubsnomore]

In case there was any question, almost all of the major political parties in Germany are called Democrats, aside from the Green Party, and some other party similar similar in peewee power to the RepugSlobs in the US.

[rhs648]

Were you raised in a barn? The proper word is Republicans. How would you like others referring to the Democrats as "DemSlobs." Yes, you can't legislate good manners or taste but you can teach it. Did you get the lesson?

[dartplayer501]

Yeah, just like it's liberals, not libtards, and democrat, not democrap or dimnocrat or any other of the 427 unimaginative terms republicans find for the lefter side of the equation over here.