Talk:Reichstag Fire Decree

message: Alongwith the bland assertions within these articles comes this, from "nizkor project"  from http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-19/tgmwc-19-183-10.shtml:
:During the cross-examination, Papen was asked whether he knew about the arrest and mistreatment of individual Communist and Social Democratic personages.Papen gave an essentially negative answer........
:During the years of the National Socialist regime, we learned again and again that the knowledge of acts of violence remained restricted to the narrow circle of the direct participants mentioned to him. 
This from Kuboschok, remember, is for the defence of Papen, but  nevertheless it is revealing. Further on Kubuschok adds :
:Thus, it seems to me absolutely explainable that Papen knew very little about the measures which, during the first months, were almost exclusively taken against political opponents of National Socialism coming from leftist circles. At any 
[Page 223]
:rate his knowledge did not go beyond the fact that, in this respect, arrests were made within the scope of the "Decree for the Protection of People and State".............  
But knowledge of the arrest of those politicians is by no means connected eo ipso with the knowledge of the details and of the extent of the measures taken at that time...... 
:It was a different matter, however, with the later encroachment on the rights of Church offices and organizations, which to a large extent appealed to him and which at once he energetically tried to help.........
:In any case it is a decisive fact that the measures, as far as they were outside the law, were subject to the jurisdiction of the police and the Ministry of the Interior. The law itself is an emergency decree of Hindenburg's. It came about legally. The new broadened conception of protective custody does not in itself constitute a crime. 
Fair use/educational/public  as above from page following below this link http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-19/tgmwc-19-183-11.shtml
The measure of the decree seems to be ignorance then, lack of clarity at Nuremberg and  equal ignorance now . I still see no reason to assert that any Deputy arrest and protective custody ( as the Trials show on-going from 6 March at Goering's in-judicial speech ) was legal. I do not believe, but do not know, that the Police in the Berlin, is it, district of Prussia , had power over Deputies beyond their Constitutional protections.It would appear that Papen equally knew of no such power over deputies . I have come to this conclusion from reading the Fire Act and the Enabling Ac Act neither of which relate to Reichstag Deputies or any part of that Institution......And 'dormancy' which Str1977 estimates as appearing either on 21 or 23 March is still hazy to me in contitutional terms. I repeat that Section 2 or the EAct protects Deputies as part of the Institution , and that this Decree seems to provide no Deputy arresting power either, which is why the dormany comes in, somehow, later .
EffK 23:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Papen knowledge Deputy arrest:Negative

message: relevant to the above comes this (fair-use/educational) from Samuel A. Fletcher http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/history/marshall/military/wwii/justice.pap On the Courts of the Third Reich:Servants or Opponents of National Socialism?
 
The last weapon available to the courts in their pursuit of
Nazi justice was the use of Special Courts.  These were courts that
dated back to the Weimar Republic which were designed to try
political criminals.  Under the auspices of National Socialism,
Special Courts became the prime machinery for speedy justice in the
Reich.  In the words of Supreme Court judge Otto Schwarz, the
concept of Special Courts "fulfills the aim of punishing a crime...
by letting the penalty follow upon the criminal act with the
greatest possible thoroughness and speed, and at the lowest cost"
(Mueller, p. 153-154).  The conspicuous omission of fairness in
such a statement is rather telling.  Judges of the Special Courts
were paid to deliver the verdicts sought for as quickly as
possible.  Public prosecutors enjoyed using the Special Courts when
they believed that "swift sentencing... [was] called for in view of
the depravity or the seriousness of the deed, public reaction to
it, or the danger it posed to public order and safety"(Mueller,  
p. 157).   
Fletcher seems to refer to Ingo Mueller, Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the third Reich
(Cambridge, MA, 1991)
It appears that Wikipedia articles greatly err in suggesting that the Fire Decree effected the rigging of the Reichstag by the arresting of Deputies. it would appear that such little "legality" there was , came completely retro-actively, that 6 March can mark only the end of such arrests , whereas Goering  above here confirms the arrests were brought forward following the Fire and began immediately after it. He states that this was to prevent the flight [into exile] of the Deputies. The Courts Decree was signed on the 21 March, allowing that political cases could avoid being brought to court.It came into effect,was it? after 48 hours. This was the protective custody, and confusion reigns due to the statements that the Fire Decree effected this.The constitutional situation is still not clear, and maybe User:Str1977 or some German user could investigate as to how this decree was signed : by Hindenburg , Frick and Goering or not, and how it might relate to the question remaining of dormancy achieved either through the Council of Elders of the Reichstag (un-named) or Frick alone, or the Reichstag in Session, whichever it is, as a purely procedural change as WP says . WP qualifies the Common Plan or Conspiracy as legal sometimes, and illegal elsewhere,following my intervention. It appears that the Trials are not altogther closer in their analysis , than the WP  present contradiction. What is certain is that the 21 Decree is more relevant to legalities ,than the Fire Decree , but retro-actively. No wonder Papen claimed not to know.
::EffK 20:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Special Courts

message: Again from the Yale Avalon project: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/document/nca_vol4/2056-ps.htm and concerning Special Courts imposition-
:On authority of Chapter II of the Sixth Section of the decree of 6 October 1931...   
:Under the same supposition in the state of Austria and in the Sudeten German territories....
:For the legal procedure the decree of 21 March 1933 (RGBl I, page 136) is applicable. 
Here is the Yale record of a 21 March Decree effective from 24 march, after the Enabling Act and signed not by Frick or Goering but by Hitler: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/document/nca_vol4/2076-ps.htm [] 
:..basis of Chapter II, Part 6 of the third decree of the Reich President to safeguard economy and finances and to combat political excesses, of 6 October 1931 (Reichsgesetzblatt I pp. 537, 565)
and is presumably the recorded Special Courts Decree [mark 1] preceding as to 21 March 1933, or else there were two such Special Courts Decrees issuing ,
at:http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/document/nca_vol4/2076-ps.htm [] 
The legality itself of Deputy arrest chases back to 6 October 1931.....
EffK 21:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Special Courts in the Weimar Republic: 6 October 1931

message: However the decrees issuing under Bruning are focused upon by  Weimar historian Arthur Rosenburg who states that :
:On October 18, 1930, the majority in the Reichstag composed of Bruning's supporters and the Social Democrats resolved to refer the question of the[misuse as clear from previous pages] question of the emergency decrees to a special commission of the Reichstag and to pass to the order of the day without discussing the proposed vote of no confidence that lay upon the table. The Reichstag thus abandoned the struggle with the un-constitutional dictatorship of Bruning and his friends by majority vote . The same hour saw the death of the Weimar Republic. Since then one dictatorship has succeeded to another in Germany.
fair-use/educational from  p 306 in Arthur Rosenburg(ex Berlin University Professor of History)'s A History of the Weimar Republic,1936, Methuen & Co.[Highlight EffK]
This returns us to the continuous un-constitutionality of Hindenburg's use of Decree 48, to which I shall add Rosenberg's completer analysis ,as the implication to WP and other history is considerable.
EffK 23:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Un-Constitutionality of 1931 Decrees, from Arthur Rosenburg,1936 ( 1931 Death of Weimar)

message: This concept is very clear, unlike the fuzziness brought on by modern historiography . At any rate it is sourceable. The concept/epithet of conservative is quite different . 
Counter revolution I do not believe exists in sole polar contrast to the brief  "German revolution" (which hit poor Ludwig Kaas so hard !!!!!-what the ...!!! ) , but clearly exists to embrace all the opposite forces to those leading towards or from such. 
EffK 19:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Counter Revolution as concept

message: Seems to me there is something lacking in this article- deputies were not absent- or are we Nazis that we call them so? They were re-classified as absent. Torture, un-constitutional imprisonment and murder are not absentee-ism. And, deputy sovereignty is off topic to civil liberties . Come on , as it is ,this is clearly neither strictly on topic nor strictly honest. I cannot help, due to the enforcements against my editing such as  the following  evidence  where I refer you to my response of a few days ago at 15 December [],http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/EffK/Evidence#3_December_2005
EffK 09:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Deputies Absent

message: I think it is relevant and similar in nature.Vegasjon 09:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it is at all relevant to the Reichstag Fire Decree - the two are on the face wholly unrelated.  While you may claim the two events occured under similar circumstances, I think you need some sort of peer-reviewed source to link to, where that claim could be better examined.  Even so, I haven't seen many other history pages on wikipedia discussing "events similar in nature occurring under similar circumstances".  I'm going to delete the reference, though if you think I am completely off-base and put it back, I won't complain. michael 01:38, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Reichstag Fire Decree 'nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens' after a terrorist attack.  The Patriot Act is similar in that respect.  Obviously, it's not a suspension of the constitution or an overt change to the bill of rights but it is an erosion of civil liberties regardless of how you feel about it's usefulness as a tool in the war on terrorism.  If you're looking for differences, you could say that the reichstag fire was possibly staged and that the Patriot Act does include useful provisions for improving communications between gov. entities, whereas the fire decree had no provisions other than a suspension of civil liberties.  Anyway, I appreciate your difference in opinion and will not add the reference back baring some support from others, in the talk section, for it's inclusion.Vegasjon 01:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

text: IMO, listing the USA PATRIOT Act in the "See also" section of the Reichstag Fire Decree article is highly POV w/r/t current US politics.  On that basis, I am going to remove the link, and I recommend that it should not be added back unless reliable secondary sources can be cited comparing / contrasting the PATRIOT Act with the Reichstag Fire decree.  If others insist on adding the link back without citing sources, I suggest the question should be referred to a suitable forum for dispute resolution.  — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 18:31, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  added the USA patriot act to the See also section