This is the incredible story of what Nazi doctrine meant for the lawyer-as judge, as practitioner and as student-in Germany.
Although Nazi doctrines may have been conceived in cool calculation as a means to power and nurtured through emotion, the point of immediate interest to the lawyer is that the acts of the Nazi regime were committed under law. The Nazis recognized the necessity of law. But their law had little in common with what lawyers had theretofore called law. I must therefore first deal with their conception of law and the reasons why they succeeded in establishing, and maintaining it as a legal system. Then I will discuss the constitutional and penal phases of their legal system, and follow this with the stories of the impact of this system upon the lawyer. Finally I will attempt to show that even the generals succumbed to the impact of this legal system. Such is the power of mob rule elevated into law.
