About judges and other sympathisers

September 1943—The Special Court of Oldenburg renders a judgement against an office-messenger: he had taken 2 bars of soap and a can of shoe polish. As a wrongdoer against the people he is sentenced to death.Over 16.000 death sentences were pronounced by the special courts and the “Volksgerichsthof” during the Nazi period. And the judges and State’s attorneys who administered injustice in those days were all holding office again after 1945.In one of the German states the so-called “piggyback-principle” provided for the entangling of past and present: together with newly-hired judge with clear records a heavily-incriminated one was hired. Caste feeling and group spirit protected the incriminated colleagues: complaints lodged against judges and State’s attorneys weren’t answered, investigations tacitly discontinued.Peggy Parnass, a journalist and Jewish, herself related to victims of Nazi justice, continually experienced and described the consequences of this continuity during her 10 years as a court reporter. This film follows her radical subjective outlook, her experiences and monstrous encounters with former Nazi lawyers in present-day courts.Lawyers during Hitler’s “Reich”—Hitler’s lawyers in the Federal Republic of Germany: A subject full of explosive effects. How explosive also today shows the fact that the jury which honoured this film with the German Film price ’82 found herself soon put under pressure by officials of the ministry of inner affairs. That the jury didn’t let manipulate her decision is a sign of courage.To broadcast a documentary which is questioning the system of justice, the standing leg of the state, is a sign of courage too. [Original german version]