In 1942, an engineer by trade and a husband, named Ewald Schlitt, murdered his wife by beating her to death. Rather than condeming him to death as a violent criminal, Schlitt was sentenced by a judge in the Volksgerichtshof (the people’s court), to five years imprisonment as the court had decided that he had not acted out of cold blood but was rather “liable to sudden fits of temper.”
On March 21, 1942, the press had reported on on this case and it reached the Führers undivided attention. He was so furious, so outraged, that he threatened to do away with the courts entirely and hand the treatment of legal cases directly to the Reichsführer SS instead who, in evident cases beforehand, would punish him accordingly. By order of the Führer, the Ministry of Justice transferred the case to the Leipzig Reichsgericht, which sentenced the defendant to death. This was the last case that would trace from procedural normality. Now, they were to stand for the executive and legislative order of the Führer. It was firmly understood that Hitler’s decision was not just made out of disgust, but rather also from remembering his childhood past, in which he remembered the beating his father had given him.
The Führer then followed this sentence with a speech to the Reichstag on April 26, 1942 in which he stated the following:
“No one, in the moments we are living, can brandish acquired rights. Everyone must know that from now on, there are only duties. I therefore ask the Reichstag to expressly confirm that I hold the legal right to force each person to do his duty, or if the situation requires it, to demote or dismiss anyone who does not fulfill his duties, after a good conscience examination and with no consideration for his person, nor any regard for any legal rights.”
This was a decision that the Führer had to do away with due to the lack of trust and respect for the judiciary. This cemented the future of all cases. Was this decision rightfully made, or was this just a power grab?