Judiciary and Nazi-Atrocities: Court District Graz

This research project aims to: 1. compile an overview of all judgements concerning Nazi crimes of violence (the section "GrazVienna/Linz" corresponds with the Austrian federal states Carinthia and Styria); 2. compare the punishment of Nazi crimes of violence by different Austrian courts (trials before people`s courts of the post war era and jury courts; regional differences); 3. compare the punishment of Nazi homicidal crimes by Austrian and (West, East) German courts; 4. examine the application of different substantive and procedural law, in order to answer a question which has its relevance also for present trials for crimes of humanity - to which extent the application of different law influences the outcome of the punishment of identical or similar offenses. The interdisciplinary analysis of the data obtained by scanning the judgements is to be put into a framework of regional history and politics. The analysis of the application of law by the courts is to be confronted with the juridical discussion in the first three post 1945 decades. In addition to the analysis of the judgements the section "Graz" examines special legal questions, e.g. the role of the Supreme Court. Beside that, all preliminary proceedings concerning the "expulsion from the native country" ( 5a War Crimes Act) will be registered and scanned.

The project "Judiciary and Nazi Atrocities in Austria" which has been carried out between 2002 and 2006, consisting of sub-projects for the court districts Vienna/Linz, Graz and Innsbruck, corrected some wide spread opinions about the punishment of Nazi crimes by Austrian courts and therefore closed an existing research gap. Despite numerous questionable judgements and abandons of proceedings particularly in the 1960s and 1970s the carried out research points out that Austrian judiciary did much more in prosecuting those criminals than this was realised by the general public. This is especially true for the postwar decade. Within this period more war criminals were convicted and sentenced by Austrian courts than by German courts. The sub-project "Judicary and Nazi Atrocities: Court District Graz" dealt with selected points of denunciation, euthanasia and crimes in ghettos as well as with juror trials in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet another research emphasis focused on the collection and analysis of sources from the court of Justice. The main results of the three sub-projects have been presented in March 2006 at the international conference "Genocide on Trial" taking place in Graz. The conference focused on the embedding of the Austrian research results within in a greater European and international context on punishing war crimes and crimes against humanity. On the occasion of the conference the three project-leaders presented the book "Holocaust and War Crimes on Trial: The Case of Austria" [Holocaust und Kriegsverbrechen vor Gericht. Der Fall Österreich]. One of the main achievements of this triannual project is the establishment of a research centre at the Department of Austrian and European Legal history at Karl-Franzens-University Graz. A wide range of sources and research material (copies, microfilms etc.), not only from Graz but also from Vienna are now being held at the Departement, where interested scientists have the possiblity to use this collection for their further research. It is expected that the research project released a pulse for further research in legal history within Styria and even on a broader scale.