Zusammenbruch und Wiederaufbau: The restoration of justice in Bavaria, 1945-1949

This study examines the reestablishment of the legal system in Bavaria under American occupation in the period 1945-1949. The dissertation also examines the de-nazification and development of the postwar legal profession. American and Bavarian authorities reestablished a judicial system similar to the pre-1933 legal apparatus. At Military Government insistence, Bavarian authorities incorporated several constitutional and legal innovations that altered the orientation of the traditional legal system. These innovations included the repeal of discriminatory National Socialist law and the establishment of constitutional courts.;The Weimar Republic demonstrated that systemic innovations alone could not guarantee a liberal-democratic jurisprudence. Military Government also tried to reform postwar legal professionals. Under the policy of de-nazification, Military Government attempted to remove legal professionals who had joined the National Socialist Party, its many affiliated organizations, or who had ever worked for the Hitler regime. Military Government prohibitions excluded most jurists from reemployment after 1945.;Circumstances compelled Military Government authorities to relax these prohibitions and allow some less fanatical National Socialists to return to the bar. Thus a legal profession that had sabotaged democracy between 1919-1933, supported or served the Hitler regime between 1933-1945, now returned to the legal system of a second German democracy.;In 1948 Military Government attempted to "reeducate" these legal professionals through a "Reorientation Program." Military Government designed the program to expose jurists to democratic legal thought and procedures. Yet this program came too late and reached only a few legal professionals before Military Government ended the program in the early 1950s.;Why did legal professionals who sabotaged democracy throughout the Weimar Republic, who praised the elevation of Adolf Hitler to Chancellor in 1933, support a democratic state in 1949? The evidence suggests that the experience of the Third Reich, followed by postwar military occupation, reconstruction, and economic prosperity, facilitated the development of democracy in Germany. Despite much continuity, Germany's political experience after 1945 differs significantly from its past ordeal with democracy.