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The “Captain of Köpenick” and the Transformation of German Criminal Justice, 1891–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Benjamin Carter Hett
Benjamin Carter Hett
Affiliation:
Harvard College and Harvard Law School
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Extract

Most Germans still know the story. One day in October 1906, the 57-year-old ex-convict Wilhelm Voigt dressed himself in the uniform of a Prussian captain, assembled from several second-hand stores. So equipped, Voigt intercepted two squads of soldiers who were going off duty, and ordered the soldiers to accompany him to the town hall of the Berlin suburb of Köpenick. There, claiming to act on “All-Highest command,” Voigt arrested the mayor and other town officials, and had the town's cash handed over to him in two large sacks. He departed with the money and sent the officials in a car to the police station at Berlin's Neue Wache, guarded by several of the soldiers. Only at the Neue Wache did the officials learn that the “All-Highest” had not in fact ordered their arrest.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 1 - 43
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2003

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References

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16. Ibid., 4–5, 10–11, 14, 16.

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22. In elections to the Reichstag, the Social Democrats went from 10.1 percent of the vote in 1887, to 19.7 percent in 1890, to 23.3 percent in 1893, to 27.2 percent in 1898. The various anti-Semitic fractions attracted only 0.2 percent in 1887 and 0.7 percent in 1890, but then jumped to 3.4 percent in 1893 and 3.7 percent in 1898. Cook, Chris and Paxton, John, eds., European Political Facts 1848–1918 (London, 1978), 124–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hall, Alex, “By Other Means: The Legal Struggle Against the SPD in Wilhelmian Germany, 1890–1914,” Historical Journal 17 (1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, vols. 16–20 (Berlin, 1890–1895)Google Scholar; Lenman, R.J.V., “Art, Society and the Law in Wilhelmine Germany: The Lex Heinze,” Oxford German Studies Review 8 (1972): 86–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. Kölnische Zeitung, 28 October 1891, 1st morning edition; Löwe, , Strafprozessordnung, 420, 590Google Scholar; Juristische Wochenschrift, 6 February 1892 and 22 February 1892; Craig, Gordon A., Germany: 1866–1945 (Oxford, 1981), 261–66Google Scholar; Nipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918, vol. 2, Machtstaat vor der Demokratie, 3rd ed. (Munich, 1995), 2: 707–8, 12–16Google Scholar.

24. Average calculated from the figures in Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, vols. 16–27, (Berlin, 1890–1902)Google Scholar.

25. Frankfurter Zeitung, 10 September 1907, morning edition, GStA Rep. 84a/8255, Meineid 1872–1930, 86.

26. Figures are from Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, vols. 15–31, 1888–1906, and the Annual Reviews of Business, GStA Rep. 84a/20442, Landgericht Berlin I Allgemeines 1896–01, and GStA Rep. 84a/20443, Langericht Berlin I Allgemeines 1901–06.

27. BA-BL R. 3001/6157, Majestätsbeleidigung, 11; Statistisches Jahrbuch, see note 25.

28. For the story of Ballien and Cossmann, see Juristische Wochenschrift, 22 February 1892; Cossmann/Ballien, see note 19.

29. For the facts of the Schmidt case see the internal memo prepared in the Prussian Justice Ministry in the 1920s: “Merkblatt: Ausführungen des Reichstagsabg. über Eingriffe der Preussischen Justizverwaltung in die Unabhängigkeit der Richter,” GStA Rep. 84a/2944, Richter und Staatsanwälte: Allgemeine Bestimmungen über die Anstellung im höhern Justizdienst, 1927–1930, 3 ff. Harden wrote about Schmidt in Die Zukunft at length on three occasions: “Landgerichtsdirektor Schmidt,” Die Zukunft, 16 06 1894, pp. 483–90Google Scholar; “Auf der Anklagebank,” Die Zukunft, 12 11 1898, pp. 273–85Google Scholar; “Prozessberichte,” Die Zukunft, 20 10 1900, pp. 100–1Google Scholar. The Vossische Zeitung was more hard-boiled about Schmidt's weakness in stepping down, writing that such an act betrayed either an excess of sensitivity or of private income: Vossische Zeitung, 5 June 1894, evening edition. Schelling's successor as minister, Karl Schönstedt, took the same line when Schmidt's fate became the topic of debate in the Prussian House in 1901: Berliner Tageblatt, 9 February 1901, parliamentary edition. See also the speech by Deputy Heine in the Reichstag debate of 7 February 1901: Berliner Tageblatt, 8 February 1901, parliamentary edition. Heine seems to have had “inside information” from Schmidt, as indeed did Harden. On the legislation of the 1890s, see Lenman, “Art, Society”; Craig, , Germany, 261–66Google Scholar; Nipperdey, , Deutsche Geschichte, 2:707–8, 12–16Google Scholar; Blackbourn, David, The Long Nineteenth Century: Germany 1780–1918 (London, 1997), 408Google Scholar.

30. The general provision on fines in § 27 Reich Criminal Code, that the minimum fine for a Verbrechen was 3 Marks, introduces an element of ambiguity, especially as the leading historian of German criminal law, Eberhard Schmidt, writes that “… das Reichsstrafgesetzbuch von der Geldstrafe offensichtlich nur in zurückhaltender Weise Gebrauch gemacht wissen wollte, da es sie bei Verbrechen und schweren Vergehen überhaupt nicht, bei leichteren Vergehen aber alternativ mit Freiheitstrafen androht und dabei ihre Anwendung häufig von Vorliegen ‘mildernder Umstände’ abhängig macht.” Schmidt, , Einführung, 403–4Google Scholar; Olshausen, , Kommentar, 104Google Scholar; Exner, Franz, Studien über die Strafzumessungspraxis der deutschen Gerichte (Leipzig, 1931), 19, 22Google Scholar.

31. Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, vols. 27–33 (Berlin, 1903–1916)Google Scholar; Harden, Maximilian, “Sextuor,” Die Zukunft, 26 11 1910, p. 279Google Scholar.

32. § 40 PStGB, § 51 StGB, in Olshausen, , Kommentar, 220–21Google Scholar.

33. Radkau, Joachim, Das Zeitalter der Nervosität: Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler (Munich, 2000), 234Google Scholar.

34. Wetzell, Richard, Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology 1880–1945 (Chapel Hill, 2000), 73–106Google Scholar, here 79. Wetzell notes that the Prussian population had grown 17 percent in these years and that the crime rate had remained constant. See also Finder, Gabriel, “The Medicalization of Wilhelmian and Weimar Juvenile Justice,” paper presented at the Workshop on Crime and Criminal Justice in Modern Germany, 1870–1960,German Historical Institute,Washington, D.C.,10–11 May 2001, 10Google Scholar.

35. Friedlaender, Hugo, “Die Ermordnung des Justizrats Levy,” Interessante Kriminalprozesse von Kulturhistorischer Bedeutung, vol. 9, 231–34Google Scholar; Berliner Tageblatt, 1 December 1896, evening edition.

36. Berliner Tageblatt, 9 June 1905, evening edition, 15 June 1905, evening edition.

37. Wetzell, , Inventing, 79–83Google Scholar; Berliner Tageblatt, 24 December 1904, evening edition; “Berlin Zweimillionenstadt,” Deutsche Tageszeitung, 31 12 1904Google Scholar, evening edition.

38. Hett, “Death in the Tiergarten,” 271–306; Flatau, , Mehr Schutz, 74, 55Google Scholar; Friedmann, , Was ich erlebte!, 120Google Scholar.

39. Erster STA LG I to OSTA KG, 18 October 1907, GStA Rep. 84a/20891, Staatsanwaltschaft beim Landgericht I 1905–1913, 85–86.

40. LGP I to JM, 17 March 1896, GStA Rep. 84a/20442, Landgericht I Allgemeines, 1896–1901, 44–46.

41. Isenbiel to JM, 22 June 1900, Ermordung des Gymnasiasten, 250–51.

42. Isenbiel's claim in the next sentence that the expectation of “particular toughness” from the 4th chamber was not decisive certainly smacks of protesting too much. Isenbiel to OSTA KG, 16 August 1904, GStA Rep. 84a/49721, Kaliski-Schneidt, 14.

43. For an example, see Herget, James E. and Wallace, Stephen, “The German Free Law Movement as the Source of American Legal Realism,” Virginia Law Review 73, no. 2 (1987): 399–455CrossRefGoogle Scholar. If the free law movement stands behind legal realism, it is a distant ancestor as well of critical legal studies, and such thinkers as Eugen Ehrlich and Max Weber could claim to be among the founders of “law and society.” Rudolf Stammler was a pioneer of law and economics (Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung [Leipzig, 1896]Google Scholar); and in various ways, German legal positivism, historicism, and “interest jurisprudence” have their applications in current debates about American constitutional law. For a summary of how these theoretical perspectives on law look in the contemporary American context, see Posner, Richard A., Frontiers of Legal Theory (Cambridge, Mass., 2001)Google Scholar.

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48. Sudermann, Hermann, Stein unter Steinen. Schauspiel in vier Akten (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1905)Google Scholar. On Sudermann: Alfred Kerr, Berliner Brief of 12 April 1896; Kerr, Alfred, Wo liegt Berlin? Briefe aus der Reichshauptstadt, 1895–1900 (Berlin, 1999), 144Google Scholar. Stein unter Steinen was filmed several times, including in 1916 with Emil Jannings.

49. Berliner Tageblatt, 2 December 1906, Sunday edition.

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53. Berliner Tageblatt, 1 December 1906, evening edition; Kreuzzeitung, 2 December 1906, Sunday edition; Löschburg, Winfried, Ohne Glanz und Gloria: Die Geschichte des Hauptmanns von Köpenick (Berlin 1996), 175Google Scholar; Voigt, Wilhelm, Wie ich Hauptmann von Köpenick wurde (East Berlin, 1986), 125Google Scholar.

54. Berliner Tageblatt, 1 December 1906, evening edition;Judgment of the 3. Strafkammer LG II, 1 December 1906, Strafsache Voigt, 61–62.

55. Berliner Tageblatt, 1 December 1906, evening edition; Hippel, “Der ‘Hauptmann von Köpenick’”; Berliner Tageblatt, 2 December 1906, Sunday edition.

56. Berliner Tageblatt, 1 December 1906 A; Judgment of the 3. Strafkammer LG II, 1 December 1906; GStA Rep. 84a/15388, Strafsache gegen Wilhelm Voigt, 71.

57. Berliner Tageblatt, 2 December 1906.

58. Where a person commits several different offenses through one and the same action, German law calls this Idealkonkurrenz; the RStGB stipulation that the highest punishment should be determinative is known as the Absorbtionsprinzip. Schwarz, O. G., Strafrecht, Strafprozess: Ein Hilfsbuch für junge Juristen (Berlin, 1907), 78Google Scholar.

59. Berliner Tageblatt, 2 December 1906 Sunday Edition; Judgment, Strafsache Voigt, 76–78.

60. Voigt, , Hauptmann von Köpenick, 132Google Scholar; Berliner Tageblatt, 2 December 1906, Sunday edition.

61. Since Gefängnis was considered to be two thirds as serious as Zuchthaus, Voigt's sentence amounted to 8/15 of the maximum. See Schwartz, , Strafrecht, 76Google Scholar; Voigt, , Hauptmann von Köpenick, 132Google Scholar.

62. Judgment, Strafsache Voigt, 79; Vormbaum, , ed., Strafrechtsdenker, 438Google Scholar.

63. “Die Polizeiaufsicht,” Vossische Zeitung, 3 12 1906Google Scholar, evening edition, Strafsache Voigt.

64. “Barbarisches in unserer Rechtspflege,” National Zeitung, 3 12 1906Google Scholar, evening edition, Strafsache Voigt.

65. Bahn, , Meine Klienten, 76Google Scholar; Lindau, Paul, Ausflüge ins Kriminalistische (Munich, 1909), 265Google Scholar. No one else seems to have reported Dietz's remark as Bahn did, and it stands somewhat in opposition to other comments Dietz is reported to have made at the trial: he suggested that Voigt could not have expected exculpatory evidence to make a great difference in the sentencing outcome, and in the oral reasons for judgment the court said it could not assess the hardness of the sentence after so many years: Berliner Tageblatt, 1 December 1906, evening edition, 2 December 1906, Sunday edition.

66. Bahn, , Meine Klienten, 76Google Scholar; Berliner Tageblatt, 3 December 1906; Berliner Morgenpost, 2 December 1906, Strafsache Voigt.

67. Das kleine Journal, 3 December 1906, Strafsache Voigt.

68. Or at least, looking back from 1908, the Kreuzzeitung claimed that in 1906 it had “admitted without reservation that the manner and style of the police supervision … had not only failed in its purpose … but also through the expulsion from his place of work in Wismar … contributed to his taking up once again the criminal way of life.” Kreuzzeitung, 21 August 1908, morning edition.

69. Berliner Morgenpost, 2 December 1906, Strafsache Voigt; Lindau, , Ausflüge, 268Google Scholar; Sudermann, , Stein, 29Google Scholar.

70. Berliner Börsen Zeitung, 2 December 1906, morning edition, Strafsache Voigt.

71. Nieberding to Beseler, 8 December 1906, Strafsache Voigt, 16.

72. Beseler to Nieberding, 21 December 1906, Strafsache Voigt, 18–19.

73. JM to 1st STA LG II, 10 July 1908, 1st STA LG II to JM, 22 July 1908, Strafsache Voigt, 55, 58–59.

74. JM to IM, 27 July 1908, Strafsache Voigt, 81.

75. JM to Kaiser, 8 August 1908, Kaiser to JM, 15 August 1908, JM to 1st STA LG II, 17 August 1908; Strafsache Voigt, 91, 92, 94; Regierungspräsident Breslau to police President Berlin, 7 October 1908, Personal-Akten Voigt, 88.

76. Berliner Tageblatt, 17 August 1908, evening edition.

77. Kühne, Thomas, Handbuch der Wahlen zum Preussischen Abgeordnetenhaus 1867–1918: Wahlergebnisse, Wahlbündnisse und Wahlkandidaten (Düsseldorf, 1994), 58–61Google Scholar; Glatzer, Ruth, ed., Das wilhelminische Berlin: Panorama einer Metropole (Berlin, 1997), 260–64Google Scholar.

78. Glatzer, , ed., Berlin, 260–64Google Scholar.

79. As such it would be hardly the only criminal case in Wilhelmian Germany to show how sensitive the higher reaches of the administration were to public opinion. On the one hand several of the notorious “ritual murder” cases of the period 1892–1900 demonstrate how willing Prussian authorities were to launch prosecutions of Jewish suspects to appease anti-Semitic agitators — although they were very squeamish about seeing the cases through to conviction. On the other hand cases like Plötzensee showed how ministers and prosecutors could give way before a more liberal public opinion. See Hett, “Death in the Tiergarten.”

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82. Fritzsche, , Nation of Fliers, 9–17Google Scholar.

83. Die Welt am Montag, 3 December 1906, 10 December 1906, Berliner Morgenpost, 4 and 6 December 1906, Reichsbote, 5 December 1906, Berliner Tageblatt, 17 and 18 August, 1908, Reichsbote, 19 August 1908, Strafsache Voigt; Voigt, , Hauptmann von Köpenick, 144–48Google Scholar; Löschburg, , Ohne Glanz, esp. chaps. XIV and XVGoogle Scholar.

84. On 27 June 1908, Prince Eulenburg, close friend of the kaiser, went on trial in Berlin on charges of perjury. In the celebrated libel trial of Graf Kuno Moltke against Maximilian Harden the previous year, Eulenburg had denied that he had ever had sexual relations with men. Subsequently, two men came forward in Bavaria claiming that they had had relationships with Eulenburg. The trial was eventually stayed when doctors reported that Eulenburg was too ill to continue. von Tresckow, Hans, Von Fürsten und anderen Sterblichen: Erinnerungen eines Kriminalkommissars (Berlin, 1922), 133–210Google Scholar; Harden, Maximilian, Prozesse: Köpfe, part 3 (Berlin, 1913), 169–286, 409–508Google Scholar; Hecht, “Harden Prozesse”, chap. 11; Hull, Isabel V., The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II 1888–1918 (Cambridge, 1982), chap. 5Google Scholar.

85. Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, 20 08 1908Google Scholar, Strafsache Voigt.

86. “Zeppelin oder Voigt?” Deutsche Tageszeitung, 23 08 1908Google Scholar, Sunday supplement.

87. “Verirrungen und Verzerrungen,” Deutsche Tageszeitung, 8 08 1908Google Scholar, evening edition.

88. These were especially notorious cases. The Hau case in particular touched a public nerve. In 1906 a jury convicted Hau and he was sentenced to death, although the Grand Duke of Baden reduced the sentence to life imprisonment. That Hau was in fact innocent became an article of faith for many liberals, although, in my view, Sello's, Erich brilliant pamphlet Die Hau Prozesse und ihre Lehren (Berlin, 1908)Google Scholar, makes a strong case for his guilt. Fritz Friedmann believed Hau was innocent: see Friedmann, Fritz, Hau ist kein verstockter Mörder! Kritische Studie (Berlin, 1907)Google Scholar. The Hau case was also the subject of a Weimar-era roman à clef by Jakob Wassermann: Wassermann, Jakob, Der Fall Maurizius (Munich, 1997)Google Scholar. Wassermann apparently believed that Hau was guilty, although he made his fictional counterpart Maurizius innocent (see the afterword by Peter de Mendelssohn, 551). On Grete Beier see Friedlaender, Hugo, “Grete Beier, Tochter des Bürgermeisters Beier zu Brand,” Interessante Criminal-Prozesse, 6: 278–322Google Scholar; Evans, , Rituals, 401–3Google Scholar.

89. “Verirrungen und Verzerrungen,” Deutsche Tageszeitung, 8 08 1908Google Scholar, evening edition; “Grete Beier und Hau,” Deutsche Tageszeitung, 18 08 1908Google Scholar, morning edition; “Schwächen und Schäden im Rechtsleben: Von einem Richter,” Deutsche Tageszeitung, 19 08 1908Google Scholar, morning edition; “Zeppelin oder Voigt?” Deutsche Tageszeitung, 23 08 1908Google Scholar, Sunday supplement.

90. Reichsbote, 19 August 1908, Strafsache Voigt.

91. Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, 20 August 1908, Strafsache Voigt.

92. Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung, 19 June 1909; Death Certificate, Personal-Akten Voigt.

93. Berliner Morgenpost, 24 January 1910.

94. Land, Hans, Staatsanwalt Jordan: Ein Berliner Roman (Hamburg, 1922), 9Google Scholar.

95. Die Zeit am Montag, 6 January 1908, GStA Rep. 84a/49840, Strafsache gegen den Schriftsteller Harden wegen Beleidigung des Grafen Moltke: Beiakten enthaltend Zeitungsberichte, (hereafter Strafsache Harden Zeitungsberichte), 64.

96. “Eulenburg Schauspiele. Umriss und Stimmungen,” Volks-Zeitung, 1 07 1908Google Scholar, GStA Rep. 84a/49832, Strafsache gegen den Fürsten Eulenburg, (hereafter Strafsache Eulenburg), 11.

97. Berliner Morgenpost, 25 April 1908, Strafsache Eulenburg, 48.

98. Hamburger Nachrichten, 24 October 1907 Evening Edition, Strafsache Harden Zeitungsberichte, 4e.

99. Ibid.

100. Evans, , Rituals, 470–77Google Scholar.

101. See Rüthers, Bernd, Entartetes Recht: Rechtslehren und Kronjuristen im Dritten Reich (Munich, 1994)Google Scholar.

102. Evans, , Rituals, 479–80Google Scholar. The power of the psychologists vis-à-vis others in the judicial system only increased in Weimar as the resistance to their doctrines waned; prosecution files from the 1920s (extensively archived in the Landesarchiv Berlin) are replete with correspondence between prosecutors and expert witnesses in which the prosecutor pleads with the expert to make himself available, while the expert sends letters imperiously informing the prosecutor that such-and-such a trial date is not convenient for him. See, for instance, the letters of Medizinalrat Dr. Störmer dated 7 November 1924 and 29 May 1926, and Sanitätsrat Dr. Hirschfeld dated 7 June 1926, to the prosecutors in the case of Bruno Gerth: LB Rep. 358/243, Akten betr. Die Voruntersuchung gegen Gerth, vol. 1, and vol. 2, 181, 190.

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104. Hewitson, , “The Kaiserreich in Question: Constitutional Crisis in Germany before the First World War,” Journal of Modern History 73 (2001): 725–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105. For what this mood implied for law and legal theory, see Larenz, Methodenlehre; Stolleis, , Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts, vol. 3Google Scholar. For recent treatments of the complex modernity of the late Kaiserreich, see Fritzsche, Reading Berlin; Repp, Kevin, Reformers, Critics, and the Paths of German Modernity: Anti-Politics and the Search for Alternatives, 1890–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hewitson, “Kaiserreich in Question.”

106. Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Hynes, Samuel, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture (London, 1992)Google Scholar.

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108. See Eley, “Army, State and Civil Society.”

109. Johnson, , Urbanization and Crime, 15–51Google Scholar. It should be stressed that these errors occur in the introductory chapter of a book that focuses on crime rather than criminal justice, and that delivers innovative and important research on the statistical patterns of crime in nineteenth century Germany.

110. Tucholsky, Kurt, Politische Justiz (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1990)Google Scholar; Wesel, Uwe, Aufklärungen über Recht: Zehn Beiträge zur Entmythologisierung (Frankfurt am Main, 1981)Google Scholar.

111. Zuckmayer, , Als wär's, 513Google Scholar. For instance, in the eighth scene Voigt appears to be in prison in 1910 for the robbery of a police station in Potsdam; and this is before Köpenick: Zuckmayer, Carl, Der Hauptmann von Köpenick: Theaterstücke (Frankfurt am Main, 1995), 62 ffGoogle Scholar.

112. Löschburg, , Ohne Glanz, 5, 7–8Google Scholar.

113. Nipperdey, Thomas, Nachdenken über die deutsche Geschichte: Essays (Munich, 1986), 173Google Scholar.

114. See Ziemann, Benjamin, “Der ‘Hauptmann von Köpenick’ — Symbol für den Sozial militarismus im wilhelminischen Deutschland?” in Grenzüberschreitungen oder der Vermittler Bedrich Loewenstein. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag eines europäischen Historikers, ed. Precan, Vilém (Prague, 1999)Google Scholar. In the works of most historians the significance of the Köpenick affair has been reduced to a kind of catechism concerning militarism. David Clay Large has recently written that “Berliners considered the story an excellent joke on fawning suburban officialdom, but of course it was really a joke on the entire city. Kaiser Wilhelm II, a uniform fetishist himself, might have been expected to find this whole business appalling, but instead he found it reassuring: did it not, after all, show that the authoritarian system was alive and well in Berlin despite all the encroachments of urban modernity?” Large, David Clay, Berlin (New York, 2000), 90Google Scholar.

115. “Oklahoma Town Grateful for Arrest,” Toronto Star, 11 06 2002Google Scholar.

116. Schmidt, , Einführung, 403Google Scholar.

117. Jacobson, and Schlink, , eds., Weimar, 2Google Scholar.

118. See Wetzell, Inventing.

119. Muscheler, Karlheinz, “Einführung,” in Kantorowicz, , Kampf, xiiGoogle Scholar.

120. Klemperer, Victor, LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen (Leipzig, 2001), 14Google Scholar.

121. Muscheler, Karlheinz, “Einführung,” in Kantorowicz, , Kampf, xxGoogle Scholar.

122. See Martin, Benjamin F., Crime and Criminal Justice under the Third Republic: The Shame of Marianne (Baton Rouge, 1990), 142 ffGoogle Scholar.