Richard D. Fybel. “Judges, Lawyers, Legal Theorists, and the Law in Nazi Germany.” UCLA Law Review Discourse, vol. 70, (2022): 2-39.
How did the legal system in Germany enable the deprivation of the rights of Jews and, ultimately, the Holocaust in which six million Jews, including 1.5 million children, were murdered? How could state-sponsored and legalized evil be permitted in a civilized country in the twentieth century? The core answer, as this Essay will explain, is that German society—including, shamefully, the courts, judges, lawyers, and legal theorists—accepted and in many cases promoted Nazi power and race-based injustice. Adolf Hitler’s absolute power as Führer was achieved incrementally, in plain sight, and purportedly under law.