Democracy Destroyed The First 100 Days of Nazi Rule

Laws and decrees

Law Reich Government, under the Enabling Act

Law concerning Disciplinary Authority over the Members of the SA and SS

Gesetz, betreffend die Dienststrafgewalt über die Mitglieder der SA. und SS.

A single sentence gave the SA and SS, the Nazi Party’s paramilitary formations, a disciplinary power under public law, to be exercised under rules issued by Hitler as ‘supreme SA leader’. It treated party formations as if they were state bodies, with their own discipline over their members, at a time when SA and SS men were serving as auxiliary police and running the first camps. The law was repealed by the Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State of 1 December 1933.

Dated
Friday 28 April 1933
Published in
Reichsgesetzblatt Teil I, no. 45, Friday 28 April 1933, p. 230
Citation
RGBl. I S. 230
In force
29 April 1933, the day after promulgation (the law has no commencement clause, so Article 3 of the Enabling Act applies)

On the day pages

  1. Published Day 89, Friday 28 April 1933
The Reichsgesetzblatt Teil I page on which the measure was published
RGBl. I S. 230. Commons record

The text

Gesetz, betreffend die Dienststrafgewalt über die Mitglieder der SA. und SS.
Law concerning Disciplinary Authority over the Members of the SA and SS.
Vom 28. April 1933.
Of 28 April 1933.
Die Reichsregierung hat das folgende Gesetz beschlossen, das hiermit verkündet wird:
The Reich Government has enacted the following law, which is hereby promulgated:
Die Mitglieder der SA. und SS. unterliegen einer öffentlich-rechtlichen Dienststrafgewalt nach Maßgabe der Vorschriften, die der Reichskanzler als oberster SA.-Führer erläßt.
The members of the SA and SS are subject to a disciplinary authority under public law in accordance with the regulations issued by the Reich Chancellor as supreme SA leader.
Berlin, den 28. April 1933.
Berlin, 28 April 1933.
Der Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler
The Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler
Der Reichsminister des Innern Frick
The Reich Minister of the Interior Frick

About this text

The full text is given. Transcribed from the RGBl. scan (issue 45, p. 230); compared word by word with documentArchiv.de, which drops the comma after ‘Gesetz’ in the title and misprints ‘Reichsregierung’ as ‘Reichsgierung’; the gazette’s text is kept.

The English translation was made for this site and is not an official translation. ‘Dienststrafgewalt’ is the power to impose disciplinary penalties (‘Dienststrafen’) of the kind the state exercised over its civil servants; ‘öffentlich-rechtlich’ means that this power rested on public law rather than on the party’s private rules as an association.

German laws and decrees are official works and not protected by copyright (§ 5 UrhG).

Terms

SA., SS.
The Sturmabteilung (storm detachments), the Nazi Party’s mass paramilitary force, and the Schutzstaffel (protection squad), then still formally part of the SA under Himmler. The gazette writes both abbreviations with a full stop.
oberster SA.-Führer
Supreme SA leader: Hitler had held this title himself since 1930, with Ernst Röhm as chief of staff.
öffentlich-rechtliche Dienststrafgewalt
Disciplinary authority under public law: the kind of power the state held over its own officials, here granted to party formations.

Sources

  1. Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 Teil I, Nr. 45 (28. April 1933), S. 230 (Reichsministerium des Innern; scan on Wikimedia Commons)
  2. Gesetz betreffend die Dienststrafgewalt über die Mitglieder der SA. und SS. (28.04.1933) (transcription) (documentArchiv.de)

Gazette scans: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.