Law on imposition and enforcement of the death penalty

The Reichstag Fire Decree, which had been in force since 28 February 1933, had contained in § 5 a list of crimes for which the death penalty was to be imposed instead of life imprisonment as before. The Law on the Imposition and Execution of the Death Penalty, passed by Hitler's government on 29 March on the basis of the Enabling Act, extended the period of validity of this § 5 retroactively to 31 January 1933, thereby breaking the principle of the prohibition of retroactivity of criminal laws (Nulla poena sine lege) guaranteed in Article 116 of the Weimar Reich Constitution. It could thus be applied to van der Lubbe, who had confessed in court to having set fire to the Reichstag on 27 February. The Lex van der Lubbe allowed hanging as a method of execution; whereas according to the specifications of the Reich Penal Code valid until then, the death penalty had been "to be carried out by beheading alone". ==History==

The law was passed specifically after the Reichstag fire in order to be able to sentence Marinus van der Lubbe and his co-defendants to the death penalty, although it had not yet applied to arson at the time of the crime. This was a deliberate disregard of long-standing principles of the rule of law, as the penalty was introduced retroactively (cf. nullum crimen sine lege). On 30 January 1946, the Allied Control Council also repealed the law on the imposition and execution of the death penalty by Control Council Law No. 11. ==Literature==