Last December marked the 1000th execution in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. The event has received considerable notice in the international press, including The Washington Post and Der Spiegel. As Michael Naumann remarked recently in his essay in Die Zeit, the death penalty is nothing more than the most extreme form of torture. Still, there are some reasons for optimism: the number of executions in the US has declined by 40% since 1999, when George W. Bush was governor of Texas. (Bush alone is responsible for 15% of all executions in the US since 1977). Also, public support for executions has fallen to about 66%, down from 80%. The advent of DNA testing has raised the suspicion that innocent people have been put to death.
But the United States is still far away today from what West Germany was able to achieve in 1949 with Artikel 102 of the Grundgesetz: Die Todesstrafe ist abgeschafft (trans. the death penalty is abolished). How this came to pass is a fascinating chapter in the early days of Bundesrepublik. The issue of the death penalty was debated by the plenary session of the Parliamentary Council (Dr. Konrad Adenauer presiding) in May of 1949. The proceedings were captured by a stenographer and are availble to read (in German) on the Web site gewaltenteilung.de. It makes for fascinating reading.
On May 6, 1949 Dr. Paul de Chapeaurouge - the CDU represenatative - made an impassioned argument for reintroducing the death penalty into the Basic Law (Gundgesetz). In memoranda he had distributed to the press as well as members of the plenary committee, he had insisted that the death penalty was necessary for the "protection of the young German democracy".
Then Friedrich Wilhalm Wagner rose to speak. Wagner represented the Social Democrats. He had been in the Reichstag from 1930 until the Nazi seizure of power, and so brought the spirit of the Weimar Republic to the plenary committee. During the NS period he fled to France and later to the United States, returning to Germany in 1946 to help create the young republic. In speaking about the death penalty, he first disputed the arguments of de Chapeaurouge:
Der Herr Kollege Dr. de Chapeaurouge hat in seiner Begründung etwas angeführt, das ich politisch für absolut unverständlich halte. Er sagt, unsere junge deutsche Demokratie brauche die Todesstrafe zu ihrem Schutz. Er stellt damit der jungen deutschen Demokratie ein sehr schlechtes Zeugnis aus. Ich glaube, wenn die junge deutsche Demokratie sich nur mit Hilfe der Todesstrafe halten kann, dann wird sie niemals zur Welt kommen, dann werden wir in Deutschland nie und nimmer eine Demokratie haben. Wir haben mehr Vertrauen zur jungen deutschen Demokratie. Wir glauben nicht, daß wir sie mit Hilfe der Todesstrafe aufrechterhalten können. Wir meinen vielmehr, wir können sie nur aufrechterhalten, indem wir das Leben schützen, indem wir nicht den Grundsatz aufstellen, daß die Demokratie das Recht habe, Menschenleben zu vernichten.
Wagner then turns to his country's recent past as the most compelling reason for why there must never be a death penalty in Germany:
Wenn wir heute, meine Damen und Herren, zur Frage der Todesstrafe Stellung nehmen, so haben wir hinter uns die Erfahrung jener schrecklich blutigen Hitlertyrannei, in der das Leben systematisch mißachtet wurde, der nichts heilig war, in der man Menschen gemordet hat, zunächst im kleinen, dann im größeren, dann im Riesenmaßstab. Wenn der Staat nicht beginnt, von sich aus mit der Tötung von Menschenleben aufzuhören, wenn er nicht von sich aus beginnt, das Morden einzustellen, dann wird es auch mit dem großen Völkermorden niemals ein Ende nehmen. Denn das ist der Beginn. Sie mögen die Dinge betrachten, wie Sie wollen.
(trans. Ladies and Gentlemen, when we think about the death penalty today we have to consider that we have been through the experience of the horrible bloody Hitler-tyranny where human life was abused, and nothing was sacred, where people were murdered - first a few at a time, then more, then on a huge scale. If the state does not begin to end the practice of killing human life, if it does not on its own accord stop the murdering, then there can never be an end to genocide in the world. For that is how it starts, no matter how you may view the situation.)
If only someone could read these words before the US Supreme Court, or before a joint session of Congress. Today Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner is remembered as the politician who abolished the death penalty in modern Germany. His native city of Ludwigshafen has named a Platz after him; he deserves to have a monument erected or plaque at the Parliament building in Berlin placed in his honor.
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