Hubert Mielnik

The German occupiers abolished the Supreme Court in the General Government. In the Polish (non-German) judiciary sector, there was no court of the highest instance to ensure the unification of jurisprudence. The competence to ensure the uniformity of jurisprudence and resolve existing doubts and legal issues was transferred to the courts of appeal. The objective of the present article was to demonstrate the procedure and practice of issuing legal theses by the Court of Appeal in Kraków. The article also presents changes in the composition of the judges and the territorial jurisdiction of the Kraków Court of Appeal. Archival sources constitute the source basis of the work. We also resorted to the latest subject literature. The work is based mainly on the analysis of archival sources and legal acts, so the scientific methods typical of the history of law were applied.

*The present publication was elaborated as part of the research project entitled “Charakter prawny i rola tez prawnych uchwalanych przez polskie (nieniemieckie) sądy apelacyjne w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie w okresie II wojny światowej” financed by the National Science Center, Poland –under contract No. UMO-2017/27/N/HS5/00812.

Maciej Jan Mazurkiewicz, Ludobójstwo Niemiec na narodzie polskim (1939–1945). Studium historycznoprawne (Germany’s Genocide against the Polish Nation (1939–1945). Legal Historical Study). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, 2021, 520 pp.

The monograph highlights the aspects of the international law qualification of the actions and omissions of Germany towards Poland and Poles during World War II. The study tries to prove that in the years 1939–1945 Germany was obliged to observe the norms of international law in its relations with Poland, and especially the non-treaty prohibitions not to initiate aggressive war or to commit the crime of genocide. The review describes the hypothesis and aims of the monograph and evaluates its substance, form, and argumentation.