Konrad Graczyk
Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History, Volume 16, Issue 4, Volume 16 (2023), pp. 511 - 531
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844131KS.23.042.19036The article concerns the activities of the Special Court in Ternopil (Sondergericht Tarnopol), one of the German special courts operating in the territory of the General Government, in the Galicia district, in the years 1941–1944. Investigating this topic is justified by the lack of even fragmentary findings. Due to the state of preservation of the sources, I tried to answer the question about the nationality of the defendants; what punishments they received; if and in what cases the death penalty was imposed; who directed the work of the Sondergericht; what judges were its members and what prosecutors participated in the hearings before the Sondergericht; and where the lawyers involved in the work of the Sondergericht came from. The sources used in the research included archival materials (court and personal files), literature and the press. The research resulted in new, original findings regarding the Special Court in Ternopil.
Konrad Graczyk
Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History, Volume 14, Issue 2, Volume 14 (2021), pp. 221 - 257
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844131KS.21.015.13523The study was devoted to the legal opinion drawn up in the post-war trial against the German judge Albert Michel on the activities of German courts in Polish territories during the Nazi occupation. The scope of the opinion is broader than it appears from the title – Professor Władysław Wolter covered the entire German occupation including the actual German invasion in 1939. The text of the source was preceded by a discussion in which the circumstances of the opinion were explained, the author’s profile was presented, and its most important theses were characterised. The statements of the opinion were related to other views of the doctrine and jurisprudence, as well as the decisions issued in the Michel case.