Amtsgericht | municipal (or district) court |
Basic Law | the German Constitution of 1949 |
Beihilfe zum Mord | aiding and abetting murder |
BGHSt | Decisions of the West German Supreme Court in Criminal Matters |
BGHZ | Decisions of the West German Supreme Court in Civil Matters |
Bundesgerichtshof | West German Supreme Court (post-1949) |
BVerfG | West German Constitutional Court |
CDU | Christian Democratic Union |
DRZ | German Judges’ Newspaper |
Einsatzgruppen | operational units; involved in the mass murder of Jews, the mentally ill, and others in the East |
14f13 | operation to reduce concentration camp populations through mass killing; made use of T-4 personnel |
FRG | Federal Republic of Germany |
geheime Reichssache | secret state matter |
Gehilfe | accomplice |
Gekrat | The Charitable Foundation for the Transport of Patients, Inc. |
Gutachter | T-4 medical expert |
Heimtücke | element of malice in the German law of murder |
ICC | International Criminal Court |
IMT | International Military Tribunal |
JuNSV | The Judiciary and Nazi Crimes |
KdF | personal chancellery of Adolf Hitler |
Kinderaktion | children’s euthanasia operation |
Kinderfachabteilung | children’s ward |
Kripo | criminal police |
KTI | criminal technical institute |
Landgericht (LG) | state (or regional) court |
lebensunwertes Leben | life unworthy of life |
Lfd. Nr. | serial number |
MDR | Monthly Journal for German Law |
MGR | Military Government Regulations |
Meldebogen | euthanasia program registration forms |
NARA | National Archives Records Administration, College Park |
niedrige Beweggründe | element of base motives in the German law of murder, section 211 |
NJW | New Legal Weekly |
NMT | National Military Tribunal |
Notstand | the defense of necessity |
NSDAP | National Socialist German Workers Party |
Obergutachter | chief T-4 medical expert |
Oberlandesgericht | state (or regional) appellate court |
OCCWC | Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes |
OGHBC | Supreme Court for the British Zone of Occupation |
Operation Reinhard | the extermination of Polish Jewry |
Ostarbeiter | eastern workers |
Pflichtenkollision | conflict of duties (as criminal defense) |
RAG | Reich Cooperative for State Hospitals and Nursing Homes |
Rechtsgut | legal interest |
RG | record group |
Reichsgericht | German Supreme Court (pre-1945) |
RSHA | Reich Security Main Office |
schwachsinnig | feeble-minded |
Schwurgericht | panel of lay assessors |
SJZ | South German Jurists’ Newspaper |
Sonderbehandlung | Nazi code word for killing |
StA | public prosecutor |
StGB | German Penal Code |
Täter | perpetrator |
Teilnahme | complicity |
T-4 | the adult euthanasia operation, administered by the KdF, Main Office II |
Totschlag | manslaughter |
übergesetzlicher Notstand | the defense of extrastatutory necessity |
uk (unabkömmlich) | designation of “indispensable” |
Verbotsirrtum | mistake of law |
VfZ | Quarterly Journal for Contemporary History |
“wild” euthanasia | decentralized killing of mentally ill persons after August 24, 1941 |
Zwischenanstalt | transit center in the T-4 program |