The Appropriation by German Courts in French-occupied Baden of Control Council Law No. 10’s Definition of Crimes against Humanity in the Prosecution of Nazi-era Defendants, 1946–1951 Michael S. Bryant The story of the Allies’ prosecution of Nazi war criminals after World War II has been exhaustively researched, generating scores of books, articles, and films that have documented the process whereby the Allies established the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to try top-ranking Nazi war criminals, while leaving to national courts scattered across Europe the responsibility for prosecuting German offenders in the countries in which they had perpetrated their crimes. A subject that has received less attention is the German judiciary’s reconstitution as a partner with the Allies in prosecuting Nazi war criminals after the fall of the Nazi government in May 1945. In this essay, I will examine the history of the German judicia- ry’s reconstitution as an instrument for punishing Nazi war criminals im- mediately after the war. We will trace the interweaving of German law and the law of the Allied Control Council, especially Control Council Law No. 10 (enacted in December 1945), in the jurisprudence of German courts in the French occupied zone of Baden. As we do, we will see that, despite for- mal restrictions on German jurisdiction, Law No. 10 empowered Baden courts to prosecute a broad spectrum of Nazi crimes as Crimes against Hu- manity until the early 1950s. Already before the German surrender, the Allies had drawn up plans to purge German society of National Socialist elements and prevent Germany from waging future wars. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, they had decided to partition the country and its capital into four separate zones of occupation. In April, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff pursued this policy of weakening postwar Germany by issuing JCS Directive 1067, a de- cree that reasserted the USA’s intention to demilitarize, de-Nazify, de-cen- tralize, and democratize the country. JCS 1067 also announced the closure of all German courts and the disbanding of all “extraordinary” and Nazi Party courts. Accordingly, after Germany’s unconditional surrender in May 1945, the Allies suspended the operation of all German courts until the judiciary could be purged of National Socialist influences. At Potsdam 55 https://doi.org/10.5771/9783845280400-55, am 09.12.2021, 06:25:54 Open Access - - http://www.nomos-elibrary.de/agb