This is the first extensive treatment of leading judicial institutions under Nazi rule in WWII. It focusses on all democratic countries under German occupation, and provides the details for answering questions like: how can law serve as an instrument of defence against an oppressive regime? Are the courts always the guardians of democracy and rule of law? What role was there for international law? How did the courts deal with dismissals, new appointees, new courts, forced German ordinances versus national law? How did judges justify their actions, help citizens, appease the enemy, protest against injustice? Experts from all democracies that were occupied by the Nazis paint vivid pictures of oppression, collaboration, and resistance. The results are interpreted in a socio-legal framework introducing the concept of ‘moral hygiene’ to explain the clash between normative and descriptive approaches in public opinion and scholarship concerning officials’ behaviour in war-time.

Derk Venema is assistant professor at the Law Faculty of the Open University in the Netherlands. He has published on the Dutch judiciary in WWII and transitional justice theory, amongst other subjects. He teaches professional ethics at the Training Centre for the Judiciary SSR, and is an associated researcher at CegeSoma, Brussels.

Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Tables
List of illustrations
1. War, Law, Society, and the Courts, 1939-1945: An Introduction (Derk Venema)
2. Prelude: The Belgian Judiciary’s First Experience of German Occupation, 1914-18 (Mélanie Bost)
3. Germany: TheReichsgericht 1933-1945 (Martin Löhnig)
4. The Danish Supreme Court during the German Occupation (Ditlev Tamm)
5. The French Cour de Cassation during the Vichy period (Clément Millon)
6. The Conseil d’État in Vichy France (Marc Olivier Baruch)
7. Sacrificing the Pig in the Temple – The Supreme Court in Occupied Norway (Hans Petter Graver)
8. The Belgian Court of Cassation in the Turmoil of the Second Occupation (Françoise Muller and Kirsten Peters)
9. The Hoge Raad during the German occupation of the Netherlands (Derk Venema)
10. The Supreme Courts in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Jaromír Tauchen)
11. The Cour Supérieure de Justice and the Luxembourg State Collapse (Vincent Artuso)
12. The Italian Supreme Court Between Fascism and German Occupation (1943-45) (Antonio Grilli)
13. Supreme Courts dealing with Nazi Occupation: The Struggle for Order and Identity (Derk Venema)
References
Index
Contributors