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Youth and Justice in Western States, 1815-1950 pp 225–251Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

A ‘Wayward’ or ‘Incorrigible’ Youth? Juvenile Crime and Correctional Education in Post-war Germany, 1945–1953

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Part of the book series: World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence ((WHCCV))

Abstract

This chapter addresses an alarming question posed in Germany in the immediate post-war period: how could youths reeling from the effects of war be prevented from becoming criminals? The focus of the chapter is primarily on the practice of welfare education from 1945 to 1953, with an overview of the nationwide problem of ‘wayward’ youth. It also provides a more specific investigation of the situation in Berlin through an examination of juvenile court case files. The difficulties faced by welfare and judicial authorities are described, as are their effect on juvenile criminal discourse. Turning to a more detailed micro-level, individual case studies of juvenile crimes processed by the Berlin district are discussed as well as popular notions and preconceptions of the causes of post-war juvenile crime.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Martha Engel, ‘Jugendkriminalität’, Bundesarchiv Berlin, DR /2, 4744, Sheet 1.

  2. 2.

    Josef Zehetner, Handbuch der Fürsorge und Jugendwohlfahrtspflege (Linz, Amt der Oberösterreichisches Landesregierung, 1954), p. 385.

  3. 3.

    Cited in James P May & William E. Paterson, ‘Die Deutschlandkonzeption der Britischen Labour Party 1945–1949’, in: Claus Scharf & Hans-Jürgen Schröder (eds.), Politische und ökonomische Stabilisierung Westdeutschlands 1945–1949. Fünf Beiträge zur Deutschlandpolitik der westlichen Allierten (Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner, 1977), p. 77.

  4. 4.

    A somewhat problematic term to translate: literally, Fürsorgeerziehung means welfare education, though Ross Dickinson translates it as ‘Correctional Education’. Essentially it entailed the juvenile’s upbringing in (local authority) care. For a thorough discussion of the terminology of welfare see Young-sun Hong, ‘Neither singular nor alternative: narratives of modernity and welfare in Germany, 1870–1945’, in Social History, Vol. 30 No. 2 (May 2005), pp. 133–153.

  5. 5.

    Within the Federal Republic of Germany, there were 2,649,897 persons (or 56.4 per 1000 of the population) receiving welfare support in the first quarter of 1949. This figure dropped to 1,051,525 (21.8 per 1000) in the second quarter of 1951. See the table ‘Öffentliche Fürsorge 1949–1951 nach Rechnungsvierteljahren’ in Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (ed. Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland; Stuttgart, Metzler-Poeschel, 1952), p. 267.

  6. 6.

    Detlev Peukert, Grenzen der Sozialdisziplinierung: Aufstieg und Krise der deutschen Jugendfürsorge von 1878 bis 1932 (Cologne: Bund-Verl. 1986), p. 310.

  7. 7.

    See Stephan Mikinovic, ‘Zum Diskurs über abweichendes Verhalten von Jugendlichen und das Auftreten des Schuldvorwurfs an die Familie zur Jahrhundertwende’, in Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Kriminalsoziologie (ed.), Kriminalsoziologische Bibliographie: Vom Umgang mit dem Strafrecht. 10 Jahre Kriminalsoziologie in Österreich, Vol. 9, No. 36/37 (Spezial) (Vienna: Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, 1982) pp. 25–37.

  8. 8.

    Entwurf eines Jugendgerichtsgesetzes nebst Begründung (Outline of a Juvenile Court Law according to the Proclamation of 24 October 1922, Cf. Jörg Wolff, Jugendliche vor Gericht im Dritten Reich, Nationalsozialistische Jugendstrafrechtspolitik und Justizallag (Munich, C.H. Beck, 1992), p. 32.)

  9. 9.

    Thomas Crofts, ‘The rise of the principle of education in the German juvenile justice system’, The International Journal of Children’s Rights, Vol. 12 (2004), pp. 401–441, here p. 401.

  10. 10.

    Two notable exceptions being Christa Hasenclever, Jugendhilfe und Jugendgesetzgebung seit 1900 (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978) and Hans Scherpner, Geschichte der Jugendfürsorge (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1966).

  11. 11.

    Detlev Peukert, Grenzen der Sozialdisziplinierung, p. 292.

  12. 12.

    Article 1 of the Youth Welfare Law (Reichsjugendwohlfahrtsgesetz) of 9 July 1922.

  13. 13.

    Reichsjugendgerichtsgesetz of 6 November 1943, RGBl. I, pp. 365–367.

  14. 14.

    Berlin in Zahlen (Berlin (Ost), Das Neue Berlin, 1949), p. 56.

  15. 15.

    The 1947 percentage figures for juvenile and adult crime are based on the Berlin population figure for 1946, given no census was carried out in 1947.

  16. 16.

    Regarding those who evaded the law, in 1946 a total of 185,257 crimes were reported to the Kriminalpolizei, of which only 22,852 resulted in sentences. This corresponds to a ‘success’ rate of only 12.3%, a very low figure even taking into account such factors as false charges, acquittals, lack of evidence, and the inability to locate suspects. 1947 saw 191,611 reports filed with the police, of which 33,324 led to sentences, or a ‘success’ rate of 17.4%. Though this represents an improvement over 1946, still less than one in five crimes reported led to a criminal sentence. However, this does not tell us what proportion of crimes reported to the police can be attributed to juveniles: the age of offenders can be known only in those cases where the police have been successful in identifying the offender. Yet we can safely assume that the high rate of unsuccessful investigations was applicable to juveniles as well as to adult cases and that the number of juveniles sentenced represent only a small proportion of those juveniles who were authors of crimes actually reported to the police.

  17. 17.

    ‘Berlin’s Youthful Criminals’, in British Zone Review, 23 November 1946, Vol. 1 No. 31, p. 1.

  18. 18.

    Ralph Angermund, Deutsche Richterschaft 1933–1945. Krisenerfahrung, Illusion, politische Rechtsprechung (Frankfurt / Main, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl., 1990), p. 219f.

  19. 19.

    Hermann Glaser, Kleine Kulturgeschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Bonn, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1991), p. 72.

  20. 20.

    Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War (London, Allen Lane, 2008), p. 683.

  21. 21.

    Curt Bondy, ‘Bindungslose Jugend: eine sozialpädagogische Studie über Arbeits- und Heimatlosigkeit’, in Unsre Jugend 4 (1953), p. 9.

  22. 22.

    Curt Bondy, ‘Bindungslose Jugend: eine sozialpädagogische Studie über Arbeits- und Heimatlosigkeit’, in Unsre Jugend 48 (1953), p. 53. This scepticism was however not merely confined to Germany. An article in the American Time Magazine entitled ‘The Younger Generation’ was similarly downbeat about the moral state of youth in the country. See the edition from 5 November 1951, p. 26f.

  23. 23.

    See Hermann Glaser, Kulturgeschichte, pp. 72–73. The statistics are taken from an article in the 8 February 1948 edition of Die Neue Zeitung entitled ‘Jugend zwischen gestern und morgen. Verwahrlosung und Kriminalität der Jugendlichen – Gefahr oder Zeiterscheinung?’.

  24. 24.

    See Elisabeth Bamberger, ‘Jugendnot und Jugendhilfe’, in Hermine Albers, Elisabeth Bamberger et al. (eds.), Unsere Jugend. Zeitschrift für Jugendhilfe in Wissenschaft und Praxis, Vol. 1 No. 1 (Munich, January 1949), pp. 3–12. Also see Nicholas Stargardt, Witnesses of War. Children’s Lives under the Nazis (London, Jonathan Cape, 2005) in particular Part four (pp. 319–383).

  25. 25.

    Karl-Heinz Füssl, Die Umerziehung der Deutschen. Jugend und Schule unter den Siegermächten des Zweiten Weltkriegs 1945–1955 (Paderborn, Schöningh, 1994), p. 104.

  26. 26.

    Edward Ross Dickinson, The Politics of Child Welfare from the Empire to the Federal Republic (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 249.

  27. 27.

    Roland Gröschel & Michael Schmidt, Trümmerkids und Gruppenstunde. Zwischen Romantik und Politik: Jugend und Jugendverbandsarbeit in Berlin im ersten Nachkriegsjahrzehnt (Berlin, Elefanten Press, 1990), p. 11.

  28. 28.

    “Entstehung und Charakter der Jugendhilfsstelle”, Berlin Hauptjugendamt, Abteilung Sozialwesen, 1. November 1949, Landesarchiv Berlin, C Rep. 118, Nr. 116, Sheet 63.

  29. 29.

    Frank Kebbedies, Außer Kontrolle. Jugendkriminalpolitik in der NS-Zeit und der frühen Nachkriegszeit (Essen, Klartext, 2000), pp. 218–219.

  30. 30.

    Kebbedies, Außer Kontrolle, p. 218.

  31. 31.

    ‘Entstehung und Charakter der Jugendhilfsstelle’, Berlin Hauptjugendamt, Abteilung Sozialwesen, 1 November 1949, in Landesarchiv Berlin, C Rep. 118 Nr. 116, Sheet 63.

  32. 32.

    Erich Schneider, ‘Moderne Heimerziehung für seelisch auffällige Jugendliche’ Kinder’ in Hauptjugendamt von Berlin & Institut für Psychotherapie Berlin (ed.) Analytische Psychotherapie und Erziehungshilfe (Berlin, Daehler, 1952), p. 163.

  33. 33.

    Ibid.

  34. 34.

    Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 051, Nr. 10505.

  35. 35.

    Usual court practice saw youths accused of committing property crime sentenced within the space of one to three months after the alleged criminal act.

  36. 36.

    See Hilde Thurnwald, Gegenwartsprobleme Berliner Familien. Eine soziologische Untersuchung an 498 Familien (Berlin, Weidmann, 1948) pp. 40–41.

  37. 37.

    Reinickendorf youth office to the Schöneberg district court, 14 April 1947. Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 051, Nr. 10505, Sheet 24.

  38. 38.

    On the black market, during the extremely cold winter of 1946/47 (with temperatures as low as—15℃), the price per hundredweight briquettes was 50 to 80 RM, with hundredweights of coal fetching from 60 to 80 RM. See Thurnwald, Gegenwartsprobleme, p. 46. Additionally: for details on the worsening sustenance situation during this winter, Ibid, pp. 53–55. According to one report: “The unusually hard winter of 1946/47 has demonstrated in all areas the fragile health of Germany. In Berlin, for example, 285 people froze [to death], 67 people died after amputation of frozen limbs, 1376 people were taken to hospital suffering from frostbite, [and] 53,300 people were treated for frost damage.” For further information, see Siegfried Heimann, ‘Das Überleben organisieren. Berliner Jugend und Berliner Jugendbanden in den vierziger Jahren’, in Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt e.V. (ed.) Vom Lagerfeuer zur Musikbox. Jugendkulturen 1900–1960 (Berlin (West), Elefanten Press, 1985), p. 118.

  39. 39.

    See here Magistrat der Stadt Berlin, Abteilung für Volksbildung, Jugendausschuss to Abteilung für Sozialwesen, 2 October 1945, Landesarchiv Berlin, C Rep. 118, Nr. 116, Sheets 57–59.

  40. 40.

    Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 013 Nr. 18: Statistische Erhebung über die Insassen des “Jugendhofes” (Stichtag 1 April 1952).

  41. 41.

    Marie R. to the Schöneberg district court, 25 April 1947, Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 051, Nr. 10505, Sheet 33.

  42. 42.

    Sentence of the Pankow district court, 4 July 1946.

  43. 43.

    According to figures by Ernst Reuß, who studied everyday justice in Berlin through the District Courts from 1945 to 1953, Berlin District Courts in the second half of 1945 could employ only 48 assistants, as compared to 2700 before the war. In March 1946, 25 judges could be called upon, as compared with 279 in 1941. In the 7 months after the war, 35,000 criminal cases were processed by only 13 public prosecutors and 13 assistants. See Ernst Reuß, Vier Sektoren – Eine Justiz. Berliner Justiz in der Nachkriegzeit (Berlin, BWV Berliner-Wissenschaft, 2003), pp. 29–31.

  44. 44.

    Sentence of the Charlottenburg district court (Section 11), 6 February 1946. Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 051, Nr. 2713.

  45. 45.

    Charlottenburg youth office (Department for Social Affairs) to the Charlottenburg District Court, 4 February 1946. Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 051 Nr. 2713.

  46. 46.

    Charlottenburg youth office (Department for Social Affairs) to the Charlottenburg District Court, 4 February 1946. Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 051 Nr. 2713.

  47. 47.

    Hilde Thurnwald, Gegenwartsprobleme Berliner Familien. Eine soziologische Untersuchung an 498 Familien (Berlin, Weidmann, 1948) p. 135.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., p. 142.

  49. 49.

    Heimann, ‘Das Überleben organisieren’, p. 121.

  50. 50.

    Thurnwald, Gegenwartsprobleme, pp. 140–141.

  51. 51.

    The German slang expression being Schieber, also translatable as pusher or dealer.

  52. 52.

    See in particular Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1942). Frederick M. Thrasher, The Gang (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1936).

  53. 53.

    Neukölln youth office to the Neukölln district court, 16 March 1946. LAB B Rep. 051, Nr. 2248.

  54. 54.

    Legal advisor Richard F to the Neukölln district court, 11 March 1946. LAB B Rep. 051, Nr. 2248, Sheet 19.

  55. 55.

    Götz Leonhard, Die Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung im nationalsozialistischen Staat und ihre Lehren für die Zukunft (Dissertation, Mainz, 1952), pp. 87–88. Leonhard cites his mentor Karl Bader twice here, first for the phrase “eradication of crime” and secondly after the last sentence. See Karl Bader, Soziologie der Nachkriegskriminalität (Tübingen, Mohr, 1949), pp. 186 and 196.

  56. 56.

    Edward Ross Dickinson, The Politics of German Child Welfare from the Empire to the Federal Republic (Cambridge, Mass. & London, Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 256. Cf. Statistisches Handbuch für das Deutsche Reich (Berlin, Schmidt, 1940) and Statistisches Handbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (ed. Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland; Stuttgart: Metzler-Poeschel, 1954). Ross Dickinson also quotes the figures of children in correctional education in 1959 as 53,000 and 48,000 in 1969, showing a significant long-term decrease in the practice.

  57. 57.

    Ross Dickinson, The Politics of German Child Welfare, p. 254.

  58. 58.

    Karl Peters, ‘Gegenwärtiger Stand der Jugendgerichtsbarkeit in Westdeutschland’, in Hauptjugendamt von Groß-Berlin (ed.) Stand und Neuordnung der Jugendgerichtsbarkeit. Bericht über die Berliner Tagung vom 22 Bis 26 Mai 1949 (Berlin, Verwaltungsdr., 1949), pp. 90–106; 98. Peters mentions in passing that other localities demonstrated similar tendencies in terms of how welfare education measures were assigned.

  59. 59.

    Ross Dickinson, The Politics of German Child Welfare, p. 254, Cf. ‘Der Allgemeine Fürsorge-Erziehungs-Tag 1950’, Unsere Jugend 2 (1950), pp. 161–166.

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    David Meeres

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  1. University of Montreal, Montreal, Québec, Canada

    Jean Trépanier

  2. Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Xavier Rousseaux

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Meeres, D. (2018). A ‘Wayward’ or ‘Incorrigible’ Youth? Juvenile Crime and Correctional Education in Post-war Germany, 1945–1953. In: Trépanier, J., Rousseaux, X. (eds) Youth and Justice in Western States, 1815-1950. World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66245-9_8

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