Protecting the Democratic State Through Criminal Law: Legislation History and the Role of the Federal Public Prosecutor

This chapter will expound how modern German law has conceptualised its legal framework to protect the state by tracing the historic development of the laws regarding political crimes with a focus on High Treason and Subversion. Alongside the provision of the social and political context, the special role of modern Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor as the highest prosecutory authority will be examined as it emerged from the predecessing organisational structures of Imperial Germany, the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist Regime. In the process, passed-on values and possible ideological relics shall be exposed facilitated by recent research on the history of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s forming years. As a brief outlook, the most urgent challenges the German state and its authorities face in terms of state protection nowadays will be touched at the end.