Sondergericht

thumb|right|Judge Roland Freisler (centre) at the People's Court|250px A Sondergericht (plural: Sondergerichte) was a German "special court". After taking power in 1933, the Nazis quickly moved to remove internal opposition to the Nazi regime in Germany. The legal system became one of many tools for this aim and the Nazis gradually supplanted the normal justice system with political courts with wide-ranging powers. The function of the special courts was to intimidate the German public, but as they expanded their scope and took over roles previously done by ordinary courts such as Amtsgerichte this function became diluted.

==Function in Germany== thumb|Hermann Cuhorst (1899–1991), Chief Justice of the Special Court in [[Stuttgart.]] Special courts had existed in Germany as far back as the nineteenth century. They had generally been set up temporarily in response to some major but localised civil disturbance and then quickly dissolved once they had served their purpose. A more permanent national network of Special Courts came into being during 1933, soon after the passage of the Reichstag Fire Decree, which all but eliminated civil liberties. The scope of its power was successively augmented by the "Decree to Protect the Government of the National Socialist Revolution from Treacherous Attacks" (21 March 1933), the "Law of 20 December 1934 against insidious Attacks upon the State and Party and for the Protection of the Party Uniform", the "Law for the Guarantee of Peace Based on Law" of 13 October 1933 and a number of extensions when World War II commenced.