Hett, Benjamin Cart. Death in the Tiergarten

Hett, Benjamin Cart. Death in the Tiergarten: Murder and Criminal Justice in the Kaiser’s Berlin. Harvard University Press. (Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 2004)

In Benjamin Carter Hett’s Death in the Tiergarten: Murder and Criminal Justice in the Kaiser’s Berlin, He sets out to write “a subject that has no history.”(Hett, 1) What he means by a subject that has no history is that unlike the narratives of his contemporaries which rely on the old arguments of Klassenjustiz (class justice) and Weltfrenheit (being out of touch). Hett also tellingly mentions that a lot of his colleagues in the field who have taken up the subject frequently forget that the judges had come down fairly hard on the right. What Hett means here is that there actually exists a large political diversity in the Kaisereich. He has written a new history of criminal justice in Wilhelmine Germany. His new history is a micro-history modeled after the Ginzburg model. In other words this “history of everyday life” it is meant to turn the reader’s eyes away from sweeping generalities, and towards the human agents which on their own micro-scale make up the macro-organism of history.
Hett explains that his history of “culture of the criminal courtroom” will trace the change in the profession of law over time. Hett creates a list of the actors in which he considers to be relevant to the general culture of the courtroom. In this list Hett mentions “this book, then, is a study of how lawyers and judges, prosecutors and jurors, criminals and police officers, reporters and expert witnesses, met and interacted.”(Hett. 5) For this purpose he has chosen to cover the years 1891-1913. Hett further divided his period in two. The first period is exemplified by the birth of the defense, and the conflicting roles and understandings of honor. The second period is concerned more with the rise of the professional class, especially the experts (sociologists, psychologists, criminologists et al.) and the ever growing power of the press. Hett uses newspaper articles, and journals from the time to trace the attitudes of the actors involved in the courtroom. He is able to construct a vivid portrait of the period.
In the honor period Hett introduces us to Rieck. Superior Court Director Otto Rieck was one of the three judges assigned to the Heinze murder trial. The Heinzes stood accused of murdering a night watchman. Rieck is the typical Whilhelmine judge; he is a stanch conservative, and a legal positivist. Rieck feels that the defense lead by Cossman and Bailen had violated the honor of the court. Typical of the early period the violation of honor in the court was to be punished. Rieck has the two lawyers taken to honor court. They are lightly punished, and Rieck is not satisfied. The point of this scene however is the fact that the honor of the court is not being treated as some intangible justice as legal positivists would suggest. Hett’s critical evaluation of disobedience against honor shows that the very meaning of honor was going through changes, and as the meaning of honor was changing “the career of law” is actually born, in juxtaposition to its application in new ways in the courtroom.
For Hett, the actual existence of an honor court is proof enough for the unique treatment of honor in Wilhelmine courtrooms. . In an honor court a lawyer or judge could actually be tried for crimes against honor. Hett explains that these courts enforced specific conduct expected from the members of the legal community. Lawyers were supposed to live “under a quasi-military regime of discipline and expectations of behavior.” (Hett, 105) Rieck had pursued Cossman and Bailen specifically because of this concept of codes of conduct. In Hett’s narrative, one lawyer feels his honor has been so slighted that he actually challenges his colleague to a duel.
For Hett the German Defense Attorneys and the Press clearly were not passive and quiet bystanders. The press would exercise its new power without a moments thought. The riots in Konitz were a great example of the presses new power. In March of 1900 a boy in the town of Konitz was murdered. The press caught wind of the story, and the police forces failure to bring any answers to the crime, and had a field day. Hett titles that section “the struggle against stupidity”. The army is eventually called in to calm the anti-Semitic riots that were becoming commonplace. The authorities had to engage in a battle with the press to control the situation. The Konitz riot itself makes a very interesting sub-argument in Hett’s text. The fact is that the so-called obedient Germans of the town of Konitz engaged in a riot based on the townsfolk’s perception that the authorities were being too sympathetic to the Jews of the town. Hett would argue that the mass was becoming active
Hett’s text adequately argues valid points to consider. Hett’s dialogue seems to be placed alongside the old scholarship of the obedient Germans. The Germans of Hett’s text are all from very different walks. Hett shows a range from the far right, the anti-Semitic journalists, and the far left the socialists. In his text he is able to convince the readers that Germany was not a uniformed nation before the First World War. Hett’s Germany was a complex web of different people moving towards different goals. Hett doesn’t have a loud answer as to why one side won out, and the other lost.