Nazi Criminology: Continuity and Radicalisation

Contrary to the ‘rupture thesis’ favoured in Anglo-American academic discourse, Nazi criminal law did not emerge from a vacuum; nor did it disappear after 1945. The article explains and defends this ‘continuity thesis’. In fact, Nazi criminal law adopted earlier authoritarian tendencies of German criminal law and exacerbated them (the ‘radicalisation thesis’). It is for this reason that Nazi criminal law should not lightly be dismissed as ‘non-law’, thus omitting any further engagement with it. The article will show that the same continuity and radicalisation arguments can be made, mutatis mutandis, for German Nazi criminology, which ultimately became a legitimating science (‘Legitimationswissenschaft’) for Nazi criminal justice policy. The argument is developed in four stages. First, an account is given of the racist and criminal-biologistic foundations of National Socialist criminology, including their continuity both with the past and into the future. This is followed by an explanation of the influence of criminal anthropology (particularly that of Lombroso) on the ‘scientification’ of criminology (the ‘Kraepelin and Aschaffenburg paradigms’). Third, the National Socialist radicalisation of criminology on the basis of the criminal-biological utopia of the ‘blood-based’ Volksgemeinschaft is described. Thus, Nazi criminology derived its strength from and built upon biological theories of crime, which in turn laid the foundations of the deadly Nazi criminal justice policy. The discipline became a science that legitimated National Socialism, contrary to Wetzell's thesis of a somewhat dissident ‘mainstream criminology’. With regard to disturbing developments in current German politics, all this will make clear that the approach of the (German) ‘New Right’ to criminal justice is not novel at all but is derived from the ideologically infused theories and policies of Nazi criminologists during the 1930s.


INTRODUCTION
During the Nazi era , German criminal law assumed a very different character, moulded by the regime's ideology. 1 One reading of this radical transformation is that it constituted a dramatic change of direction, only to collapse along with the fall of the regime. However, Nazi criminal law neither emerged from a vacuum, nor did it completely disappear after 1945. This is the gist of the so-called continuity thesis, which I defend elsewhere. 2 Indeed, Nazi criminal law did not only continue earlier authoritarian tendencies of German criminal law but even exacerbated themthe so-called radicalisation thesis. Perhaps the most prominent and horrific example of this radicalisation is the Nazi euthanasia programme in carrying nineteenth century social-Darwinist and biologist thinking to its deadly extreme.
This article focuses on Nazi, and thus German criminology, but this does not mean to imply that criminology is a 'nationalist' discipline. On the contrary, criminology operates transnationally as a cross-cultural enterprise and this becomes clear if one studies Nazi criminology, for example, in its reliance on the Italian positivist school, especially Lombroso, as demonstrated in Section 3. Similarly, while this article does not focus on the human rights dimension of criminology in general and Nazi criminology in particular, this is not to say that such a dimension does not exist or is of minor importance. Indeed, there are various human rights norms which concern the criminal justice system and thus deserve to be analysed from a criminological perspective, 3 although this is outside the scope of this article.
Instead, the article will demonstrate how German Nazi criminology, similar to German criminal law, constituted, mutatis mutandis, a continuation and radicalisation of earlier explanations for crime. Both the continuity and the radicalisation theses stand in stark contrast with the 'rupture thesis' favoured in Anglo-American academic discourse. This thesis holds that Nazi (criminal) law constituted an historic aberration which departed from previous German traditions and contemporary explanations of criminality. 4 Given the continuity of Nazi criminal law, it should not lightly be dismissed as 'non-law', thus omitting any further engagement with it. 5 In fact, anyone who makes the effort to understand the functioning of the Nazi criminal justice system, studying its structural and theoretical underpinnings, will quickly realise that both the rupture and the non-law theses need to be corrected. 6 It should also become clear from this article that Germany's 'New Right', represented at all (federal, state and local) parliamentary levels by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, has a perspective on criminal behaviour and the state response to crime which is not novel but can be traced back to the ideologically infused theories and policies of Nazi criminologists during the 1930s. This is evidenced by various legislative initiatives at the federal and state levels. In fact, this New Right, especially its Nazi-like, völkisch 'wing' (Der Flügel), 8 openly embraces a racist-genetic 9 and ethnic-biologistic agenda of superiority 10 and employs supposed criminological insights in doing so, in a similar way to Nazi criminologists such as Helmut Nicolai, to whom we now turn. In ideological terms there is thus nothing 'new' about this 'Right'; rather, it is a Nazi-like, völkisch movement in the modern garb of the internet age.

NAZI RACISM, CRIMINAL BIOLOGY AND CONTINUITY
In as early as 1932, Helmut Nicolai had already attempted to provide a populist philosophical foundation for National Socialist (NS) racial theory 11 in his Foundations of a National 8 At the end of March 2020 the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV)) declared that Der Flügel is now to be considered as an 'extreme right-wing endeavour directed against the liberal democratic basic order' ('rechtsextremistische Bestrebung gegen die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung'), https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/de/oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/ presse/pm-20200312-bfv-stuft-afd-teilorganisation-der-fluegel-als-gesichert-rechtsextremistische-bestrebung-ein. As Socialist Legal Philosophy, 12 in which he invoked supposed criminological findings according to which the crime rate is dependent on ethnicity: 'crime rates show that criminality is lower the more Nordic and Germanic the population'. 13 Therefore, Nicolai argues, NS criminal law should be used first and foremost against those who do not belong to this ethnic group, for their 'legal conscience' is not 'unadulterated', and their 'predisposition' leads them 'down the path of dishonourable crime', which is why they need to be 'removed' from the Volksgemeinschaft. 14 Nicolai's work met with the approval not only of criminal law scholars, 15 but also of the renowned Hans von Hentig, who praised it in the highly regarded Monatsschrift für Kriminalpsychologie und Strafrechtsreform (MSchrKrimPsych, now Monatsschrift für Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform, MSchrKrim), 16 the main medium of German criminology 17 of which von Hentig was co-editor at the time. Von Hentig himself advocated biologist positions at the beginning of the twentieth century, as we will see below, 18 but later set himself against one-sided biologism and, in addition, criticised the naive 'trust in authority' of the younger generation, represented mainly by Georg Dahm and Friedrich Schaffstein,19 at the conference of the German section of the Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung ((IKV) International Penal Association) in 1932-33. 20  on hereditary predisposition, stating that his dismissal of environmental influences would need to be 'preceded by a discussion of the question of how 'the criminal is imagined to be', namely as a 'true criminal' or only as a 'small-scale law-breaker'. While it was 'doubtlessly correct that unfit genetic qualities need to be eradicated', it was doubtful 'whether every criminal act is symptomatic of hereditary predisposition or degeneracy and which hereditary traits should be regarded as "unfit"'. 21 Von Hentig's views corresponded with the balanced position of MSchrKrimPsych, which at the time understood itself as an interdisciplinary forum of jurists and medical practitioners and thus adopted a more differentiated predisposition-environment approach, continuing to do so even during the first years of NS rule. 22 The journal was founded in 1904 by Jewish psychiatrist Gustav Aschaffenburg in order to 'scientifically research the psychology of crime and the criminal' 23 and serve as a 'reservoir … of juristic and medical, sociological, psychological and philosophical works'. 24 This was a revolutionary interdisciplinary project for its time, involving both legal and medical practitioners, 25 as evident from the fact that the important criminal law reformers von Liszt, von Lilienthal and Kloß were involved in the journal's foundation. 26 The Monatsschrift has survived until today (as MSchrKrim) but was subject both to numerous changes, including its name, 27 and, of course, to increasing Nazi pressure. In fact, the journal's history represents paradigmatically the changes in German criminology, especially under Nazi rule. Dissatisfied with increasing Nazi influence, von Hentig resigned from the editorial board in 1934, followed by Aschaffenburg in 1935. Von Hentig, who had already gone into exile in the United States in 1936, wrote about these events in an obituary for Aschaffenburg, complaining about 'the atmosphere of Gleichschaltung' and the increasing 'caution' of the publisher as a result of Nazi pressure. 28 Aschaffenburg himself cited his advanced age and the need for ['Vorbild'] 'in his steadfastness and intellectual independence' ['in seiner Standhaftigkeit und geistigen Selbständigkeit']). 21 von Hentig (n 16) 633 ('eine Verständigung über die Frage vorausgehen, wie man sich "den" Verbrecher vorstellt', 'echten Kriminellen', 'kleinen Rechtsbrecher', 'zweifellos richtig, daß die untauglichen Erbanlagen ausgemerzt werden müssen', 'ob jede strafbare Handlung Veranlagungs-oder Entartungssymptom ist und welche Erbanlagen als "untauglich" zu gelten haben'). 22 For a detailed (contents) analysis see Berg (n 20) 5-56 (since its foundation in 1904), 57-116 (German Empire and Weimar Republic) and 117-217 (1933 onwards 2020] N AZI CRIMINOLOGY 263 generational change as the reasons for his retirement, 29 but in fact he had been forced to resign on the ground of the NS race laws, which prohibited Jews from holding editorial positions. 30 In 1934 the Nazis forced Aschaffenburgwho was already 68 years oldto retire prematurely from his chair at the University of Cologne and as director of Cologne's psychiatric clinic. 31 He emigrated to Switzerland in 1939 and then to the United States, where he died in 1944. 32 Interestingly, before his immigration to the US, Aschaffenburg continued to advise the new editors (Exner, Lange and Sieverts, 1936-44) 33 but was finally forced to break off contact completely as co-editor Lange had been denounced to the Gestapo because of this continued collaboration and the journal feared that the Reichsschrifttumskammer (the government agency in charge of books and publishing) would become involved. As a consequence, the three new editors wished to resign en masse, but Aschaffenburg himself, in a moving letter revealing his greatness and generosity, asked them not to place his person above the matter itself, which their intended resignation risked placing in the hands of scientifically half-educated Party ideologues who under certain circumstances might cause great harm. 34 Ultimately, with Aschaffenburg's definitive departure, 35 from 1937, at the latest, the Monatsschrift was no longer able to evade the biologism promoted by the Nazis and changed its name to Monatsschrift für Kriminalbiologie und Strafrechtsreform (MSchrKrimBio), replacing 'criminal psychology' with 'criminal biology'). While the (new) editors did not live in the atmosphere of Gleichschaltung … The publisher was fearful and urged a change in tone or greater caution. I was not ready to yield and tendered my resignation. Aschaffenburg thought I had been too impetuous. He hoped that conditions might improve … In 1936 when he should have celebrated his seventieth birthday, the regime took the Monatsschrift away from him, appointed a new publisher [Lehmanns, see n 27] and asked new editors … to take over' (italics in the original text)). 29  want to see the change in name as a 'change of programme' ('Programmwechsel'), 36 further changes in the editorial board 37 and the ever more radical content of subsequent issues showed the journal's increasingly biologistic orientation. 38 Thus, it is fair to say that the journal 'had come to terms with National Socialism'. 39 At any rate, the ideas of 'elimination', 'selection' and the like were by no means invented by the National Socialists. In 1913 the same von Hentig, who had tried to impede the biologistic Nazi takeover of the Monatsschrift, had already propagated the selective function of criminal law ('social selection's most energetic and sparkling instrument') 40a fact largely ignored in his Anglo-American reception. One year later he advocated the animal-like breeding of a 'moral race of human', which would result in the 'elimination of a certain type of antisocial human', embracing a completely biologistic line of argument. 41 Thus Nicolai and other Nazi jurists 42 were able to link effortlessly to earlier criminal-biological and social-Darwinist approaches of the fin de siècle, 43 which themselves were linked in turn to the (thoroughly racist) European 36 The editors' aim was, allegedly, simply to use the 'term that is conventional today' in the journal's name: (1937) 28 MSchrKrimBio 1. 37  N AZI CRIMINOLOGY 265 colonialism of this time. 44 These approaches were by no means restricted to the political right wing or the Centre Party (Zentrum). 45 In institutional terms, the advance of criminal biology had already become manifest in the 1920s with the setting up of 'criminal-biological examination offices' (kriminalbiologische Untersuchungsstellen) within the context of the tiered penal system at state level 46 and the foundation of the Criminal-Biological Society (Kriminalbiologische Gesellschaft) in 1927; 47 the Society in turn formed the scientific nucleus of the Criminal-Biological Service (Kriminalbiologischer Dienst) founded in 1937 as part of the Reich Administration of Justice. 48 It is clear from the above that there wasas with Nazi criminal law 49 and as generally recognised in historical scholarship 50a backward-reaching continuity (post-Weimar) in criminology, too. This stands in stark contrast to the above-mentioned rupture thesisand the ensuing lack of engagement with Nazi lawwhich is therefore to be dismissed in this context, too. 51 A continuity into the future then became apparent in the seamless transition of some criminologists and their works (for example, Exner's Kriminalbiologie 52 and Mezger's Kriminalpolitik 53 ), including the entire scientific superstructure, into the Bonn and even Berlin Republic. 54 There was a climate of widespread silence, 55 which permeates mainstream textbooks which largely overlook the role of German criminology during the NS period. 56 This silence perhaps reached its climax in Mezger's speech on the history of the Criminal-Biological Societyan important part of the superstructure referred to above, presided by Mezger   N AZI CRIMINOLOGY 'one-sided … untenable natural-scientific orientation' during the Third Reich and the practice of 'remote diagnosis', but without making any explicit mention of National Socialism. 58 In as late as 1959, an article by a student of Rudolf Sieverts appeared in MSchrKrim, paying tribute to youth concentration camps in NS parlance. 59 Only during the 1960s did a critical appraisal of the past and a suppression of criminal biology set in 60 with Würtenberger's memorable 1967 lecture on the inglorious history of the Criminal-Biological Society, 61 also marking an impressive turning point in mainstream criminology. Würtenberger recalled the Criminal-Biological Society's involvement in National Socialism, 62 criticised (Mezger's) silence 63 and the failure 'thus far' to overcome 'criminal biology', 64 and called for 'all viewpoints to be integrated into a "comprehensive criminology"'. 65 Thus, if the rupture thesis ever had any merit, the 1967 Würtenberger lecture can be seen as a turning point of German criminologyin terms of a first attempt to confront its Nazi past and, perhaps, even break with it.

EFFECTS OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The influence of the Italian positivists, and particularly of Lombroso's theory of the born criminal, 66 should not be underestimated. 67 Lombroso's theoryat least in its criminal-anthropological radicalism (physiological and constitutional characteristics of the 'born criminal', going beyond hereditary criminal traits) 68was widely rejected in Germany. Thus, for example, Aschaffenburg criticised the 'unreliability' of the data gathered, considered the approach as 'mistaken' and concluded that the distinction between the 'born criminal' and the normal human being has 'failed', as has the attempt to 'characterise the criminal in "clinical and anatomical" terms'. 69 Even authors with certain Nazi tendencies in their writings, like Mezger and Exner, dismissed Lombroso's approach. Thus, for the former it has 'not been possible to provide evidence' of 'born criminals' and the criminal-anthropological core of the approach has been 'refuted'. 70 Exner even more radically considered the idea of the 'born criminal' as 'nonsense if taken literally', but also 'unproven and unprovable' concerning hereditary criminal character traits, as 'inherited potentialities' need not 'necessarily lead to crime'. 71 However, Lombroso served as inspiration for some sort of mixed innovative (albeit implausible) approaches 72  more 84 individual-psychological psychiatric school (the 'Kraepelin paradigm'); 85 it is fair to say that Lombroso provided an 'impetus for medical and psychiatric research into the "uomo delinquent" as an individual'. 86 By contrast, the more sociologically and psychologically oriented Aschaffenburg School (the 'Aschaffenburg paradigm') rejected, as did its founder, 87 the concept of the 'born criminal' in the first place, emphasising the role played by environmental factors. 88 The (psychiatric) concept of moral insanity, 89 which was already used by Lombroso, formed the foundation of psychopathy; 90 in turn, psychopathywhich was less radical than Lombroso's 816-25, 821, 822 (Kraepelin (1904)). See also his earlier positive comment on the significance of Lombroso's theory: Emil Kraepelin, Compendium der Psychiatrie (Ambr. Abel 1883) 353 (Kraepelin (1883)) ('achievement of Italian psychiatry to have shown the traces of this diseased predisposition … in "born" criminals … the anthropological school of criminalistics, which emerged from it [i.e. Italian psychiatry], is busily trying to clarify the direct psychopathic origin of such natures and their somatic accompanying symptoms' ['Verdienst der italienischen Psychiatrie, die Spuren dieser krankhaften Anlage … bei den "geborenen" Verbrechern, nachgewiesen zu haben … die aus ihr hervorgegangene anthropologische Schule der Kriminalistik ist emsig bemüht, den direkten psychopathischen Ursprung solcher Naturen und die somatischen Begleitsymptome klarzustellen']). Interestingly, Kraepelin wrote an early positive review of 'L'uomo delinquente': Emil Kraepelin, 'Lombrosos Uomo delinquente' (1885) 5 ZStW 669-80 (Kraepelin (1885)) ('brought together to form a unified, well thought-out system' ['zu einem geschlossenen wohldurchdachten Systeme zusammengefügt', 670]), possible later refutations of individual findings will not alter the work's 'major significance' ['hohe Bedeutung', 680], but later contrasted the constitutional-biological approach with a psychiatric approach (where individual cases are concerned, an 'analysis of the mental personality' ['Analyse der psychischen Persönlichkeit'] is more appropriate than analysing 'the somatic accompanying symptoms' ['der somatischen Begleiterscheinungen', 674]), foundation of 'scientific criminal psychology' ['der wissenschaftlichen Kriminalpsychologie', 680] and was critical of the possibility of precisely defining 'moral insanity' ['moralischen Irreseins'] as a psychiatric disease (677-78). For more detail on Kraepelin's work in this respect, cf Gadebusch Bondio (n 41) 182-99 (especially 186-89). 84 On Kraepelin's more social-psychiatric approach, however, see n 103 below. 85 On the modern definition of the concepts of criminal psychology and criminal psychiatry, cf Schneider (n 17) 168-69 including further references (psychological analysis of the criminal individual and his or her conduct, including social reactions to it). However, this blurs the boundaries between psychology and psychiatry. 86 Gadebusch Bondio (n 41) 239-40 ('Impulse zur medizinisch-psychiatrischen Erforschung des "uomo delinquente" als Individuum'); also 220-23 (on the criminal-psychological modification of Lombroso's theory in Sommer and Frank) and 233-36. However, see also the instructive distinction between Lombroso and Freud in Schneider (n 17) 174 ('criminal as a somatic and mental atavism' ['Verbrecher als somatisch-psychischer Rückschlag'] versus a focus on purely 'mental stages of development' ['psychische Entwicklungsstufen']). On the growing significance of (forensic) psychiatry as the foundation of empirical-scientific criminology from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, Müller (n 32) 23-81, especially 72-81 ('history of the genesis of criminology … is simultaneously a story of psychiatry's success' ['Entstehungsgeschichte der Kriminologie … zugleich eine Erfolgsgeschichte der Psychiatrie', 80]). 87 See n 69 and main text; on Aschaffenburg, also Gadebusch Bondio (n 41) 199-201. 88 Wetzell (n 17) 39, 44-71 (especially 69), 297-98 (according to whom the Kraepelin School recognised the concept of the 'born criminal' in principle, but as a purely psychiatric categorypersons with an endogenous moral defectwithout attributing any physical traits, while the Aschaffenburg School rejected even the concept); on these so-called Kraepelin and Aschaffenburg 'paradigms', see also Schneider (n 17) 171; Baumann (n 43) 41-42; Göppinger (n 56) § 2 mn 68. 89 The term was originally coined by the English doctor, James Coles Prichard (Menne (n 32) 19 with fn 20, including further references) and was also taken up  criminal-anthropological and constitution-focused approach and thus more acceptable to a criminal law guided by the principle of culpability 91became the dominant (medical) frame through which to interpret criminality. 92 At any rate, one must not overlook the fact that as a marker of 'inferiority', this concept of psychopathy was hugely stigmatising, 93 while at the same time, as acknowledged by Kraepelin himself, 94 being too vague for a precise psychiatric diagnosis. 95 Thus, as a diagnostic and prognostic tool, it only made a comeback with Hare's PCL-R checklist. 96 In this context, 'psychopathy' is concerned less with identifying 'inferiority' in whatever shape or form and more with a degree of social dissociation or anomie that fosters crime. 97 The recognition of 'born' or otherwise predisposed criminals formed the basis for protective or incapacitating criminal law measures, 98  he later drew upon criminal-biological and anthropological approaches 100 and argued for the 'neutralisation' of incorrigible offenders within the framework of the second track of his purely protection-and security-focused criminal law (the 'Marburger Programme'). 101 From this point of view, Lombroso's 'born criminals' can be read as a 'cipher for "incorrigible" and "dangerous" criminals'. 102 In fact, Kraepelin too called for 'elimination of incorrigible individuals' 103 in line with his individualistic psychiatric approach inspired by Lombroso. 104 Thus, ultimatelyregardless of the intentions of Lombroso and von Lisztthis whole thinking not only laid the intellectual ground 105 for the Nazi theory of perpetrator types (Tätertypenlehre 106 ) which in turn is derived from Willensstrafrecht (criminal law of the will 107 ), but alsomore importantly in our contextpaved the way for later Nazi legislation on neutralising so-called Volksschädlinge or 'elements harmful to the people' (particularly through the Gewohnheitsverbrechergesetz (Habitual Offenders Act) 108 110 This Lisztian line of continuity had already been emphasised at the time. Thus Exner traced the Habitual Offenders Act back to Liszt's efforts to introduce 'effective legal means of combatting dispositional criminality'. 111 Eberhard Schmidt stated that the Habitual Offenders Act had fulfilled 'Liszt's old call to intensify the fight against habitual criminality', 112 which is why it does not represent 'a specifically National Socialist statement on sentencing'. 113 More recently, Dölling argued that von Liszt's special preventive focus on the effective protection of society had led to 'the danger of a scientifically informed positivism that failed to reflect upon its preconditions and consequencesa danger that had its roots in early criminologybecoming realised' in the Nazi period. 114 While Streng emphasises Liszt's unifying theory ('Vereinigungstheorie') 115 approach, he sees links to NS criminal policy in the harshness with which Liszt excludes 'incorrigible individuals' and his 'extreme purposive orientation'. 116 While this continuity can hardly be denied in relation to the Habitual Offenders Act, the same does not apply for the Volksschädlingsverordnung, for this decree legalised eradication through the death penalty, which Liszt was always against: 'and as we do not wish to behead or hang and are unable to deport [incorrigible individuals], himself a psychiatrist, represented the increasing influencealready on the rise before Nazi rule 141of medicine and psychiatry 142 and of studies on hereditary factors and family clans (including twin studies) 143 in criminology. 144 However, ideas on genetics are also to be found in non-medical authors such as Franz Exner, 145 although Exner principally regarded environmental factors as equally important, arguing that crime is always a 'reaction to environmental influences' and it is 'never possible to draw fully reliable conclusions concerning genetic material from behaviour'. 146 Exner also recognised the significance of criminal sociology, 147 though he contributed to its marginalisation under the blieb unerkannt bestehen … biologische Kräfte, ererbte Instinkte und Bindungen des Blutes, die in reichem Wechselspiel zusammenwirkten … daß die Glieder des Gaunerschlages sich miteinander fortpflanzten, und daß sie damit ihr geprägtes Erbgut immer wieder durch die Jahrhunderte an die folgenden Geschlechter weitergaben']).

MAINSTREAM AND NAZI CRIMINOLOGY?
Against this background, is it possible to say that mainstream criminology during the Nazi periodin clear distinction specifically to Nazi criminologyrejected racial-genetic determinism à la Ritter and adhered to an interaction involving predisposition and environmentas least as a theoretical starting point? 180 Wetzell argues along these lines, claiming that while National Socialism needed research in criminal biology to support its eugenic and biologistic views, mainstream criminology provided only limited support for these ideas, 181 as 'genetically deterministic and racist explanations of crime did not predominate in criminal biology and criminology', and 'mainstream criminology … was characterized by a continuing process of increasing methodological sophistication'. 182 Therefore, neither a connection between 'criminal biology and racism (including anti-Semitism)' 183 nor 'a natural affinity between Nazi jurists and criminal biology' can be assumed. 184 However, this view is problematic in that Wetzell does not define explicitly what he means by 'mainstream criminology'. He quotes important authors such as Aschaffenburg, Mezger and Exner, and concedes that 'leading criminologists' sought to attract the Nazi regime's support by emphasising the significance of criminology for Nazi eugenics, but ultimately failed to gain acceptance in 'mainstream criminology'. 185 In a way Wetzell seems to posit a distinction between normal and Nazi criminology 186 but such a distinction did not and indeed could not exist as such, given the totality of the Nazi rule embracing all academic institutions and movements. 187 This can be seen in the composition and status of the above-mentioned Criminal-Biological Society as the leading professional association, which significantly promoted the rise of criminal biologism and concepts of racial hygiene. 188 The personalacademic and/or institutionalefforts of most criminologists, such as Exner and Mezger in the field of law, Republic's liberal criminal law, 217 rejected the responsibility of criminology for it and even advocated the 'neutralisation' of certain members of the 'community of the people'. 218 These criminologistsperhaps as children of their time and victims of the Zeitgeist 219were neither able to predict the Nazi radicalisation of these ideas, nor recognise that such an inhumane criminal policy would sooner or later turn against themselves. 220 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS This brings these (preliminary) reflections on criminology under the Nazi regime to a close. They have shown that Nazi criminologyas well as Nazi criminal lawdid not emerge from nowhere and did not disappear completely in 1945. In fact, German criminology during the Nazi reign, especially its biological turn, became a legitimating science preparing the ground for genocidal Nazi criminal justice policies. Sadly, the rise of the 'New Right' in Germany shows how current and necessary these reflections are. Whatever our stance on the history of German criminology and the theory of continuity and radicalisation, today their scientific examination and appraisal is more necessary than ever, lest criminology once more becomes the tool of an inhumane criminal policy.