History of the authorities: After the National Socialists seized power, special courts were added to the existing criminal courts on the basis of the decree of the Reich government of 21 March 1933 (RGBl. I p. 136). The legal basis for this was Chapter II of Part Six of the 3rd Ordinance of the Reich President of 6 October 1931 on Securing the Economy and Finance and Combating Political Violence (RGBl. I p. 565). The special courts were formed for the Higher Regional Court districts and were composed of a chairman and two assessors. The special court rulings were not subject to appeal. By decree of 27 March 1933 on the formation of special courts (Bad. Justizministerialblatt Nr. 6 vom 28.3.1933, p. 47), Mannheim was designated as the seat of the special court for the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court district. The public prosecutor's office at the Mannheim Regional Court was the prosecuting authority. The registry of the Mannheim Regional Court was also the registry of the Special Court. The allocation of business to the Special Court was made by the President of the Long Court. With effect from 1 November 1940, a separate special court was formed at the Freiburg Regional Court for the districts of Freiburg, Constance, Offenburg and Waldshut. The jurisdiction of the special courts was generally governed by the following provisions:1. § 8 of the Law against Betrayal of the German National Economy of 12.6.1933 (RGBl. I p. 360);2nd Ordinance of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State of 28.2.1933 (RGBl. I p. 83);3rd Ordinance of the Reich President for the Defence against Insidious Attacks against the Government of the National Survey of 21.3.1933 (RGBl. I p. 135);4. law against insidious attacks on state and party and for the protection of party uniforms of 20.12.1934 (RGBl. I p. 1269);5. law for the guarantee of the right peace of 13.10.1933 (RGBl. I p. 723);6. law for the protection of the party uniforms of 13.10.1933 (RGBl. I p. 723);6. law for the protection of the party uniforms of 20.12.1934 (RGBl. I p. 1269) 134 b Reichsstrafgesetzbuch according to the ordinance of the Reich government of 24.9.1935 (RGBl. I p. 136);7. § 134 a Reichsstrafgesetzbuch according to the ordinance of the Reich government of 5.2.1936 (RGBl. I p. 97);8. ordinance of 20.11.1938 (RGBl. I p. 1632) for crimes that belonged to the jurisdiction of the jury court or a lower court if immediate conviction appeared necessary;9th Ordinance on Extraordinary Broadcasting Measures of 1.9.1939 (RGBl. I p. 1683);10. § 1 of the War Economy Ordinance of 4.9.1939 (RGBl. I p. 1609);11. § 1 of the Ordinance Against Popular Pests of 5.9.1939 (RGBl. I p. 1679);12. §§ 1, 2 of the Ordinance Against Violent Criminals of 5.12.1939 (RGBl. I p. 2378);13. § 239 a Reichsstrafgesetzbuch;14. Law against road theft by means of car traps of 22.6.1938 (RGBl. I p. 651);15. § 5 of the War Special Criminal Law Ordinance of 17.8.1938 (RGBl. I p. 1455): according to decree of the Reich Ministry of Justice of 27.5.In 1940, after the jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht courts to convict civilians for criminal offences under § 5 of the War Special Criminal Law Ordinance had been transferred to the general courts, the prosecuting authorities were instructed to bring charges before the Special Court in all significant cases.16Furthermore, charges could be brought before the Special Court for violations of the Act Implementing the Four-Year Plan of 29 October 1936 and of the Ordinance on Penalties and Criminal Proceedings for Violations of Price Regulations of 3 June 1939. History: The establishment of the special court in Mannheim as a department of the regional court there was not without difficulties. The frequent change of court referees had an effect on the conduct of official business. This had a negative effect not least on file management. The office was located in Heidelberg during the war. The court partially met in Karlsruhe. As a result of the district events, the special court files were partially destroyed. Many files were sent to other judicial authorities at the end of the war. During the occupation of the court building in Heidelberg in the spring of 1945, the files of the special court registry were thrown into the cellar, all lacings were loosened and so disordered that the context of the individual case-related documents no longer existed. Some of the files were outsourced by the occupying power in various places. In the summer of 1948, the written material was successively returned to the public prosecutor's office at the Mannheim Regional Court and, from 1976 onwards, several partial deliveries were made to the General State Archives. Order and distortion: The present collection is divided into two main parts. The first part lists the procedural and investigative files. From the years 1933 and 1934, only the reference files of the trial files have survived; of the investigation files, with a few exceptions, the years 1933 to 1935 are completely missing. Since, however, the process and investigation registers recorded in the second part of the finding aid have been preserved, at least the activity of the court can be reconstructed. The entries in the register are shown in a selection in this finding aid (cases for which no files are available). 1976 Mr. Wilhelm Steinbach began with the title entries. The completion or revision was carried out by the undersigned.Karlsruhe, in January 1993Manfred Hennhöfer[slightly revised version of the preface from 1993] Conversion: In 2015, the indexing data were converted to fonds 507 and processed into the available online finding aids. For technical reasons, the structure of the data and the structure of the data records had to be changed. However, the content of the indexing information was retained in its entirety. Alexander Hoffmann was responsible for the conversion and data import, while Dorota Wendler and the undersigned, Karlsruhe, were responsible for editorial work related to the import. In February 2016, Dr. Martin Stingl, published references to the literature: Hans Wüllenweber: Special dishes in the Third Reich. Forgotten crimes of justice. Frankfurt a.M. 1990.Christiane Oehler: The jurisdiction of the special court Mannheim 1933¿1945. Berlin 1997.Homepage of the Arbeitskreis Justiz Mannheim e.V.: http://www.akjustiz-mannheim.de/ .

Curriculum vitae of Karl Fritz: Karl Fritz, born on 29 November 1914 in Pfullendorf as the son of a plasterer and a part-time farmer, was made possible by a scholarship to attend the grammar school in Constance. Immediately after graduating from high school, he completed his work service, which was followed by military service with the infantry regiment 114 in Konstanz and with the military district command in Ehingen an der Donau. From November 1, 1938, the day he joined the NSDAP, until October 31, 1941, he was an administrative candidate for the "upper middle administrative service" (including Überlingen, Konstanz, and Stockach), and from November 1, 1942 he was employed as a government inspector in various positions (including Karlsruhe and Sinsheim). From the summer of 1943 until the end of the war, he had joined the Wehrmacht and served in southern France. Based in Freiburg since October 1945, Karl Fritz resumed his administrative duties at the Ministry of the Interior. In 1952, he was transferred to the Transport Department of the South Baden Regional Council, where he retired in 1977 as a senior civil servant. Karl Fritz died on 29 November 1990 in Freiburg. Inventory history: According to family tradition, Karl Fritz, possibly inspired by the example of an uncle, began to "collect" contemporary historical material at an early age. Posters from the authorities in which he was employed were completed, and duplicates of posters and brochures were the main focus of his collection. This is enhanced in terms of content by the collection of banknotes, above all emergency money, which has been collected from all over the German Reich. The "Karl Fritz" collection (stock W 307), which had grown to 40 m, was donated to the Freiburg State Archives in 1993. An initial inspection revealed that not all the documents were worthy of archiving. In addition, the collection contained material that was difficult to include in the documentation profile of the State Archives. Extensive order work followed. First, the newspaper collection and the literature on contemporary history were transferred to the service library of the State Archives and - in the case of documents on military history - to the Federal Archives and Military Archives; then the posters were separated and the W 113 collection of Karl Fritz posters was formed. A number of posters of East Prussian origin were handed over to the Geheime Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, some pieces of Berlin origin to the Landesarchiv Berlin. The same happened with the picture material, from which the present collection W 145/2 - Bildsammlung Karl Fritz arose, which was catalogued and digitised by Annika Scheumann and Martin Schittny. The collection now comprises 938 numbers in 0.4 lfd.m.Freiburg, in September 2010Kurt Hochstuhl

Curriculum vitae Karl Fritz: Karl Fritz, born on 29 November 1914 in Pfullendorf as the son of a plasterer and a part-time farmer, was made possible by a scholarship to attend the grammar school in Constance. Immediately after graduating from high school, he completed his work service, which was followed by military service with the infantry regiment 114 in Konstanz and with the military district command in Ehingen an der Donau. From November 1, 1938, the day he joined the NSDAP, until October 31, 1941, he was an administrative candidate for the "upper middle administrative service" (including Überlingen, Konstanz, and Stockach), and from November 1, 1942 he was employed as a government inspector in various positions (including Karlsruhe and Sinsheim). From the summer of 1943 until the end of the war, he had joined the Wehrmacht and served in southern France. Based in Freiburg since October 1945, Karl Fritz resumed his administrative duties at the Ministry of the Interior. In 1952 he was transferred to the Transport Department of the South Baden Regional Council, where he retired in 1977 as a senior civil servant. Karl Fritz died on 29 November 1990 in Freiburg. Inventory history: According to family tradition, Karl Fritz, possibly inspired by the example of an uncle, began to "collect" contemporary historical material at an early age. He was employed by the authorities in which he was employed, and the main focus was on posters and brochures with duplicates. Its content is enhanced by the collection of banknotes, especially emergency money, which has been collected from all over the German Reich. The "Karl Fritz" collection, which had grown to a height of 40 m, was donated to the Freiburg State Archives in 1993. An initial inspection revealed that not all the documents were worthy of archiving. In addition, the collection contained material that was difficult to include in the documentation profile of the State Archives. Extensive order work followed. First, the newspaper collection and the literature on contemporary history were transferred to the service library of the State Archives and - in the case of documents on military history - to the Federal Archives and Military Archives; then the posters were separated and the W 113 collection of Karl Fritz posters was formed. A number of posters of East Prussian origin were handed over to the Geheime Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, some pieces of Berlin origin to the Landesarchiv Berlin. The same happened with the picture material, from which the stock W 145/2 - picture collection Karl Fritz was created. The documents remaining in the remaining stock W 307 were subjected to a further examination in October 1998 and were roughly sorted after the non-archival documents (law and official gazettes, newspaper cuttings, duplicates of printed material and banknotes as well as newspaper series, which are available in the Freiburg UB) had been sorted out. Around 11 metres of shelving were fed into the cassation and the remaining nine metres were listed in order to obtain an initial overview of the available material and to allow provisional access. The collection consists of various contemporary materials on German history since the foundation of the German Reich in 1871 with a clear focus on the period of National Socialism as well as on the post-war period. 2004-2005, as part of an ABM measure, this provisional indexing of the W 307 - Karl Fritz Collection was replaced by a more in-depth indexing. The intention was to generally improve the accessibility of this collection. In addition, preparatory work should also be carried out to enable the digital presentation of the banknotes on the Internet. The archive employee Martin Schittny took over the task of cataloguing and digitising the collection. As the first result the archive find book for the stock W 307 - Collection Karl Fritz can now be presented. It will be followed as an online application by the approximately 5,500 digitalised Karl Fritz image database, which now comprises 1531 numbers (numbers 265, 512, 609 and 706 are not documented) in 6.5 lfd.m.Freiburg, in January 2006 Kurt Hochstuhl.