Short Review Of The Penal System Of The German Criminal Code In Force From The 1st January 1872 Throughout Germany

The German Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch) was ratified by the newly-formed German Empire on 16 April 1871. It is a remarkable work of synthesis drawn mostly from the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (1532), the Code Napoleon (1804), Feuerbach's Bavarian Criminal Code (1813) and the Prussian Penal Code (1851), which was influenced by the Code Napoleon. Its value lay not just in its establishment of uniform federal law but, as Drage notes in his excellent commentary, in its catholicity of historical and contemporary sources. Drawing on the idea of German unity, underscored in this case by the consensus-forming might of Prussian arms, the criminal code remained in force, despite various efforts at reform, until the triumph of National Socialism.