Wien, 8. Bezirk (l’arte di fare giustizia di Vienna), Landesgericht (regional court, tribunale, tribunal) für Strafsachen (matière pénale, criminal matters, materia penale, sprawach karnych (Frankhplatz/Landesgerichtsstraße)

Zum Gedenken an die hier während der NS-Zeit aus politischen Gründen hingerichteten Frauen und Männer (in memoriam to the here during the Nazi era for political reasons executed women and men)

Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters

The Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters (colloquially referred to as "landl" (Landesgericht)) is one of 20 regional courts in Austria and the largest court in Austria. It is located in the 8th District of Vienna, Josefstadt, at the Landesgerichtsstraße 11. It is a court of first respectively second instance. A prisoners house, the prison Josefstadt, popularly often known as the "Grey House" is connected.

Court Organization

In this complex there are:

the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna,

the Vienna District Attorney (current senior prosecutor Maria-Luise Nittel)

the Jurists association-trainee lawer union (Konzipientenverband) and

the largest in Austria existing court house jail, the Vienna Josefstadt prison.

The Regional Criminal Court has jurisdiction in the first instance for crimes and offenses that are not pertain before the district court. Depending on the severity of the crime, there is a different procedure. Either decides

a single judge,

a senate of lay assessors

or the jury court.

In the second instance, the District Court proceeds appeals and complaints against judgments of district courts. A three-judge Court decides here whether the judgment is canceled or not and, if necessary, it establishes a new sentence.

The current President Friedrich Forsthuber is supported by two Vice Presidents - Henriette Braitenberg-Zennenberg and Eve Brachtel.

In September 2012, the following data have been published

Austria's largest court

270 office days per year

daily 1500 people

70 judges, 130 employees in the offices

5300 proceedings (2011) for the custodial judges and legal protection magistrates, representing about 40 % of the total Austrian juridical load of work

over 7400 procedures at the trial judges (30 % of the total Austrian juridical load of work)

Prosecution with 93 prosecutors and 250 employees

19,000 cases against 37,000 offenders (2011 )

Josefstadt prison with 1,200 inmates (overcrowded)

History

1839-1918

The original building of the Vienna Court House, the so-called civil Schranne (corn market), was from 1440 to 1839 located at the Hoher Markt 5. In 1773 the Schrannenplatz was enlarged under Emperor Joseph II and the City Court and the Regional Court of the Viennese Magistrate in this house united. From this time it bore the designation "criminal court".

Due to shortcomings of the prison rooms in the Old Court on Hoher Markt was already at the beginning of the 19th Century talk of building a new crime courthouse, but this had to be postponed because of bankruptcy in 1811.

In 1816 the construction of the criminal court building was approved. Although in the first place there were voices against a construction outside the city, as building ground was chosen the area of the civil Schießstätte (shooting place) and the former St. Stephanus-Freithofes in then Alservorstadt (suburb); today, in this part Josefstadt. The plans of architect Johann Fischer were approved in 1831, and in 1832 was began with the construction, which was completed in 1839. On 14 May 1839 was held the first meeting of the Council.

Provincial Court at the Landesgerichtsstraße between November 1901 and 1906

Johann Fischer fell back in his plans to Tuscan early Renaissance palaces as the Pitti Palace or Palazzo Pandolfini in Florence. The building was erected on a 21,872 m² plot with a length of 223 meters. It had two respectively three floors (upper floors), the courtyard was divided into three wings, in which the prisoner's house stood. In addition, a special department for the prison hospital (Inquisitenspital ) and a chapel were built.

The Criminal Court of Vienna was from 1839 to 1850 a city court which is why the Vice Mayor of Vienna was president of the criminal courts in civil and criminal matters at the same time. In 1850 followed the abolition of municipal courts. The state administration took over the Criminal Court on 1 Juli 1850. From now on, it had the title "K.K. Country's criminal court in Vienna".

1851, juries were introduced. Those met in the large meeting hall, then as now, was on the second floor of the office wing. The room presented a double height space (two floors). 1890/1891 followed a horizontal subdivision. Initially, the building stood all alone there. Only with the 1858 in the wake of the demolition of the city walls started urban expansion it was surrounded by other buildings.

From 1870 to 1878, the Court experienced numerous conversions. Particular attention was paid to the tract that connects directly to the Alserstraße. On previously building ground a three-storey arrest tract and the Jury Court tract were built. New supervened the "Neutrakt", which presented a real extension and was built three respectively four storied. From 1873 on, executions were not executed publicly anymore but only in the prison house. The first execution took place on 16 December 1876 in the "Galgenhof" (gallow courtyard), the accused were hanged there on the Würgegalgen (choke gallow).

By 1900 the prisoners house was extended. In courtyard II of the prison house kitchen, laundry and workshop buildings and a bathing facility for the prisoners were created. 1906/1907 the office building was enlarged. The two-storied wing tract got a third and three-storied central section a fourth floor fitted.

1918-1938

In the early years of the First Republic took place changes of the court organization. Due to the poor economy and the rapid inflation, the number of cases and the number of inmates rose sharply. Therefore, it was in Vienna on 1 October 1920 established a second Provincial Court, the Regional Court of Criminal Matters II Vienna, as well as an Expositur of the prisoner house at Garnisongasse.

One of the most important trials of the interwar period was the shadow village-process (Schattendorfprozess - nomen est omen!), in which on 14th July 1927, the three defendants were acquitted. In January 1927 front fighters had shot into a meeting of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, killing two people. The outrage over the acquittal was great. At a mass demonstration in front of the Palace of Justice on 15th July 1927, which mainly took place in peaceful manner, invaded radical elements in the Palace of Justice and set fire ( Fire of the Palace Justice), after which the overstrained police preyed upon peaceful protesters fleeing from the scene and caused many deaths.

The 1933/1934 started corporate state dictatorship had led sensational processes against their opponents: examples are the National Socialists processes 1934 and the Socialists process in 1936 against 28 "illegal" socialists and two Communists, in which among others the later leaders Bruno Kreisky and Franz Jonas sat on the dock.

Also in 1934 in the wake of the February Fights and the July Coup a series of processes were carried out by summary courts and military courts. Several ended with death sentences that were carried out by hanging in "Galgenhof" of the district court .

1938-1945

The first measures the Nazis at the Regional Criminal Court after the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich in 1938 had carried out, consisted of the erection of a monument to ten Nazis, during the processes of the events in July 1934 executed, and of the creation of an execution space (then space 47 C, today consecration space where 650 names of resistance fighters are shown) with a guillotine supplied from Berlin (then called device F, F (stands for Fallbeil) like guillotine).

During the period of National Socialism were in Vienna Regional Court of 6 December 1938 to 4th April 1945 1.184 persons executed. Of those, 537 were political death sentences against civilians, 67 beheadings of soldiers, 49 war-related offenses, 31 criminal cases. Among those executed were 93 women in all age groups, including a 16-year-old girl and a 72-year-old woman who had both been executed for political reasons.

On 30 June 1942 were beheaded ten railwaymen from Styria and Carinthia, who were active in the resistance. On 31 July 1943, 31 people were beheaded in an hour, a day later, 30. The bodies were later handed over to the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Vienna and remaining body parts buried later without a stir at Vienna's Central Cemetery in shaft graves. To thein the Nazi era executed, which were called "Justifizierte" , belonged the nun Maria Restituta Kafka and the theology student Hannsgeorg Heintschel-Heinegg.

The court at that time was directly subordinated to the Ministry of Justice in Berlin.

1945-present

The A-tract (Inquisitentrakt), which was destroyed during a bombing raid in 1944 was built in the Second Republic again. This was also necessary because of the prohibition law of 8 May 1945 and the Criminal Law of 26 June 1945 courts and prisons had to fight with an overcrowding of unprecedented proportions.

On 24 March 1950, the last execution took place in the Grey House. Women murderer Johann Trnka had two women attacked in his home and brutally murdered, he had to bow before this punishment. On 1 July 1950 the death penalty was abolished in the ordinary procedure by Parliament. Overall, occured in the Regionl Court of Criminal Matters 1248 executions. In 1967, the execution site was converted into a memorial.

In the early 1980s, the building complex was revitalized and expanded. The building in the Florianigasse 8, which previously had been renovated, served during this time as an emergency shelter for some of the departments. In 1994, the last reconstruction, actually the annex of the courtroom tract, was completed. In 2003, the Vienna Juvenile Court was dissolved as an independent court, iIts agendas were integrated in the country's criminal court.

Prominent processes since 1945, for example, the Krauland process in which a ÖVP (Österreichische Volkspartei - Austrian People's Party) minister was accused of offenses against properties, the affair of the former SPÖ (Sozialistische Partei Österreichs - Austrian Socialist Party) Minister and Trade Unions president Franz Olah, whose unauthorized financial assistance resulted in a newspaper establishment led to conviction, the murder affairs Sassak and the of the Lainzer nurses (as a matter of fact, auxiliary nurses), the consumption (Konsum - consumer cooporatives) process, concerning the responsibility of the consumer Manager for the bankruptcy of the company, the Lucona proceedings against Udo Proksch, a politically and socially very well- networked man, who was involved in an attempted insurance fraud, several people losing their lives, the trial of the Nazi Holocaust denier David Irving for Wiederbetätigung (re-engagement in National Socialist activities) and the BAWAG affair in which it comes to breaches of duty by bank managers and vanished money.

Presidents of the Regional Court for Criminal Matters in Vienna since 1839 [edit ]

 

Josef Hollan (1839-1844)

Florian Philipp (1844-1849)

Eduard Ritter von Wittek (1850-1859)

Franz Ritter von Scharschmied (1859-1864)

Franz Ritter von Boschan (1864-1872)

Franz Josef Babitsch (1873-1874)

Joseph Ritter von Weitenhiller (1874-1881)

Franz Schwaiger (1881-1889)

Eduard Graf Lamezan -Salins (1889-1895)

Julius von Soos (1895-1903)

Paul von Vittorelli (1903-1909)

Johann Feigl (1909-1918)

Karl Heidt (1918-1919)

Ludwig Altmann (1920-1929)

Emil Tursky (1929-1936)

Philipp Charwath (1936-1938)

Otto Nahrhaft (1945-1950)

Rudolf Naumann (1951-1954)

Wilhelm Malaniu (1955-1963)

Johann Schuster (1963-1971)

Konrad Wymetal (1972-1976)

August Matouschek (1977-1989)

Günter Woratsch (1990-2004)

Ulrike Psenner (2004-2009)

Friedrich Forsthuber (since 2010)

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