Juvenile Crime and Dissent in Nazi Vienna, 1938-1945 by Evan Burr Bukey

Abstract

Reviewed by: Juvenile Crime and Dissent in Nazi Vienna, 1938-1945 by Evan Burr Bukey Amy Carney Juvenile Crime and Dissent in Nazi Vienna, 1938-1945. By Evan Burr Bukey. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. x + 197 pp. Paper $35.95, cloth $117, e-book $28.76. Evan Burr Bukey jumps right into the purpose of his latest book with a leading question on the first pages of the introduction: to what extent was the Austrian judiciary Nazified following the Anschluss, or annexation, of Austria by Germany in March 1938? And how did this Nazification (or lack thereof) affect juvenile justice before, during, and even right after the Second World War? Bukey does not have a robust set of documents to answer these questions, but he does acknowledge this paucity from the outset: "Readers should know, however, that the database is imperfect as a great many records were pruned or unwittingly shredded in 1999. In absolute numbers, 437 judicial records have survived" (5). At multiple points throughout the book, Bukey reminds readers that a comprehensive analysis of juvenile crime in the Danubian metropolis is simply not possible due to this lack of records. All he can provide is glimpses into how and why Austrian judges meted out punishments to the juveniles brought into their courts. And yet by buttressing these 437 court records with documents from several other archives, most notably the Documentation Archives of the Austrian Resistance, these glimpses merit scholars' attention. The book is divided into six chapters, most of which focus on wartime crime and punishment. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the evolution of juvenile justice during the Habsburg monarchy, especially during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also outlines the development of the legal system in the newly founded First Republic and the initial changes to this system following the Anschluss. As seen in Chapter 2, judges continued to mete out [End Page 464] punishments based on Austrian law, yet there were changes with the introduction of wartime regulations as well as a stronger emphasis on taking biological and hereditary information into account when evaluating each young person. The pervasiveness of racial ideology continued throughout the war as young adults were tried by Special Courts (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 delves into the theme of political crimes. While communists were the primary culprits, other youths were motivated by patriotism—that is, an Austria free of Nazism, communism, and Judaism. The fifth chapter examines the impact of the Juvenile Court Act, which went into effect in 1944, while Chapter 6 surveys the postwar trials of youth who had committed a crime during the last months of the war or the early months of the Second Republic. Collectively, these chapters provide a basic answer to the question posed above—" to what extent was the Austrian judiciary Nazified?" The answer is "somewhat." As Bukey shows, there was some alignment between the Austrian and German legal systems, especially with the introduction of existing legislation—such as the Nuremberg Laws—into Austria after the Anschluss and the addition of wartime legislation. However, legal uniformity between Austria and Germany was never achieved in part because "the Austrian criminal code remained in place until the collapse of the Third Reich" (10). The continuing existence of that code did not provide Austrian justices with an alternative path to render judgments, but it was one significant reason justice remained slightly different in Austria. Overall, Bukey has done well with a limited number of sources. While he is unable to draw firm conclusions, he has made some good generalizations about juvenile crime in Vienna from the late 1930s through the mid-1940s. He demonstrates how there was continuity in the Austrian legal system prior to the Anschluss, through Nazi rule, and into early postwar period—except when there was not. He shows how Nazi ideology had an impact on how judges adjudicated the cases brought before them—except when it did not. He also notes that crime was comparatively lower in Vienna than in cities in Germany as well as in Vichy, France. Bukey includes enough numbers in every chapter to communicate each point of his argument clearly, but readers will not get bogged down by...