Capital punishment in Germany has been abolished for all crimes, and is now explicitly prohibited by constitution. It was abolished in West Germany in 1949, in the Saarland in 1956 (as part of the Saarland joining West Germany and becoming a state of West Germany), and East Germany in 1987. The last person executed in Germany was the East German Werner Teske, who was executed at Leipzig Prison in 1981. Poll A 1949 opinion poll when West Germany abolished capital punishment found 77% of Germans were in favour of capital punishment with 18% opposed. Current legal position The current Constitution of Germany ("Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland"), which came into effect on 23 May 1949, forbids capital punishment. This ban is stated in article 102 GG: "Die Todesstrafe ist abgeschafft" - Capital punishment is abolished. It is debated among constitutional jurists whether article 102 GG in combination with article 2 section 2 GG – "Jeder hat das Recht auf Leben und körperliche Unversehrtheit" (Every person shall have the right to life and physical integrity) prohibits any targeted killing on the part of the state (e.g. in the context of a hostage situation). There has also been debate on the question whether this article could legally be abolished by a two-thirds majority in Bundestag and Bundesrat. Section 3 of article 79 GG expressly prohibits only amendments of articles 1 and 20, which suggests that article 102 can in principle legally be amended or repealed under article 79. However some legal scholars have argued that the prohibition of capital punishment follows necessarily from article 2 GG, and article 102 GG merely puts the prohibition beyond doubt. It has also been argued that Article 102, according to its systematical place, does not guarantee a basic right but enacts a judicial restriction. The German Federal Court of Justice in 1995 has argued that "concerns" (Bedenken) related to the general nature of the death penalty "suggest" (legen den Befund nahe) that capital punishment should indeed be considered inadmissible already as a consequence of the guarantee of human dignity in article 1 GG. The Penal Code was formally amended in 1951 to conform to the abolition. Previous death sentences were replaced by life imprisonment. As the constitution requires that prisoners have a chance of regaining freedom with other means than extralegal pardon only, prisoners are checked for release on parole after 15 years for regular intervals.