Friedrich Gustav Jaeger

Friedrich Gustav Jaeger (25 September 1895 – 21 August 1944) was a resistance fighter in Nazi Germany and a member of the 20 July Plot.
Resistance activities.
In 1938, after the Sudeten Crisis, Jaeger took part in the German invasion of Czechoslovakia's Sudeten-German areas. With the outbreak of the Second World War, he was deployed in the invasion of Poland. From 1939, Jaeger forged contacts with resistance elements within the Wehrmacht, including Hans Oster, Friedrich Olbricht and Ludwig Beck. In 1940, he participated in the Battle of France where he earned the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross ) and in 1941, he was deployed in the Russian Campaign.
After his wife's death during a British bombing raid on 17 February 1942, Jaeger spoke with his son for the first time about his contacts with the resistance and their plans to overthrow Adolf Hitler. In the course of the year, Jaeger was made a colonel, and he was sent to the Battle of Stalingrad. There, he was wounded eight times, and after becoming sick with epidemic typhus, he was flown out to Lublin.
In 1943, Jaeger was approached and reluctantly agreed to the plans for an attempt on Hitler's life. Owing to his Christian convictions, he would rather have seen Hitler standing before a duly constituted court. Jaeger's son was a Captain in the "Gross Deutschland" Division, one of Germany's most elite units. Jaeger's son Krafft was arrested and charged with attempted treason and leading a comrade into military disobedience. Krafft was freed for lack of evidence, but he was then sent back to the front so that he could "recover his honour".
Plot failure, arrest, and death.
On 20 July 1944, the day of the attempt on Hitler's life, Jaeger was commander of the Panzer reserve troops in defence districts II (Stettin) and XXI (Kalisch). After the briefcase bomb exploded at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia, Jaeger received orders from Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg to arrest an SS Oberführer. Furthermore, he was also to arrest Joseph Goebbels and occupy the radio station in Masurenallee. After it became known that Hitler had survived the attempt on his life, however, the soldiers under his command would no longer take his orders. Jaeger himself was arrested by his own army on the same day when the plot failed in connection with the plot. His son was likewise arrested, being taken from an Italian military hospital and brought by train to the Gestapo prison in Berlin. On 21 August, Friedrich Gustav Jaeger was sentenced to death for treason by Roland Freisler at the "Volksgerichtshof", and he was hanged later the same day at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. His family's property was confiscated.
Honours.
Krafft Jaeger was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He survived, however, and on 25 September 1995, he unveiled a memorial plaque to his father at the house where he was born exactly one hundred years earlier. The house is now Kirchberg an der Jagst's town hall.
Friedrich Gustav Jaeger has also been honoured by having a street in Wünsdorf named "Fritz-Jaeger-Allee" after him.


George Augustus Chichester May

Right Hon. George Augustus Chichester May PC, QC (1815 – 16 August 1892) was an Irish judge.
Early life.
May was born in Belfast, the son of the Reverend Edward May and Elizabeth Sinclair. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. as 36th Wrangler and 3rd Classic in 1836, and became a fellow of Magdalene.
Legal career.
Called to the Irish Bar in 1844, he became Queen's Counsel in 1865; he was appointed Law Adviser to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1874, and Attorney-General for Ireland in 1875. In 1877 he became Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench for Ireland and on the passing of the Judicature Act became Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench Division of the Irish High Court. He retired in 1887 and died in 1892.
According to F. Elrington Ball's work on the pre-1921 Irish judiciary, while May was a considerable scholar, he was not well regarded as a barrister and his appointment was greeted with some protest.
Family.
May married Olivia Barrington, daughter of Sir Matthew Barrington, 2nd Baronet, and Charlotte Hartigan, in 1853. She died in 1876. They had ten children, including George Chichester May, General Sir Edward Sinclair May, and Sir Francis Henry May, Governor of Hong Kong.


Anna Goldsteiner

Anna Goldsteiner (born Anna Stubenvoll: 17 June 1899 - 5 July 1944) was a Viennese resistance activist. She was executed.
Biography.
Anna Stubenvoll was born in Vienna. She was opposed to the incorporation of Austria into an enlarged German state which took place during the first part of 1938, and made her apartment in Pulkau (some distance to the north of Vienna) available to "Schlurf" activists. According to court documents the activists' objectives included 'eternal faithfulness to [my independent] Austria' and 'the forcible separation of the Reichsgau from the Greater German state ("Großdeutsche(n) Reich")'.
In December 1943 she was one of 14 members of the group arrested by the Gestapo. They were accused of removing government propaganda posters, preparing explosives attacks and planning to eliminate the Nazi mayor of Pulkau. Anna Goldsteiner faced the in Vienna on 14 April 1944. The charge was the usual one of "preparing to commit high treason and cause military damage". She was sentenced to death, and executed on 5 July 1944.
She is buried in the misleadingly named Vienna Central Cemetery (Plot: Gruppe 40).
Personal.
Anna Stubenvoll married Johann Goldsteiner. The marriage resulted in the birth of four sons.


List of inmates of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

This is a list of notable inmates of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.
An inmate register reveals that there was 1576 prisoners in total which were held at Alcatraz during its time as a Federal Penitentiary, between 1934 to 1963, although figures reported have varied and some have stated 1557.


South African Confederation of Labour

The South African Confederation of Labour (SACOL) was a national trade union federation of white workers in South Africa.
History.
The federation was established in 1957, as a loose body bringing together the South African Federation of Trade Unions, the Co-ordinating Council of South African Trade Unions, the Federal Consultative Council of South African Railways and Harbours Staff Associations, and the Trade Union Council of South Africa (TUCSA). TUCSA withdrew in 1958, and the remaining federation was broadly supportive of apartheid.
In 1968, the federation decided to permit individual unions to affiliate. These unions gradually came to operate on an equal footing to the remaining affiliated federations, and this led the Federal Consultative Council to disaffiliate in 1975, although all but one of its own affiliates decided to sign up individually to SACOL. This took the federation's membership to a maximum of 25 unions with 206,511 members.
While the Government of South Africa allowed unions to represent both white and "coloured" workers, and from 1980, black workers as well, SACOL only permitted unions restricted to white workers to affiliate. In 1980, it expelled the South African Technical Officials' Association, after it permitted coloured workers to join, and this led some other affiliates to resign in order to expand their own membership. Membership of the federation then fell steadily. In 1992, its largest remaining affiliate, the Mine Workers' Union, disaffiliated in order to become a general union. The federation was reduced to only five affiliates with 40,280 members.


FAMILY Act

The FAMILY Act is a proposed United States law that would provide paid family and medical leave benefits to certain individuals who meet requirements specified in the bill.
Legislative history.
As of March 23, 2021:


Ahani v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)

Ahani v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [2002] 1 S.C.R. 72; 2002 SCC 2 is a significant decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the areas of constitutional law and administrative law. It is a companion case to "Suresh v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)", [2002] 1 S.C.R. 3. Both cases deal with the procedure for removal of Convention refugees for reasons of national security under the "Immigration Act", R.S.C. 1985, and address questions of procedural fairness.
Background.
Mansour Ahani entered Canada in 1991, claiming Convention refugee status. In 1993, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration filed a security certificate for Ahani's deportation on the basis of a report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). CSIS claimed to have obtained evidence that Ahani was a trained assassin operating with the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran (MOIS). Ahani admitted to an association with MOIS and having received military training, however he denied that he was an assassin. Ahani argued that he would likely face torture if deported to Iran, and that deportation under this circumstance would be a violation of fundamental justice, a right guaranteed by Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Ruling of the Court.
As in "Suresh v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)", the Court ruled that when a refugee establishes a prima facie case that deportation may lead to torture, they are entitled to a higher degree of procedural protections than the Immigration Act stipulates. In particular, the appellant has a right to know the full case against him, and to be given a full opportunity to respond in writing. The appellant must be given the opportunity to rebut claims and evidence and to produce their own evidence. Finally, the appellant has the right to receive written reasons for a decision of the Minister.
In this case, the court ruled that the requirements of procedural fairness had been met. This result differs from the "Suresh" case, where the Court ruled that procedural fairness requirements had not been met, and ordered a new hearing. Ruling unanimously, the Court concluded:
We are satisfied that Ahani was fully informed of the Minister's case against him and given a full opportunity to respond. Insofar as the procedures followed may not have precisely complied with those we suggest in "Suresh", we are satisfied that this did not prejudice him. We conclude that the process accorded to Ahani was consistent with the principles of fundamental justice, and would reject this ground of appeal.


Patrick-Carr-Herring House

Patrick-Carr-Herring House, also known as the Second Sampson County Courthouse, is a historic home located at Clinton, Sampson County, North Carolina. It was built about 1904–1905, and is a two-story, three bay, double pile, Classical Revival / Greek Revival style frame dwelling with a low-pitched hip roof. It was originally built as a 1 1/2-story structure on tall brick piers in 1818, and enlarged to a full two stories in the Greek Revival style on a full one-story brick basement in the 1840s. It was moved to its present site, and remodeled, in 1904–1905, when the current Sampson County Courthouse was constructed. The front features a single-story wraparound porch with Tuscan order columns and bracketing. Also on the property is a contributing smokehouse (c. 1904).
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.


Canada (Director of Investigation and Research) v Southam Inc

Canada (Director of Investigation and Research) v Southam Inc, [1997] 1 S.C.R. 748 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on judicial review. In this case the Court first set out the standard of review of "reasonableness "simpliciter"", which directs the court to only review decisions that are "not supported by any reasons that can stand up to a somewhat probing examination".
Background.
Southam Inc. purchased a number of small newspapers in the Vancouver region. The Competition Bureau investigated the purchase as a violation of the "Competition Act". The Competition Tribunal held that Southam violated section 92 of the "Competition Act" and ordered the company to sell off one of the papers. The Tribunal found that the newspapers were not in the same market with regards to print advertising markets. There was a decrease of competition in real estate advertising and not the retail advertising market.
Southam appealed under section 13 of the "Act" to the Federal Court of Appeal. The Federal Court of Appeal held that it owed no deference to the Tribunal's finding that the markets were not the same and so it substituted its own findings that the markets were the same. The Court refused to set aside the remedy that had been ordered.
The issue before the Supreme Court was whether the Tribunal warranted any deference by the reviewing court.
Judgment.
Justice Iacobucci, writing for a unanimous Court, held that the appeal should be allowed but the remedy should stay.
Iacobucci J. considered four factors to determine the standard of review from "Pezim v. British Columbia (Superintendent of Brokers)". There was a statutory right of appeal but no privative clause, so the first factor indicated less deference; however, the absence of a privative clause was not determinative. In his view, the issue was one of mixed fact and law that was based on the balancing of interests, so the courts should be reluctant to re-examine the evidence. Iacobucci considered the purpose of the "Act", which he stated was to encourage and promote competition and equality among companies. In his view this purpose was more economic policy than law and so suggests greater deference. Finally, he considered the expertise of the Tribunal, which he considered to be the most important factor. He found the Tribunal had expertise in matters of economics and commerce which were critical in assessing the question before the Tribunal and this required the courts to defer to their skill and judgment.
With this analysis in mind, Iacobucci devised a standard of review in between "correctness" and "patent unreasonableness". A standard of "reasonableness "simpliciter"" was said to apply to decisions that are "not supported by any reasons that can stand up to a somewhat probing examination".


Constitution of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR () was a fundamental law of the Ukrainian SSR which was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (federation). There were four editions of the constitution from 1919 to 1991. Three of them were in the Ukrainian language, while the very first (Constitution of 1919) was in the Russian language.
After Ukraine’s 1991 independence, a new Constitution of Ukraine was enacted in 1996.
Constitution of 1919.
The constitution was approved by the 3rd All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets on 10 March 1919 and its final version was approved by the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee session on 14 March 1919. The draft of the constitution was created on resolution of the 3rd congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine by the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee and the Ukrainian Sovnarkom and was approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine. It was based on the 1918 Constitution of the Russian SFSR.
It was the first fundamental law (basic law) of the Ukrainian SSR. The constitution acknowledges that Ukrainian SSR and Ukraine is one and the same, particularly starting with the words in part 2, Article 6, "To the authority of the Soviet power in Ukraine are subjected:". The constitution consisted out of four parts and 35 articles. The text of the constitution starts with the Article 1, "The Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic is an organization of dictatorship of working and exploited masses of proletariat and the poorest peasantry over their ages long oppressors and exploiters, capitalists and landowners". The main task of the dictatorship was ensuring "transition from bourgeois system to socialism by carrying out socialist transformations and systematic suppression of all counter-revolutionary manifestations from the side of affluent classes".
1978 Constitution of the UkrSSR.
The 1978 Constitution of the UkrSSR () was a fundamental law of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the fourth and the last of Constitutions of the UkrSSR. It was based on the 1977 Constitution of the USSR ( and adopted on 20 April 1978 by the extraordinary seventh sessions of Supreme Council of the UkrSSR of 9th convocation. Formally, it lost its validity on 28 June 1996 with adoption of the 1996 Constitution of Ukraine.
In its preamble, the constitution indicated on its succession of constitutional development of Ukraine, ideas and principles of which were fixed in constitutions of 1919, 1929, and 1937.
Articles.
The was divided into 10 sections and 19 chapters:


Bruno Contrada

Bruno Contrada (born September 2, 1931) is the former police chief of Palermo and deputy director of the civil intelligence service SISDE who was arrested based on revelations of former Sicilian Mafiosi turned pentiti, Gaspare Mutolo and Giuseppe Marchese.
Biography.
Contrada was born in Naples. He entered the Italian police in 1958, and in 1973 he received the command of the judiciary police in Palermo.
In 1982 he moved to SISDE with the responsibility of the offices in Sicily and Sardinia. In 1986 he was called to Rome in the Operational Division of the SISDE directory. In 1992, together with Italian Police head Arturo Parisi, he had a secret meeting with antimafia judge Paolo Borsellino under the direction of the then Minister of Interiors, Nicola Mancino. Borsellino, who was reportedly shattered by the meeting, was assassinated two days later in Palermo. Contrada later declared to have been a friend of Borsellino, but the latter's family sharply negated this. Other leading antimafia judge, Giovanni Falcone (also killed two months before Borsellino) had also declared that he did not trust Contrada.
On 24 December 1992, Contrada was arrested with the accuse of having informed the Mafia of upcoming police operations, and preventing an early capture of the Corleonesi boss and fugitive Totò Riina.
Contrada had initially come under suspicion when the first pentito, Tommaso Buscetta warned the anti-Mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Falcone that in 1984, Contrada was thought to protect certain bosses, tipping them off about possible police raids. Falcone had also suspected Contrada of informing the Mafia of his intention to invite visiting Swiss prosecutors to his summer house in Addaura on the afternoon of June 19, 1989, when an attempt was made on his life. During the investigations into the money laundering networks of the Mafia in Switzerland it became clear that Contrada had warned a suspect about his impending arrest so that he could escape in time.
The first trial against him began on April 12, 1994, lasted for twenty-two hearings and ended on April 5, 1996, the courts sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment for collusion with the Mafia. On May 4, 2001, the Court of Appeal acquitted him, but on December 12, 2002, the Court of Cassation annulled the sentence on appeal, ordering a new trial before a different section of the Court of Appeal of Palermo. On February 26, 2006, the appellate court confirmed, after 31 hours of deliberations, the verdict of the first trial and sentenced Contrada to ten years in prison and payment of court costs. On May 10, 2007, the Court of Cassation confirmed the conviction on appeal.
In 2015, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Contrada was convicted for acts that at that time were not a crime, in violation of the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal law ("nulla poena sine lege"). In 2017, 25 years after his arrest, the Supreme Court of Cassation definitively annulled guilty verdict.


Pavel Prudnikau

Pavel Ivanovich Prudnikau (July 14, 1911 – March 16, 2000) was a Belarusian writer. He was a cousin of another Belarusian writer, Ales Prudnikau.
Early years and the first steps of activity in literature.
Pavel Prudnikau was born into a large peasant family. Hard events took place at the time of his childhood: World War I (1914–1918), an establishing of new communist system, the Russian Civil War and the Soviet-Polish War. Due to the geographical position of the village Stary Dedin, the battlefields didn't touch it but in 1918–1920 the village was situated near the front-line area. Because of it all the neighbouring schools were closed and Pavel had to wait for the appearance of the permanent place for studying. Only in 1930 he graduated from the seven-years school in the village Miloslavicy.
In 1924 he felt an aspiration for the literary work and created his first verse "A trip" (). The time of his studying coincided with the process of belarusization in BSSR, so it determined that he began creating his verses in Belarusian. Two years later he and his cousin Ales' Prudnikau became local school poets. At the same time he tried himself as the correspondent of different republican newspapers. For example, after a treasure of ancient coins had been found in the village Stary Dzedzin, he has written a report to the newspaper "Belarusian village" () together with Ales. "(For more information, look an article Stary Dzedzin)".
Life and creative work in the 1930s.
At the beginning of the 1930s he often had to change the places of work. After graduating from the school he went to Donbass but soon returned. Then he worked in Mogilev on the building of the silk fabric. Then he lived in Minsk with Ales Prudnikov but worked as the loader on the railway station "Minsk-Tovarnaya". Several times he tried himself as the actor but gave up each time. Also was a correspondent of different republican newspapers, worked at the Belarusian radio.
In summer of 1930 Pavel's verse "Na vakacyi" was published in the republican newspaper "Pioneer of Belarus". This event was considered by him as the beginning of his professional literary career. In 1930 a column of his verses was published in the newspaper "Chyrvonaya zmena" that later became a foundation of his future first book "Songs of loaders" () (1932, co-authorship with Y. Subach). His first poem "Picket after picket" () was written in 1931. In the 1930s he used a pen-name Paulyuk Buravey () to escape confusion with Ales Prudnikov. At the time of working in Minsk he became acquainted with many famous Belarusian writers and poets such as Yanka Kupala, Yakub Kolas, Mihas Charot, Platon Halavach and others. The memoirs about them formed the foundation of the book "Distant, but not forgotten" (, 1988) and other works.
In 1932 Pavel was accepted into the creative department of the Minsk Pedagogical Institute but soon gave it up. In 1932 he came to Leningrad where he entered the Leningrad Institute of foreign languages, and the followingt year became the student of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute after Pokrovsky (Bubnov). He established contacts with Belarusian section of Leningrad department of the USSR Union of Writers. After the offer of professor Pushkarevich in 1937 was sent to post-graduate studying of the Slavic languages, but didn't begin studying because he was arrested at 11 August 1937.
In GULAG and first decades after discharge.
Pavel Prudnikov was kept in Kresty Prison for several months. Officially he was accused in Kirov's assassination of 1934. He stood the interrogation and was sentenced to eight years in prison. At first he was sent to the Buryat ASSR. In 1938 he attempted suicide by drowning in the Selenge River but was dissuaded by his friend, also prisoner, Mikola Kaneusky. In Gulag worked on building of railway lines in Buryat ASSR and Omsk oblast, on building of tyre plant in Omsk and mining and smelting plant in Norilsk, as loader in port of Eniseysk (Krasnoyarsk Krai).
After the end of imprisonment term he had to work as turner in railway depot in Norilsk, then as the chief of library of technical secondary school. After returning to native land (1946) worked as a teacher in the Smolensk oblast of the RSFSR. There he met his future wife Ann. But he couldn't stay there for long because of the danger of arrest. Pavel and his family had to move from one place to another looking for the most safe one. At this time two daughters were born: Olga and Nina.
In 1952 they stopped in Braslaw raion (region) of the Vitsebsk Voblast in Slobodka village. First time they were practically without means for life. Then Pavel began to work as teacher of the Russian language, literature and history and his wife Ann as teacher in primary school. In January 1956, after the death of Joseph Stalin, he was rehabilitated.
He began to publish his verses again since 1959 and returned to full literary work. In 1968 his second book "The time of my birth" () was published.
Late literary activity.
In 1968–1969 Pavel and his family moved to Minsk. From 1968–1971 he worked as editor of the magazine "Consumer services of Belarus" (). Retirement in 1971 gave him an opportunity to spend much more time to literary work, and this period of activity was the most fruitful. In 1971 he became a member of the BSSR Union of Writers.
From 1970 into the 1980s he issued several collected verses. The book of selected works "My highway" (1981) was the most prominent one among them. The verses contain themes of native Mahilyow region, the beauty of Braslaw region, the reminiscence about his trip to Siberia, to the places of his former imprisonment, about his trips to Czechoslovakia, to Caucasus. In 1987 a book for children "Daybreak" () was published. In 1988 he issued the book of memoirs "Distant, but not forgotten" (), where he described his meetings with different Belarusian writers, from Zmicier Zhylunovich, a writer and the first head of government of Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia, to Ivan Melezh.
Theme of Stalin's repressions in the works.
After the beginning of Perestroika an opportunity to write about forbidden things, such as Stalin's repressions, appeared. Since the 1950s, since the time of Khrushchev Thaw, Pavel Prudnikov had an idea to write about those awful events that he was witness of and began to make first notes. But the real opportunity to publish them appeared only 30 years later. First work of this type was the poem "Taymyr" (, 1989).
In 1993 a new book "Beyond the Barbed Wire" () was published that consisted of two stories: "Yezhov's Mittens" () and "A Northern Hell" (). Stories are of an autobiographical character, the major hero is Mihas Ascyorsky, whose destiny resembles the destiny of the author. The first story is about Mihas's suffering in Kresty Prison; the second story is about the imprisonment of Mihas in Siberia. All the episodes in the book describe the real events.
In 1996 the last book of verses "Parosha" () was published, where the poem "Each Second" () was put in. This poem was also devoted to the victims of Stalin's repressions.
The last years of life and unrealized plans.
In the last years of life Pavel Prudnikov suffered a great deal from diseases that deprived him of an opportunity to write the new works on paper at all. But he didn't stop his literary work and dictated new verses to his nearest relatives.
In 1998 a Belarusian writer Leanid Marakou who was looking for information about victims of Stalin's repressions turned to Pavel Prudnikov to accept memoirs about Belarusian writer Valery Marakou, the uncle of Leanid, who was also among those victims.
Pavel had a plan to publish a story "Disgrace" () that was considered as continuation of two stories about Mihas Ascyorsky. The author planned to raise a difficult theme of returning of former prisoners from Gulag and to tell about his sufferings after the discharge but it wasn't realized. A lot of verses, a poem devoted to the Chernobyl disaster, memoirs about kollektivization of the 1930s ("Unhealed Wounds", ) and new memoirs about Belarusian poets ("Is not erased from memory", ) remained unpublished. Pavel had a plan to edit a book of his selected works under the title "Echo" () but illness prevented from the implementation of it.
Significance of works.
Pavel Prudnikau created a lot of works: verses, poems, novels, memoirs, verses for children.
His works of the 1930s are typical for that time. The verses contain a glorifying of working enthusiasm, work slogans. In the late period Pavel was worried about moving of society to the new stages. Thinking of life tied with singing of his native land and thinking of its past took a prominent place in his literary heritage. He was one of the first to write about the beauty of the Braslaw region.
The most prominent is a cycle of works devoted to the horrors of Stalin's repressions. These works are the most famous on this theme in Belarusian literature. He often put stories about it in the form of verses (poems "Taymyr", "Each Second", a cycle of verses "Aching Memoirs" ()). These poems and stories describe real events that the author witnessed.
Due to the fact that Pavel Prudnikau began his literary activity in the inter-war period, he had contacts with poets and writers of different epochs. This rich experience was implemented in the books of memoirs "Distant but not forgotten". A great part of it is dedicated to memoirs about young Belarusian poets and writers of the 1930s who died at the time of World War II or the Great Purge in USSR in 1937: Zmitro Vitalin, Zmitrok Astapenka, Todar Klyashtorny, Mihas Zarecky and others.
Belarusian-Soviet composer Yury Semyanyaka wrote music for songs on the basis of Prudnikau's verses "Pershamayskaya" and "U Pakhody".
Materials in archives and museums.
Now the documents devoted to the life and activity of Pavel Prudnikau can be found in the Belarusian State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art in Minsk. Special expositions are contained in the museums of Klimavichy and Braslaw.
Unfortunately there are no translations of Prudnikau's works into English.
Awards.
In 1992 by decree (ukase) of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus he was honoured with the title of Meritorious Worker of Culture of the Republic of Belarus". In 1995 Pavel Prudnikau was awarded for his book "Beyond the Barbed Wire" with the prime of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus.


Michael Peterson (criminal)

Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943) is an American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on December 9, 2001. After eight years, Peterson was granted a new trial after the judge ruled a critical prosecution witness gave misleading testimony. In 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to time already served and freed.
Peterson's case is the subject of the documentary miniseries "The Staircase", which started filming soon after his arrest in 2001 and followed events until his eventual Alford plea in 2017. In 2019, he released his own account of his life since his wife's death in an independently published memoir, "Behind the Staircase".
Personal and professional life.
Michael Iver Peterson was born near Nashville, Tennessee, the son of Eugen Iver Peterson and Eleanor Peterson (). He graduated from Duke University with a bachelor's degree in political science. While there, Peterson was president of Sigma Nu fraternity and was editor of "The Chronicle", the daily student newspaper, from 1964–1965. He attended classes at the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
After graduating, Peterson took a civilian job with the U.S. Department of Defense, where he was assigned to research arguments supporting increased military involvement in Vietnam. That year he also married Patricia Sue, who taught at an elementary school on the Rhein-Main Air Base in Gräfenhausen, West Germany. They had two children, Clayton and Todd. In 1968, Peterson enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served in the Vietnam War. In 1971, he received an honorable discharge with the rank of captain after a car accident left him with a permanent disability.
Years later, during a mayoral campaign, Peterson claimed he had won a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Valor, and two Purple Hearts. He had all the medals, but said he did not have the documentation for them. Peterson claimed he had received one Purple Heart after being hit by shrapnel when another soldier stepped on a land mine, and the other when he was shot. He later admitted his war injury was not the result of the shrapnel wound in Vietnam, but was the result of a car accident in Japan, where he was stationed after the war as a military policeman. The Raleigh, North Carolina "News & Observer" said records did not contain any mention of the two Purple Hearts that Peterson said he had received. However, military files verified that he received a Silver Star and the Bronze Star Medal with Valor.
Peterson and his first wife Patricia lived in Germany for some time. There they befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two children, Margaret and Martha. After George's death, the Peterson and Ratliff families became very close. When Elizabeth Ratliff died in 1985, Michael became the guardian of her two children. After Michael and Patricia divorced in 1987, Clayton and Todd lived with Patricia, and Margaret and Martha stayed with Michael, who then moved to Durham, North Carolina. Clayton and Todd later also joined their father.
Peterson wrote three novels based "around his experiences during the Vietnamese conflict"—"The Immortal Dragon", "A Time of War", and "A Bitter Peace". He co-wrote the biographical "Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company" with journalist David Perlmutt, and co-wrote "Operation Broken Reed" with Lt. Col. Arthur L. Boyd. Peterson also worked as a newspaper columnist for the Durham "Herald-Sun", where his columns became known for their criticism of police and of Durham County District Attorney James Hardin Jr. Later, Hardin would prosecute Peterson for the murder of his second wife, Kathleen.
In 1989, Michael moved in with Kathleen Atwater, a successful Nortel business executive. They married in 1997, and Kathleen's daughter Caitlin joined the extended family that now consisted of Clayton, Todd, Martha, and Margaret.
Murder trial.
Kathleen's death.
On December 9, 2001, Peterson called an emergency line to report that he had just found Kathleen unconscious in their Forest Hills home and suspected she had fallen down "fifteen, twenty, I don't know" stairs. He later claimed that he had been outside by the pool and had come in at 2:40 am to find Kathleen at the foot of the stairs. Peterson said she must have fallen down the stairs after consuming alcohol and Valium.
Toxicology results showed that Kathleen's blood alcohol content was 0.07 percent (70 mg/100mL). The autopsy report concluded that the 48-year-old woman sustained a matrix of severe injuries, including a fracture of the thyroid neck cartilage and seven lacerations to the top and back of her head, consistent with blows from a blunt object, and had died from blood loss ninety minutes to two hours after sustaining the injuries. Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, and Kathleen's sister, Candace Zamperini, both initially proclaimed Michael's innocence and publicly supported him alongside his children, but Zamperini reconsidered after learning of Peterson's bisexuality, as did Caitlin after reading her mother's autopsy report. Both subsequently broke off from the rest of the family.
Although forensic expert Henry Lee, hired by Peterson's defense, testified that the blood-spatter evidence was consistent with an accidental fall down the stairs, police investigators concluded that the injuries were inconsistent with such an accident. As Peterson was the only person at the residence at the time of Kathleen's death, he was the prime suspect and was soon charged with her murder. He pleaded not guilty.
The medical examiner, Deborah Radisch, concluded that Kathleen had died from lacerations of the scalp caused by a homicidal assault. According to Radisch, the total of seven lacerations to the top and back of Kathleen's head were the result of repeated blows with a light, yet rigid, weapon. The defense disputed this theory. According to their analysis, Kathleen's skull had not been fractured by the blows, nor was she brain damaged, which was inconsistent with injuries sustained in a beating death.
The trial drew increasing media attention as details of Peterson's private life emerged. Hardin and his prosecution team (among them Mike Nifong) attacked Peterson's credibility, focusing on his alleged misreporting of his military service and what they described as a "gay life" he led and kept secret. The prosecution contended that the Petersons' marriage was far from happy, suggesting that Kathleen had discovered Michael's alleged secret "gay life" and wanted to end their marriage. It was the main motive that the prosecution offered at trial for Kathleen's alleged murder (the other being a $1.5 million life insurance policy). According to Assistant District Attorney Freda Black, Kathleen
would have been infuriated by learning that her husband, who she truly loved, was bi-sexual and having an extramarital relationship—not with another woman—but a man, which would have been humiliating and embarrassing to her. We believe that once she learned this information that an argument ensued and a homicide occurred.
The defense argued that Kathleen accepted Michael's bisexuality and that the marriage was very happy, a position supported by Michael and Kathleen's children and other friends and associates.
The prosecution said that Kathleen's murder was most likely committed with a custom-made fireplace poker called a blow poke. It had been a gift to the Petersons from Kathleen's sister but was missing from the house at the time of the investigation. Late in the trial the defense team produced the missing blow poke, which they said had been overlooked in the garage by police investigators. Forensic tests revealed that it had been untouched and unmoved for too long to have been used in the murder. A juror contacted after the trial noted that the jury dismissed the idea of the blow poke as the murder weapon.
Suspicion surrounding Elizabeth Ratliff's death.
Elizabeth Ratliff, the friend of the Petersons who died in Germany in 1985, had also been found dead at the foot of her staircase with injuries to the head. Her death had been investigated by both the German police and U.S. military police. An autopsy at the time of her death concluded Ratliff died from an intra-cerebral haemorrhage secondary to the blood coagulation disorder Von Willebrand's disease, based on blood in her cerebrospinal fluid and reports that she had been suffering severe, persistent headaches in the weeks leading up to her death. The coroner determined that the hemorrhage resulted in immediate death followed by Ratliff falling down the stairs after collapsing. The Petersons had dinner with Ratliff and her daughters, and Peterson had stayed and helped Ratliff put the children to bed before going home. The children's nanny, Barbara, discovered the body when she arrived the next morning. Peterson was the last known person to see her alive.
Before Peterson's trial, the Durham court ordered the exhumation of Ratliff's embalmed body, buried in Texas, for a second autopsy in April 2003. Arrangements were made for the Durham medical examiner, who had initially performed Kathleen's autopsy, to perform this reevaluation, over the objections of defense counsel who argued that the autopsy should be performed by Texas medical examiners. The body was then transported from Texas to Durham. The Durham M.E. found sufficient evidence drawn from the results of the second autopsy, along with new witness statements describing the scene, to overturn the earlier findings and list Ratliff's cause of death as "homicide".
The prosecution declined to accuse Peterson of Ratliff's death, but introduced the death into the trial as an incident giving Peterson the idea of how to "fake" Kathleen's accident. Despite police reports that there was very little blood at the scene of Ratliff's death, the nanny, who was the first to discover Ratliff's body in 1985, took the stand at Peterson's trial and testified that there was a large amount of blood at the scene. Another witness testified to spending much of the day cleaning blood stains off the wall. The admissibility of the Ratliff evidence in court was one of the grounds for the subsequent appeal against his conviction, lodged by Peterson's lawyers in 2005.
In October 2002, acting as administrator of Kathleen's estate, Caitlin filed a wrongful death claim against Peterson. In June 2006, he voluntarily filed for bankruptcy. Two weeks later, Caitlin filed an objection to the bankruptcy. On February 1, 2007, Caitlin and Peterson settled the wrongful death claim for $25 million, pending acceptance by the courts involved; finalization of the settlement by the court was announced on February 1, 2008. In the settlement, Peterson did not admit that he murdered Kathleen.
Verdict.
On October 10, 2003, after one of the longest trials in North Carolina history, a Durham County jury found Peterson guilty of the murder of Kathleen, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Denial of parole requires premeditation. Despite the jury accepting the murder was a "spur-of-the-moment" crime, they also found it was premeditated. As one juror explained it, premeditated meant not only planning hours or days ahead, but could also mean planning in the seconds before committing a spur-of-the-moment crime. Peterson was housed at the Nash Correctional Institution near Rocky Mount until he was released on December 16, 2011.
Appeal.
Peterson's appeal was filed by his defense counsel, Thomas Maher, now serving as his court-appointed attorney, and was argued before the North Carolina Court of Appeals on April 18, 2006. On September 19, the Court of Appeals rejected Peterson's arguments that he did not get a fair trial because of repeated judicial mistakes. The Appeals' ruling said the evidence was fairly admitted. The judges did find defects in a search warrant, but said they had no ill effect on the defense. Because the ruling was not unanimous, under North Carolina law, Peterson had right to appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court, which accepted the case. Oral argument was heard on September 10, 2007. On November 9, the Court announced that it affirmed the decision of the Appeals. Absent a reconsideration of the ruling or the raising of a federal issue, Peterson had exhausted his appeal of the verdict.
On November 12, 2008, attorneys J. Burkhardt Beale and Jason Anthony of Richmond, Virginia, who were now representing Peterson, filed a motion for a new trial in Durham County court on three grounds: that the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence about the blow poke, that the prosecution used an expert witness whose qualifications were disputed, and that one juror based his judgment on racial factors. On March 10, 2009, Peterson's motion was denied by the Durham County Superior Court.
Owl theory.
In late 2009, a new theory of Kathleen's death was raised: that she had been attacked by an owl outside, fallen after rushing inside, and been knocked unconscious after hitting her head on the first tread of the stairs. The owl theory was raised by Durham attorney T. Lawrence Pollard, a neighbor of the Petersons who was not involved in the case but had been following the public details. He approached the police suggesting an owl might have been responsible after reading the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) evidence list and finding a "feather" listed. Peterson's attorneys had determined that the SBI crime lab report listed a microscopic owl feather and a wooden sliver from a tree limb entangled in a clump of hair that had been pulled out by the roots found clutched in Kathleen's left hand. A re-examination of the hair in September 2008 had found two more microscopic owl feathers.
According to Pollard, had a jury been presented with this evidence it would have "materially affected their deliberation and therefore would have materially affected their ultimate verdict". Prosecutors have ridiculed the claim, and Deborah Radisch, who conducted Kathleen's autopsy, says it was unlikely that an owl or any other bird could have made wounds as deep as those on her scalp. However, Radisch's opinion was challenged by other experts in three separate affidavits filed in 2010.
Despite interest in this theory among some outside advocates, no motion for a new trial was filed on this point in 2009. On March 2, 2017 (following his Alford plea), Peterson's attorney filed a motion to allow him to pay for a bird expert at the Smithsonian Institution to examine feather fragments found in Kathleen's hair to determine if she was attacked by a raptor.
Retrial hearing.
In August 2010, following a series of newspaper articles critical of the SBI, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper led an investigation which resulted in the suspension of SBI analyst Duane Deaver, one of the principal witnesses against Peterson, after the report found his work among the worst done on scores of flawed criminal cases. Pollard subsequently filed affidavits to support a motion that Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson order the state Medical Examiner's Office to turn over all documentation related to Kathleen's autopsy to Peterson's attorneys. However, Judge Hudson barred Pollard from filing further motions on behalf of Peterson because he did not represent him. A new motion was filed in August 2010 by David Rudolf, one of Peterson's original attorneys, who acted "pro bono" in proceedings challenging the SBI testimony.
Deaver was fired from the SBI in January 2011, after an independent audit of the agency found he had falsely represented evidence in 34 cases, including withholding negative results in the case of Greg Taylor, a North Carolina man who spent seventeen years in prison on a murder conviction based on Deaver's testimony. A bloodstain-analysis team that Deaver had trained was suspended and disbanded. In the 2003 Peterson trial, Deaver testified that he had been mentored by SBI bloodstain specialist David Spittle, had worked 500 bloodstain cases, written 200 reports, and testified in 60 cases. During the retrial hearing, SBI Assistant Director Eric Hooks testified that Deaver had written only 47 reports. Spittle testified that he could not recall mentoring Deaver who, since completing a two-day training course in the 1980s, had testified in only four cases, the Peterson case being the third. The SBI cited the bloodstain analysis given in the fourth case as the reason for firing Deaver.
On December 16, 2011, Peterson was released from the Durham County jail on $300,000 bail and placed under house arrest with a tracking anklet. His release on bond followed a judicial order for a new trial after Judge Hudson found that Deaver had given "materially misleading" and "deliberately false" testimony about bloodstain evidence, and had exaggerated his training, experience, and expertise. Former North Carolina Attorney General Rufus Edmisten said that any evidence gathered after Deaver arrived at the scene might be deemed inadmissible in a new trial. In July 2014, Peterson's bond restrictions were eased.
In October 2014, the court appointed Mike Klinkosum to represent Peterson, replacing David Rudolf, who had been working "pro bono" on the case since Peterson's conviction was overturned. Rudolf had stated that he could no longer afford to represent Peterson without being paid. On November 14, 2016, Peterson's request for the second trial to be dismissed was refused, and a new trial was scheduled to begin on May 8, 2017. However, a news report on February 7, 2017, indicated that a resolution had been negotiated by Rudolf (once again representing Peterson) and the Durham County District Attorney.
Alford plea.
On February 24, 2017, Peterson entered an Alford plea (a guilty plea entered because sufficient evidence exists to convict him of the offense, but the defendant asserts innocence) to the voluntary manslaughter of Kathleen. The judge sentenced him to a maximum of 86 months in prison, with credit for time previously served. Because Peterson had already served more time than the sentence (98.5 months), he did not face additional prison time.
Media.
Films about the case.
The court case generated widespread interest in part because of a televised documentary series variously named "Soupçons" (Suspicions), "Death on the Staircase", and "The Staircase", which detailed Peterson's legal and personal troubles. Eight 45-minute episodes of the documentary were assembled from more than 600 hours of footage. It was directed by French filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and released by Maha Productions in October 2004. The documentary offers an intimate depiction of defense preparations for the trial. It also examines the role and behavior of the press as it covered aspects of the case. The filmmakers started their project within weeks of Kathleen's death and Peterson's murder indictment; jury selection took place in May 2003 with the case itself going to trial in July 2003.
Following the guilty verdict, de Lestrade interviewed the jurors to find out why they reached their verdict. By and large, the jurors were swayed by the amount of blood Kathleen lost and the number of lacerations, which indicated to them it could not have been an accident. Henry Lee, however, had testified at the trial that the amount of blood was irrelevant, as the blood spatter indicated most of it was coughed up rather than from the wounds themselves. He also suggested some of the blood could have been diluted with urine. Lee had also duplicated blood spatter from coughing for the jury by drinking ketchup and spitting it out.
In November 2012, de Lestrade released a sequel, "The Staircase 2: The Last Chance", which premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. The film documents Peterson's family and his legal team's arguments in seeking a retrial, in which they succeed.


List of Acts of the Parliament of India

This is a chronological, but incomplete list of Acts passed by the Imperial Legislative Council between 1861 and 1947, the Constituent Assembly of India between 1947 and 1949, The Provisional Parliament between 1949 and 1952, and the Parliament of India since 1952.


Beaver v R

Beaver v The Queen [1957] is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the mens rea requirement in criminal law to prove "possession". The Court held that an offence based on possession, such as possession of a narcotic, requires the Crown to prove that the accused had subjective knowledge of the nature of the object in possession.
Background.
Louis Beaver and his brother Max Beaver were arrested selling heroin to an undercover RCMP officer and charged with possession and sale of an illegal narcotic under the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act. Max was the one in actual physical possession of the drug but Louis was charged by association as he knew Max had the heroin.
In defence, Louis claimed that he thought the package was milk sugar and that they were only trying to defraud the RCMP officer.
At trial, the judge instructed the jury by telling them that if they find that they were in possession their actual knowledge was irrelevant.
The issue before the Supreme Court was whether a conviction based on possession requires knowledge of the nature of the object.
Opinion of the Court.
The Court held that knowledge was required. Cartwright J., writing for the majority stated that it is a fundamental principle of criminal law that the Mens rea of an element of an offence must be proven to secure a conviction. It has been established that provisions in the Drug Act are criminal law, and that any offence that allows a punishment of prison requires proof of "mens rea".
The Court held that Beaver did not know the character of the substance, and he was acquitted of possession. However, he did represent the substance as a narcotic and therefore was convicted on the charge of selling a narcotic.


Liselotte Herrmann

Liselotte Herrmann (called "Lilo", 23 June 1909 – 20 June 1938, executed) was a German Communist Resistance fighter in Nazi Germany.
Life.
Born in Berlin, Liselotte Herrmann, an engineer’s daughter, had a middle class liberal upbringing. After completing her "Abitur" exams in 1929, she went to work as a laboratory assistant in a chemical factory to prepare her studies in chemistry. Later that year, her family moved to Stuttgart, where she attended the Technical College. In 1931, she switched to biology, studying at the Humboldt University in Berlin.
As a schoolgirl, she joined the Young Communist League of Germany in 1928, and also became a member of the Red Students’ League ("Roter Studentenbund"). She also joined the Revolutionary Union Opposition ("Revolutionäre Gewerkschafts Opposition") in 1931, and in the same year became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).
Opposition activities.
Soon after the "NSDAP" won the election in 1933, she together with 111 other students signed a "Call for the Defence of Democratic Rights and Freedoms" and was therefore reprimanded and expelled by the university on 11 July 1933. From that time, she worked illegally against Germany's Nazi government and socialized with the armed resistance within the KPD organisation.
She temporarily took a job as a nanny and on 15 May 1934, her son Walter was born. The boy's father, Fritz Rau, a KPD official, had died in Gestapo custody. In September of the same year, she once again moved to Stuttgart, where she worked as a shorthand typist at her father's engineering office and re–established contacts with the banned Communist Party. From late 1934, she worked as a technical aide to the Württemberg KPD leader, Stefan Lovász, until his arrest in June 1935. She obtained information about German re-armament concerning secret weapons projects — munitions production at the Dornier aircraft factory in Friedrichshafen and the building of an underground ammunition factory ("Muna") near Celle — which were relayed to the KPD's office in exile that had been set up in Switzerland.
Arrest, trial, and death.
On 7 December 1935, Hermann was arrested in her family's apartment. For three months, she was interrogated at the Stuttgart police prison, and from February 1936 she was held for 16 harrowing months in remand custody, whilst her young son had to be cared for by his grandparents. Charged in the People's Court ("Volksgerichtshof"), Herrmann and Stefan Lovász, together with KPD officials and , were sentenced to death by the Second Senate in Stuttgart on 12 June 1937 for "treason in concomitance with preparation of high treason in aggravating circumstances". Herrmann's fellow party member, Lina Haag, was held in the same remand prison at that time, and remembers the night she was sentenced in her book "A Handful of Dust" or "How Long the Night".
Deported to Berlin, after another year in the , she was transferred to Plötzensee Prison for execution. Despite international protests, Hermann was sent to the guillotine on 20 June 1938. Lovász, Steidle and Göritz were also put to death the same day.
Controversy.
In East Germany, many schools, streets, and institutions were named after her, but after German reunification in 1990, many were given new names to erase all references to Communism.
Indeed, even in Stuttgart, where Herrmann studied, she has been a controversial figure. In 1988, unknown persons placed a simple memorial stone to her on the University of Stuttgart campus, which caused a stir. "Lilo-Herrmann-Weg" was the city's tribute to her, but it is little more than a 100 m-long blind alley affording access to public and private parking. No one lives there. In the 1970s, students at the university tried to get a new residence named after her, but the university administration refused.


Lev Smirnov

Lev Nikolaevich Smirnov (June 21, 1911, Saint Petersburg – March 23, 1986, Moscow) was a Soviet lawyer, Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union in 1972–1984, Chairman of the Association of Soviet Lawyers, Hero of Socialist Labour.
Biography.
Born in Saint Petersburg in the family of an employee.
In 1929–1936, he studied at the Leningrad State University at the Faculty of Soviet Law and at the Nikolay Krylenko Institute of Law, as well as (since 1939) in graduate school, which he did not complete due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War.
Since 1934 – Senior Investigator of the Leningrad Regional Prosecutor's Office.
In 1935–1938 – Senior Investigator of the Murmansk District Prosecutor's Office.
Since 1938 – Senior Investigator of the Petrograd District of Leningrad.
Since 1939 – Senior Investigator and Methodologist of the Leningrad City Prosecutor's Office.
On June 23, 1941, he was drafted into the army, served as a military investigator in the prosecutor's offices of the active armies and the Leningrad Front.
From September 1942 – in the Prosecutor's Office of the Soviet Union (investigator for the most important cases, prosecutor of the investigation department, prosecutor for special assignments under the Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union). He was engaged in investigating the crimes of the Nazis in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union.
Participated in the work of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal as an assistant to the chief prosecutor from the Soviet Union, Roman Rudenko. Supported the charges section by section:
In 1946, he was Deputy Prosecutor from the Soviet Union of Prosecutor Sergei Golunsky at the Tokyo International Trial on charges of the main Japanese war criminals (military aggression in the areas of Lake Khasan and the Khalkhin Gol River).
He was a public prosecutor at the Khabarovsk Trial.
In 1957–1962 – Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union.
In 1962–1972 – Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Conducted the trial of the participants in the Novocherkassk events, sentenced nine Novocherkassk workers to death.
In 1965–1966 – led the Process of Sinyavsky and Daniel.
In 1972–1984 – Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union.
Since 1984 – retired.
Member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1945.
Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1976–1986.
Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union of the 8th, 9th, 10th convocations.
He was a member of the International Commission of Inquiry to Expose the Atrocities of American Imperialism in Vietnam, a member of the United Nations Standing Advisory Committee of Experts on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Criminals, a member of the Council of the International Organization of Democratic Lawyers, and an honorary doctorate in law from a number of foreign universities.
He died on March 23, 1986, in Moscow. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.


Siete Leyes

Las Siete Leyes (, or Seven Laws were a series of constitutional changes that fundamentally altered the organizational structure of Mexico, ending the first federal period and creating a unitary republic, the Central Republic. Formalized under President Antonio López de Santa Anna on 15 December 1835, they were enacted in 1836. They were intended to centralize and strengthen the national government. The aim of the previous constitution was to create a political system that would emulate the success of the United States, but after a decade of political turmoil, economic stagnation, and threats and actual foreign invasion, conservatives concluded that a better path for Mexico was centralized power. The "Siete Leyes" were revised in 1843, making them more workable, but also placing power entirely in the hands of Santa Anna.
Las Siete Leyes ended in 1846, when the 1824 Constitution was restored and the second federal period began.


Constitution of Brazil

The Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil () is the supreme law of Brazil. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of Brazil and the federal government of Brazil. It provides the framework for the organization of the Brazilian government and for the relationship of the federal government to the states, to citizens, and to all people within Brazil.
Overview.
The current Brazilian Constitution is the seventh enacted since the country's independence in 1822, and the sixth since the proclamation of the republic in 1889. It was promulgated on 5 October 1988, after a two-year process in which it was written from scratch.
History.
The current Constitution of Brazil was drafted as a reaction to the period of military dictatorship, and sought to guarantee individual rights and restrict the state's ability to limit freedom, to punish offences and to regulate individual life. Among the new constitutional guarantees are the errand of injunction and the "habeas data". It also anticipated the existence of a Consumers' Defence Code (enacted in 1990), of a Children's and Youth Code (1990) and of a new Civil Code (2002).
It was the first constitution to demand severe punishment for breaches of civil liberties and rights. Consequently, Brazil later approved a law making the propagation of prejudice against any minority or ethnic group an unbailable crime. This law provided legal remedy against those who spread hate speech or those who do not treat all citizens equally. This second aspect helped disabled people to have a reserved percentage of jobs in the public service and large companies, and Afro-Brazilians to seek reparation for racism in court.
Breaking with the authoritarian logic of the previous Constitution, it made unbailable crimes those of torture and of actions directed against the democratic state and the constitutional order, thus creating constitutional devices to block coups d'état of any kind.
The Constitution also established many forms of direct popular participation besides regular voting, such as plebiscite, referendum and the possibility of ordinary citizens proposing new laws. Examples of these democratic mechanisms were the 1993 plebiscite concerning the form of government, where the presidential system was confirmed, and the 2005 firearms and ammunition referendum.
The mention of God in the preamble of the Constitution (and later on the Brazilian currency) was opposed by most leftists as incompatible with freedom of religion because it does not recognise the rights of polytheists such as some indigenous peoples or of atheists. The Supreme Federal Court has ruled that this commission of the protection of God was not unconstitutional since the preamble of the constitution is simply an indication of principles that serves as an introduction to the constitutional text and reflects the ideological conceptions of the legislator, falling within the scope of political ideology and not of the Law.
Criticism.
The Federal Constitution of 1988 is criticized in the doctrine for being very extensive, long-winded and analytical. This characteristic forced the Constitution to be amended several times, in politically costly processes, to adapt to the changes in society
Another criticism is that the 1988 Federal Constitution reproduces a model of state capitalism, expanding state monopolies and regulations, which allowed the Brazilian state, in 2017, to have stakes in more than 650 companies, involved in one third of the national GDP. This model also created restrictions for the performance of foreign companies in several fields with harmful consequences for the country's growth. In the view of some scholars, this economic model favors patrimonialism and corruption.
Since the approval of the 1988 Federal Constitution, the homicide rate has grown 124% in Brazil and more than one million people have been murdered. While in the 1980s there were 11.7 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants, in 2010 the rate reached 26.2 - an average increase of 2.7% per year.
A portion of the doctrine has blamed the Constitution. Raul Jungmann criticized the fact that the Constitution gave states responsibility for public security, leaving the Union with only a residual role. This would have enabled the growth of factions such as the Primeiro Comando da Capital and the Comando Vermelho. In the view of Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil confused the respect for the dignity of the human person with the leniency for criminal leaders.
The Constitution is also responsible for leaving a slow procedural system. Brazil has the 30th slowest judiciary among 133 countries, according to the World Bank. This has caused the judiciary to use provisional arrests as an advance of the sentence. In 2015 more than 40% of prisoners in Brazil were provisional.
A World Bank study criticized the 1988 Federal Constitution for extending the privileges of civil servants, aggravating income inequality in Brazil. [59] Remuneration and retirement are disproportionately high according to studies. In 2015, the federal government's deficit with the retirement of the approximately 1 million government employees was greater than the total registered with 33 million private pensioners. For the World Bank, civil servants are among the richest fifth of the Brazilian population. For Roberto Brant, the Federal Constitution was captured by groups of civil servants in 1988.Philosopher Fernando Schüler maintains that Brazil went against the grain in the 1980s: "While the world tried to adjust the State to globalization and modernize public management, Brazil bet on a super bureaucratic state in the 1988 Constitution. We offer rigid stability in the employment for civil servants, we mix careers of State with common careers of the public service, we create the law of biddings, we cast the budgets and we eliminate any space for the meritocracy in the public area. " For jurist Modesto Carvalhosa, only a new "principiological" constitution would end the privileges of the 1988 Constitution.
The Federal Constitution of 1988 is also criticized for having adopted one of the broadest Special Forums due to the prerogative of function in the world, jurists understand that this extension encourages corruption. A quarter of the actions with a Privileged Forum take more than ten years to be judged. The Supreme Federal Court takes 1,300 days to judge criminal actions by persons with privileged jurisdiction. Between 2001 and 2017, 200 actions involving the Privileged Forum expired.
Also criticized is the requirement of unappealable transit for the execution of the sentence. For Judge Sérgio Moro, waiting for the final judgment will contribute to impunity. According to Minister Teori Zavascki after confirming a second sentence sentence, one could no longer speak of the principle of non-culpability, since "the exceptional remedies, for the superimposition courts, do not boast the ability to review facts and evidence". In the United Nations, 193 of the 194 countries have a first or second arrest.
In the electoral aspect, the Constitution adopted the mandatory vote. Among the 15 largest economies in the world, Brazil is the only country in which voting is mandatory. A 2014 survey showed that the mandatory vote is rejected by 61% of Brazilians. Some indoctrinates question whether it is democratic to compel people to vote.
The Constitution adopted the social democratic model of State organization, as defined by the columnist for the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo Luiz Sérgio Henriques. For professor and lawyer Marco Aurélio Marrafon, president of the Brazilian Academy of Constitutional Law, the 1988 Brazilian Magna Carta organized the State according to the Welfare State model, in which it is intended to reconcile "the liberal component of preservation of individual rights and limitation of state power, with direct economic intervention and the promotion of public policies, in order to redistribute resources and reduce social inequalities ". In order to finance the Welfare State, it was necessary to raise the tax burden, which went from 23.4% of GDP in 1988, to 33.6% of GDP in 2005, and to link budget revenues. Thus, the Union reached 93% of mandatory spending in 2017, decreasing the room for maneuver by the government and affecting investments. This political option is criticized by some indoctrinators.
Doctrines criticize an alleged excessive power granted to the Order of Attorneys of Brazil by the Constitution. Brazilian philosopher and journalist Hélio Schwartsman considers that the 1988 Constitution conferred "disproportionate powers" on lawyers "such as appointing judges, writing laws, proposing direct actions of unconstitutionality, defining who can and who cannot become a lawyer". Roberto Campos, economist, ex-senator and Minister of Planning of Brazil in the early years of the military dictatorship noted that "The OAB has achieved the feat of being mentioned three times in what he defines as the "besteirol Constitution" of 1988. According to him, "it's perhaps the only case in the world where a club of professionals has enshrined the constitutional text."
Contents.
The Constitution of Brazil is composed of nine titles, subsequently divided into chapters and then articles. The articles are in turn divided into short clauses called "incisos" (indicated by Roman numerals) and "parágrafos" (indicated by numbers followed by §). The Constitution refers to the country as "the Union".
Preamble.
The preamble to the Federal Constitution is a brief introductory statement that sets out the guiding purpose and principles of the document. The text reads:
Title 1.
Title 1 is devoted to the fundamental principles of the Union. It describes the States, the municipalities and the Federal District as the indissoluble constituents of the Union. It also establishes three independent, harmonic government branches: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary, and lists the nation's main goals.
One of the most important excerpts from this title is in Article 1, single paragraph, stating:
Title 2.
Title 2 states the Fundamental Safeguards. It ensures basic rights to all citizens and foreigners residing in the Country, prohibits capital punishment, defines citizenship requirements, political rights, among other regulations.
Title 3.
Title 3 regulates the state organization. It establishes Brasília as the nation's capital, describes the rights and duties of the states, the municipalities, as well rules for the public staff.
Title 4.
Title 4 is about the branches of government. It describes the attributes for every government branch, and the rules for amendments to the Constitution as well.
Title 5.
Title 5 regulates the defense of the State and its democratic institutions. It rules the deployment of the armed forces, the national security baselines, and declaration of state of emergency.
Title 6.
Title 6 comprises taxation and the nation's budget. It disposes on budget distribution among the Union's components and their competencies, and the nation's budget.
Title 7.
Title 7 rules the economic activities in the country, the agricultural and urban policies, as well the state monopolies.
Title 8.
Title 8 is about the social order. It establishes the Social Security system, the Public Health system, the Public Pension system, among regulations concerning education, culture, science and technology, and sports policies.
Title 9.
Title 9 encompasses general constitutional dispositions. Among those, there are sparse regulations, as well as transitional dispositions.


Concordats with individual states of Germany

Concordats between the Holy See and individual German states were concluded both before and after the unification of Germany in the 1870s. Early examples include:
In addition to the Reichskonkordat at the federal level, there are concordats between the Holy See and thirteen German states (Länder). This is because the individual states of the German federation have competencies in legislation with respect to education, culture and, to some extent, finance.
In 1929 Prussia and the Holy See signed the Prussian Concordat (), which remains still valid for formerly Prussian territory within some of its successor states. Baden signed its concordat in 1932. The Reich's Concordat, later affirmed as valid by West Germany in 1957, applied some features of Baden's concordat to Hesse, Württemberg and the Diocese of Meissen, which then comprised all of Saxony and parts of Thuringia.
Other German states with concordats are Baden-Württemberg (1932), Bavaria (1817–1924), Brandenburg (2003), Bremen (2003), Hamburg (2005), Lower Saxony (1965-1973-1989-1993), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (1997), North Rhine-Westphalia (1929-1956-1984), Rhineland-Palatinate (1929-1969-1973), Saarland (1929-1975-1985), Saxony (1996), Saxony-Anhalt (1998), Schleswig-Holstein (2009) and Thuringia (1997). Three states, Berlin (1970), Hesse (1963–1974), and Rhineland-Palatinate (1975), have agreements with Catholic bishoprics.
There have been three separate waves of concordats. The last one was set off by the dissolution of East Germany, when its five German states that had exited before World War II were reconstituted, joined the Federal Republic of Germany, and entered agreements with the Holy See. Since then three of the northernmost German states, which have small Catholic minorities, have also concluded concordats.
Some of the educational provisions of the Bavarian concordat have aroused controversy. In 2008, the Catholic Church's veto of an academically well-regarded nominee for president of Germany's only Catholic University sparked protests. This veto was permitted by Article 5 of the Bavarian concordat. Another part of the same concordat, Article 3 on "concordat chairs", was unsuccessfully challenged in court in 2009. This provision establishes Church-controlled professorships in theology, philosophy, pedagogy, and the social sciences at state universities.


Thor Reiersen Lilleholt

Thor Reirsen Lilleholt (3 March 1770 –12 May 1822) was a Norwegian farmer and district sheriff who served as a representative at the Norwegian Constitutional Assembly.
Thor Reirsen Lilleholt was born on the Lilleholt farm in Holt parish in Aust-Agder, Norway. During the period 1803–17, he was sheriff in Holt, and from 1803 to 1812 also in the neighboring parish of Dypvåg. In 1793, he married Asborg Undersdtr (1770–1812) with whom he had five children.
He represented Nedenæs amt (now Aust-Agder) at the Norwegian Constituent Assembly in 1814, together with Jacob Aall and Hans Jacob Grøgaard.
At the Assembly, he supported the union party ("unionspartiet").


Thomas Fitz-Christopher Plunket

Sir Thomas Fitz-Christopher Plunket (c.1407-1471) was a leading Irish lawyer and judge of the fifteenth century who held office as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He was an ancestor of the Duke of Wellington in the female line. His second marriage to the heiress Marian Cruise inspired the ballad The Song of Mary Cruys.
Family.
He was born in County Meath, the third of seven sons of Sir Christopher Plunket, who married in 1403 Janet Cusack, the heiress of Killeen Castle, Dunsany. Christopher was created 1st Baron Killeen about 1426, and founded a prominent Anglo-Irish dynasty. It was said that Thomas was "bred to the law": he and his younger brother Robert were the first two of numerous lawyers and judges in the Plunket family.
Career.
Thomas became Serjeant-at-law (Ireland), who at that time was the senior legal adviser to the Crown, in 1434. He was entrusted with levying subsidies in 1447, and with surveying the royal mines in 1450. He was made a justice of assize in County Meath, and was entrusted with the defence of the county in 1456. There is some evidence that he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1452-3, although the name is spelt "Blonket" in the records.
During the Wars of the Roses Thomas, like most of the Anglo-Irish gentry of the Pale, was a supporter of Richard of York; he accompanied him to England in 1460 and was knighted. After the triumph of York's son, King Edward IV in 1461, Plunket was appointed Lord Chief Justice, but was forced to contest the position with his predecessor, Sir Nicholas Barnewall. He was reappointed in 1463 and confirmed in office in 1468 jointly with John Chevir.
He died on 12 June 1471, bequeathing the sum of £100 to Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. He was buried in Rathmore Church, where an impressive tomb was erected to the memory of Thomas and his second wife Marian Cruise. Rathmore Church is now a ruin, but some traces of the tomb are said to still be visible.
Marriages and children.
He married firstly Genet Cusack, and by her had one son who probably predeceased him. He married secondly Marion Cruise (or Cruys), daughter and heiress of Sir Christopher Cruise of Rathmore, County Meath, and in her right became Lord of the Manor of Rathmore. His second marriage, though advantageous, was said to be a love affair. There are several romantic stories about the marriage, and a celebrated ballad, "The Song of Mary Cruys", describing how Thomas as a young barrister in London restored Marion, then a penniless refugee in England, to her rightful inheritance. How much truth there is in the story that Marian and her mother were forced to flee from their home in fear of their lives after her father's murder is uncertain, but violence was endemic in fifteenth century Ireland, as it was in England, so the story may have some basis in fact.
He and Marian had five children:
He should not be confused with his nephew Sir Thomas Plunket of Dunsoghly Castle, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas. The second Sir Thomas was the son of Sir Robert Plunket, who was briefly Lord Chief Justice in 1447.


Verrill Rapp

Verrill Rapp, also Verrill Hersey Raap (-?) was an American criminal who was a convicted post office robber. A 1930 census mentioned him living in Fresno, California and being 24 years old at the time. On August 11, 1934, he was transferred from McNeil Island to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary to become one of the first civilian inmates incarcerated there – sentenced to four years for assault on a police officer and breaking jail. He is best known for being the earliest prisoner to be paroled from Alcatraz in the spring of 1935. Upon leaving to stand trial on other charges, Rapp reported that Alcatraz was a place of "inhumane treatment" and that it was causing many inmates to go insane. This was widely reported in the press and marked the beginning of its sinister reputation.


List of Finnish treaties

This is a list of more important international treaties signed by Finland from 1917 onwards.


Ernst von Harnack

Ernst Wolf Alexander Oskar Harnack (15 July 1888 – 5 March 1945), granted the title von Harnack in 1914, was an official of the Prussian provincial government, a German politician, and a German Resistance fighter. He was arrested, tried and executed in March 1945 at Plötzensee Prison for political opposition to the Nazi Party.
Family.
Harnack was born in Marburg as the son of the theologian Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) and Amalie Thiersch (1858–1937), the granddaughter of the chemist Justus von Liebig. On 25 March 1916, in Hindenburg (Upper Silesia), he married Anna (Änne) Wiggert (b. 5 October 1894, in Göttelborn, Ottweiler district, Saarland; d. 22 August 1960, in Berlin), daughter of the Prussian official Ernst Wiggert and Elisabeth Schmidt. They had two sons and three daughters.
Life.
After a year's private instruction, Harnack attended the Joachimsthalsches Gymnasium in Berlin, where he took the Abitur in 1907. Then he studied law at the University of Marburg and later in Berlin. On 6 May 1911, he took the bar examination and began afterwards working at a magistrate's Court in the Lichterfelde of Berlin. From 1 October 1911 to 30 September 1912, he spent a year doing military service as a one-year volunteer. From 2 August 1914 to 15 May 1915 he served in the First World War and was active with civil administration in Congress Poland. He began his official career on 8 March 1913 as a governmental junior lawyer in Oppeln. On 29 June 1918, he was appointed as a civil servant ("Regierungsassessor") in the Ministry of Science, Art and National Education. He was promoted on 24 January 1921 to "Regierungsrat". From 15 August 1921 to 9 November 1923 and from 1 June 1924 to 31 May 1925 he was a "Landrat" in Hersfeld-Rotenburg, with an appointment as "Landrat" in Uecker-Randow in the period between. On 1 June 1925 he was appointed vice head of the regional government ("Regierungsvizepräsident") in Hanover. He was transferred on 1 April 1927 in the same position in Cologne. On 8 August 1929, he started as of the head of the provincial government ("Regierungspräsident") in Merseburg.
Harnack was dismissed from government service after the so-called Preußenschlag by Reichskanzler (Chancellor) Franz von Papen on 20 July 1932. On 27 November 1921 he was elected to the executive committee of the "Kirchenpartei" called "Bund religiöser Sozialisten" (Federation of Religious Socialists). Harnack was arrested in 1933, after he had tried to determine the murderers of Mecklenburg-Schwerin's former Prime Minister and SPD politician Johannes Stelling, murdered during the so-called Night of the Long Knives. In co-operation with Willi Wohlberedt, he created a graves registration index cards for Berlin.
Accused of being a participant in the 20 July Plot in 1944, he was executed in March 1945 in Plötzensee and buried in an unmarked grave. His name appears on a family grave marker in Berlin.


Machine Gun Kelly

George Kelly Barnes (July 18, 1895 – July 18, 1954), better known by his pseudonym "Machine Gun Kelly", was an American gangster from Memphis, Tennessee, during the prohibition era. His nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thompson submachine gun. He is best known for the kidnapping of the oil tycoon and businessman Charles F. Urschel in July 1933, from which he and his gang collected a $200,000 ransom (around $ million dollars as of today.). Urschel had collected and left considerable evidence that assisted the subsequent FBI investigation, which eventually led to Kelly's arrest in Memphis, Tennessee, on September 26, 1933. His crimes also included bootlegging and armed robbery.
Career.
During the Prohibition era of the 1920s and 1930s, Kelly worked as a bootlegger for himself as well as a colleague. After a short time, and several run-ins with the local Memphis police, he decided to leave town and head west with his girlfriend. To protect his family and to escape law enforcement officers, he changed his name to George R. Kelly. He continued to commit smaller crimes and bootlegging. He was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1928, for smuggling liquor onto an Indian Reservation, and sentenced to three years at Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas, beginning February 11, 1928. He was reportedly a model inmate and was released early. Shortly thereafter, Kelly married Kathryn Thorne, an experienced criminal who purchased Kelly's first machine gun and insisteddespite his lack of interest in weaponson his performing target practice in the countryside, and went to great lengths to familiarize his name within underground crime circles.
Kelly's last criminal activity – the July 1933 kidnapping of wealthy Oklahoma City resident, Charles F. Urschel and his friend Walter R. Jarrett – would become his undoing. The Kellys demanded a ransom of $200,000 ($ million today), and held Urschel at the farm of Kathryn's mother and step-father. Urschel, having been blindfolded, made note of evidence of his experience, including remembering background sounds, counting footsteps and leaving fingerprints on surfaces in reach. This proved invaluable for the FBI in its investigation, as agents concluded that Urschel had been held in Paradise, Texas, based on sounds that Urschel remembered hearing while he was being held hostage.
An investigation conducted in Memphis disclosed that the Kellys were living at the residence of J. C. Tichenor. Special agents from Birmingham, Alabama, were immediately dispatched to Memphis, where, in the early morning hours of September 26, 1933, a raid was conducted. George Kelly and Kathryn Thorne were taken into custody by FBI agents and Memphis police. It is often reported that Kelly was caught without a weapon and allegedly shouted, "Don't shoot, G-Men! Don't shoot, G-Men!" as he surrendered to FBI agents. This version of events appears to be a media myth created months after the arrest. Another version of the raid alleged Kelly had a pistol in his hand, but with a shotgun aimed at his heart he surrendered mumbling something along the lines of "I've been expecting you." However, the FBI's earliest account of the event was written between three and five days after Kelly’s arrest and states: "Agent Rorer saw that Kelly…had proceeded into the front bedroom and was in a corner with his hands raised. He was covered by [Memphis Police] Sergeant [name withheld]." with Kelly not reported to have spoken at all.
The arrest of the Kellys was overshadowed by the escape of ten inmates, including all of the members of the future Dillinger gang, from the penitentiary in Michigan City, Indiana, that same night.
On October 12, 1933, George Kelly and Kathryn Thorne were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial was held at the Post Office, Courthouse, and Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City.
An investigation in Coleman, Texas, disclosed that the Kellys had been housed and protected by Cassey Earl Coleman and Will Casey, and that Coleman had assisted George Kelly in storing $73,250 of the Urschel ransom money on his ranch. This money was located by Bureau agents in the early morning hours of September 27 in a cotton patch on Coleman's ranch. They were both indicted in Dallas, Texas, on October 4, 1933, charged with harboring a fugitive and conspiracy, and on October 17, 1933, Coleman, after entering a plea of guilty, was sentenced to serve one year and one day, and Casey, after trial and conviction, was sentenced to serve two years in the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas.
The kidnapping of Urschel and the two trials that resulted were historic in several ways. They were:
Death.
Machine Gun Kelly spent his remaining 21 years in prison. During his time at Alcatraz, he got the nickname "Pop Gun Kelly". According to fellow inmate Dale Stamphill the nickname originated because, "He told big fish stories. The cons called him ‘Pop Gun Kelly’ after cork guns that were popular with kids...the guys didn’t take him seriously..." This may have stemmed from the fact that, in addition to his exaggerated tall tales, Kelly was a model prisoner and did not act like the brutal gangster his wife, the media, and FBI had made him out to be. He spent 17 years on Alcatraz as inmate number 117, working in the prison industries, continuing to boast and exaggerate his past escapades to other inmates, and was quietly transferred back to Leavenworth in 1951. He died of a heart attack at Leavenworth on July 18, 1954, his 59th birthday, and was buried at Cottondale Texas Cemetery in Kathryn Kelly's stepfather's family plot with a small headstone marked "George B. Kelley 1954". Kathryn Kelly was released from prison in 1958 and lived in relative anonymity in Oklahoma under the assumed name "Lera Cleo Kelly" until her death in 1985 at the age of 81.
In popular culture.
Machine Gun Kelly and his crimes are portrayed in films such as "Machine-Gun Kelly" (1958), "The FBI Story" (1959) and "" (1974).
Crime novelist Ace Atkins' 2010 book "Infamous" is based on the Urschel kidnapping and George Kelly and Kathryn Thorne. Kelly is (along with Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson) one of the main characters of the comic book series "Pretty, Baby, Machine".
George Kelly and Kathryn Thorne were the inspiration for "Machine Gun Kelly" (1970), a song written by Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar and recorded by James Taylor on his 1971 album "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon".
Machine Gun Kelly is the stage name for American musician Richard Colson Baker, from Cleveland, Ohio.
Kelly was an inspiration to the popular UK punk band, The Angelic Upstarts, for their track “Machine Gun Kelly” written by Thomas ‘Mensi’ Mensforth.


Johann Rattenhuber

Johann Rattenhuber (30 April 1897 – 30 June 1957), also known as Hans Rattenhuber, was a German police and SS general ("Gruppenführer", i. e. Generalleutnant). Rattenhuber was the head of German dictator Adolf Hitler's personal "Reichssicherheitsdienst" (Reich Security Service; RSD) bodyguard from 1933 to 1945. In January 1942, Rattenhuber's RSD units participated in the mass shooting of 227 Jews at Strizhavka. After the war, he was released from Soviet prison on 10 October 1955 and allowed to go to West Germany. He died in Munich in 1957.
Biography.
Rattenhuber was born in Munich, where he made a career as a police officer. During World War I he served in the 16th and 13th Bavarian Infantry Regiments. He later joined the "Freikorps". On 15 March 1933 he was appointed head of one of Hitler's personal bodyguard units then known as the "Führerschutzkommando" (Führer protection command; FSK). His deputy was Peter Högl. Its original members were Bavarian criminal-police officers. They were charged with protecting the Führer only while he was inside the borders of Bavaria which was the area of their authority. In the spring of 1934, the "Führerschutzkommando" replaced the "SS-Begleitkommando" for Hitler's overall protection throughout Germany.
The FSK was officially renamed the "Reichssicherheitsdienst" (RSD) on 1 August 1935. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, gained full control over the RSD in October 1935. Although Himmler was officially named chief, Rattenhuber remained in command and took his orders for the most part from Hitler. Himmler was given administrative control over the unit. The RSD should not be confused with the "Sicherheitsdienst" or SD. The RSD was technically on the staff of Himmler with the members wearing the uniform of the SS with the SD diamond on their lower left sleeve.
On the outbreak of World War II, the RSD had 200 men in its ranks. Rattenhuber's unit provided personal security to members of the Nazi Party leadership and for top members of the Nazi government. As for the "SS-Begleitkommando", it was expanded and became known as the "Führerbegleitkommando" (Führer Escort Command; FBK). The FBK continued under separate command until April 1945 and remained responsible for Hitler's close personal protection. The RSD and FBK worked together for security and personal protection during Hitler's trips and public events, but they operated as two groups and used separate vehicles. For those occasions, Rattenhuber would be in overall command and the FBK chief, at the time, would act as his deputy.
Rattenhuber was responsible for securing Hitler's field headquarters. This included the Wolf's Lair "(Wolfsschanze)", which Hitler first used on 23 June 1941. Rattenhuber travelled to Vinnytsia, Ukraine, as Hitler's Werwolf bunker was under construction to survey the area. In January 1942 he met with local SS-police leaders and civilian authorities, and ordered that the area be cleared of Jews prior to Hitler's planned arrival in summer 1942. On 10 January 1942, Rattenhuber's RSD units participated in the mass shooting of 227 Jews at Strizhavka, the actual grounds of the Werwolf site. Details of the execution were reported to Rattenhuber by his deputy, SS-"Sturmbannführer" Friedrich Schmidt. Additional massacres of local Jews in the area and POW laborers who worked on the construction of the Werwolf headquarters occurred on the eve of Hitler's arrival in July 1942.
Berlin, 1945.
In January 1945, Rattenhuber accompanied Hitler and his entourage into the bunker complex under the Reich Chancellery garden in the central government sector of Berlin. Rattenhuber was promoted in rank to SS-"Gruppenführer" on 24 February 1945. On 28 April, when it was discovered that Heinrich Himmler was trying to negotiate a backdoor surrender to the Western Allies via Count Folke Bernadotte, Rattenhuber became part of a military tribunal ordered by Hitler to court-martial Himmler's SS liaison officer Hermann Fegelein. Fegelein, by that time was Eva Braun's brother-in-law. Wilhelm Mohnke presided over the tribunal which, in addition to Rattenhuber and Mohnke, included Generals Hans Krebs and Wilhelm Burgdorf. However, Fegelein was so drunk that he was crying, vomiting and unable to stand up; he even urinated on the floor. It was the opinion of the judges that he was in no condition to stand trial. Therefore, Mohnke closed the proceedings and turned Fegelein over to the RSD security squad.
Rattenhuber was one of the group to whom Hitler announced that he intended to kill himself rather than be captured by the Soviet forces who were occupying Berlin. He later testified:
Rattenhuber was not present when Hitler killed himself on the afternoon of 30 April in the "Führerbunker". He did not see Hitler's body until after it was wrapped in grey blankets and carried out of the office/sitting room where Hitler died. He was not one of those who took the body up the stairs and outside. Instead, Rattenhuber followed Heinz Linge, Otto Günsche, Peter Högl, Ewald Lindloff and several others outside and watched Hitler's body being burned.
On 1 May, Rattenhuber led one of the ten groups escaping from the Reich Chancellery and "Führerbunker". Two of the other main groups were led by SS-"Brigadeführer" Wilhelm Mohnke and Werner Naumann. Most, including Rattenhuber, were taken prisoner by the Soviets on the same day or the following day. Rattenhuber was taken to Moscow, where on 20 May he gave a description of the last days of Hitler and the Nazi leadership in the bunker complex. The text of this was kept in the Soviet archives until it was published by V.K. Vinogradov in the Russian edition of "Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB" in 2000.
Post-war.
In August 1951 he was charged by the Soviet Ministry of State Security that "from the early days of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany in 1933 and until the defeat of the latter in 1945, being an SS-"Gruppenführer", Police Lieutenant-General and the chief of the Reich Security Service, he ensured the personal security of Hitler and other Reich leaders". Rattenhuber was sentenced by the Court Martial of the Moscow Military District on 15 February 1952 to 25 years' imprisonment. By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of September 1955 he was released from prison on 10 October 1955 and handed over to the German Democratic Republic authorities, who allowed him to go to West Germany. He died in Munich in 1957.


Special Government employee

Under the federal law of the United States, the term "special Government employee" (SGE) refers to an advisor, expert or consultant who is appointed to work with federal government. The role of special Government employees is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 202.
The SGE category was created by Congress in 1962 and was aimed at allowing the federal government to take advantage of outside experts who are employed in the private sector. The Office of Government Ethics has stated that "SGEs were originally conceived as a 'hybrid' class, in recognition of the fact that the simple categories of 'employee' and 'non-employee' are no longer adequate to describe the multiplicity of ways in which modern government gets its work done." SGEs may be either paid or unpaid. SGEs may only be "retained, designated, appointed, or employed" by the government for "not more than 130 days" during any consecutive 365-day period.
Many SGEs have limited roles on federal advisory committees. A 2016 Government Accountability Office found that over the decade from 2005 to 2014, the federal government had an average of roughly 2,000 SGEs in any given year, with a low of about 500 (in 2013) and a high of about 3,100 (in 2009). SGEs have a variety of roles, depending on the agency; for example, Department of Justice SGEs included attorneys with the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Department of Health and Human Services SGEs included medical professionals associated with the National Disaster Medical System, and National Science Foundation and Nuclear Regulatory Commission SGEs include scientists and technical experts.
SGEs are subject to some federal ethics rules, but are exempt from others. SGEs are exempt from Federal Acquisition Regulation 3.601, which states that a Contracting Officer may not knowingly award a contract to a Government employee or to an organization owned or substantially owned by one or more Government employees. If a contract were to arise directly out of the special Government employee's advisory services, or the appointment could be influenced by the special Government employee, or another conflict of interest were to affect the appointment, then the prohibition would still apply.
Notable examples.
Notable examples of SGEs include Huma Abedin (who was an SGE in the State Department in 2012, working for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton) and Scott Atlas (an advisor appointed by President Donald Trump to the White House Coronavirus Task Force in 2020).