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Sippenhaft or Sippenhaftung (English: "kin liability") refers to the principle of families sharing the responsibility for a crime committed by one of its members. A relative of the perpetrator could thus be punished in place of or in addition to the perpetrator, depending on the circumstances. As a legal principle, it is derived from Germanic law in the middle ages, there usually in the form of fines and compensations. The same principle is also found in many non-western cultures. In modern authoritarian and totalitarian states it is one form of collective punishment, often used for harassment or extortion. Examples are communist East Germany and on a larger scale in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia towards the end of the World War II. A contemporary example is North Korea. The German term "Haft" (although one meaning is "imprisonment") does not necessarily imply a prison sentence, but can refer to any form of punishment ''or'' enforcement of a civil liability. ==Nazi Germany== Sippenhaft was a common practice in which relatives of persons accused of crimes against the state were held to share the responsibility for those crimes and subject to arrest and sometimes execution. Many people who had committed no crimes were arrested and punished under ''Sippenhaft'' decrees introduced after the failed 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944. Examples of Sippenhaft being used as a threat exist within the Wehrmacht from around 1943. Soldiers accused of having 'blood impurities' or soldiers conscripted from areas outside of Germany also began to have their families threatened and punished with Sippenhaft. An example is the case of Panzergrenadier Leiss, who was accused of desertion on the Eastern Front in December 1942. After the Düsseldorf Gestapo discovered supposed 'Polish' links in the Leiss family, in February 1943 his wife, child, two brothers, sister and brother-in-law were arrested and executed at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. By 1944, several general and individual directives were ordered within divisions and corps, threatening troops with consequences against their family. After 20 July 1944 these threats were extended to include all German troops and in particular, German commanders. A decree of February 1945 threatened death to the relatives of military commanders who showed what Hitler regarded as cowardice or defeatism in the face of the enemy. After surrendering Königsberg to the Soviets in April 1945, the family of the German commander General Otto Lasch were arrested. These arrests were publicized in the ''Völkischer Beobachter''. After the failure of the 20 July plot, the SS chief Heinrich Himmler told a meeting of Gauleiters in Posen that he would "introduce absolute responsibility of kin... a very old custom practiced among our forefathers." According to Himmler, this practice had existed among the ancient Teutons. "When they placed a family under the ban and declared it outlawed or when there was a blood feud in the family, they were utterly consistent.... This man has committed treason; his blood is bad; there is traitor's blood in him; that must be wiped out. And in the blood feud the entire clan was wiped out down to the last member. And so, too, will Count Stauffenberg's family be wiped out down to the last member." Accordingly, the members of the family of Stauffenberg (the one who had planted the bomb that failed to kill Hitler) were all under suspicion. His wife, Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp (she survived and lived until 2006). His brother Alexander, who knew nothing of the plot and was serving with the Wehrmacht in Greece, was also sent to a concentration camp. Similar punishments were meted out to the relatives of Carl Goerdeler, Henning von Tresckow, Adam von Trott zu Solz and many other conspirators. The fact that most of these families belonged to the old Prussian aristocracy, a class detested by the Nazis, added to the zeal with which they were persecuted. After the 20 July plot, numerous families connected to the Soviet sponsored League of German Officers made up of German prisoners of war, such as those of von Seydlitz and Paulus, were also arrested. Unlike a number of the 20 July conspirators families, those arrested for connection to the League were not released after a few months but remained in prison until the end of the war. Younger children of arrested plotters were not jailed but sent to orphanages under new names: Stauffenberg's children were renamed "Meister." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sippenhaft」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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