Extract from a law book, on the development of the protective custody system since the Reichstag fire (February 1933), including the sequence of relevant laws and decress

THE LAW OF PROTECTIVE CUSTODY, Dr. Werner Spohr, Berlin: George Stilke, 1937, Pages 11-13.
First Section:
The Legal Basis for the Decreeing of Protective Custody.
The legal basis for protective custody has, since the initial occurrence that led to the introduction of this institution into German law—the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933—experienced certain transformations. The essential characteristic of these transformations is that the application of custody has to an increasing extent been placed under strict stipulations. The legal grounds for custody are now based on an order of the Reich President for the year 1933 and on a decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior for the year 1934 to the Provincial governments and Reich governors.
1. The Order of the President of the Reich for 28 February 1933.
Custody is decreed on the basis of the unaltered, still valid order of the Reich President for the protection of people and State as of 28 February 1933 (Reichsgesetzblatt, p. 83; reproduced below, p. 59) Paragraph 1 of this order invalidates Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Weimar Constitution until further notice. There are therefore since that time certain limitations on personal freedom, on the law for the free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, of clubs and of assembly, infringements of letter, postal, telegraphic, and telephonic privacy, regulations on house-search and requisitioning as well as limitations on property permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise defined thereto.
With all other articles of basic law in the Weimar Constitution, which Article 48, paragraph 2, of the Reich Constitution placed at the disposal of the President of the Reich, Article 114 is also revoked. There it was appointed: "The freedom of the individual is inviolate. Any encroachment upon or deprivation of individual freedom by public force is permissible only on a legal basis. Persons deprived of their liberty are to be advised at the latest on the day following as to which authority and on what grounds the deprivation of liberty has been ordered; without delay opportunity shall be given them to introduce objections to their deprivation." The invalidation of the basic law concerning the integrity of individual freedom forms the legal basis for the proclamation of custody [Die Ausserkraftsetzung des Grundrechts der
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Unverletzbarkeit der persoenlichen Freiheit Bildet die Rechtsgrundlage der Verhaengung von Schutzhaft], At its appearance it was already fully constitutional and hence legally valid without any limitation, and is so more than ever in the present-day Fuehrer-State.
II. The Decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior for 12 April 1934 to the Provincial governments (for Prussia, to the Minister-President and the Minister of the Interior) and the Reich governors (1 33 11 A. 28/27), which was not officially made public, the essential contents of which however have been published in the daily press (see the Voelkischer Beobachter, No. 104, 14 April 1934), is still in force and forms the ground work in future for the proclamation of custody in detail. Formerly there were effective in Prussia: 1. Order concerning the supplement of the order for 1 October 1933 (Preussische Gesetzsammlung, p. 213) to the competency ruling for Province and Kreis police authorities of 2 March 1933 (Ibid., p. 33).
2. Order concerning the supplement of the order for 1 October 1931 and 2 March 1933 (Ibid., 1931, p. 213, and 1933, p. 33) to the competency ruling for Province and Kreis police authorities of 26 April 1933 (Ibid., p. 127) ; 3. decree of the Prussian Minister of the Interior of 3 March 1933 (Ministerialblatt fuer die preussische innere Verwaltung, V, p. 233). Shortly before the decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior, the Minister President of Prussian had issued a wholly new ruling on custody. This decree is superseded by the above-cited decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior for 12 April 1934.
It is viewed legally as an empowering-act to Paragraph 1 of the act for February 1933 and aims at a uniform administering of custody throughout the Reich, while avoiding wrong usage and arbitrary action. Its contents are worked up in expositions that follow. Textual reproduction is not possible.
III. Related Institutions.
Custody is in no way something wholly new—as is constantly asserted abroad by enemies of the new Germany—although during the course of the National Socialist revolution its make-up exhibits special characteristics. If one ignores the police law of arrest according to paragraphs 112 ff., Strafprozessordnung, and—to mention only Prussian law—Paragraphs 14 and 15 of the Police-administration law (formerly para. 10, Part 2, Title 17 Allgemeines Landrecht) r it remains to confirm that even be-
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fore the order of the Reich President there was already previously valid in Prussia a kind of political custody for subversive persons, and not indeed, as was most erroneously supposed, only after the proclamation of a state of emergency, but even without such power of statute law. Paragraph 6 of the law for the protection of individual liberty of .12 February 1850 declares: The authorities, officials, and watchmen named in paragraph 3 (these are the police authorities and other officials who by existing laws are emppwered to investigate punishable offenses) "are authorized to take persons into police custody [Verwahrung] if the special protection of such persons or the maintenance of public morals, security, and peace urgently require such measures. Persons in police retention must however be set free at the latest during the following day, or in this period the necessary steps shall be taken to turn them over to the proper authorities." (Political) custody on the basis of this statement admits therefore to broad limitations. Custody on the basis of the order for 28 February 1933 is not confined to such limitations. It possesses throughout its own ruling.