German justice minister wants to remove legacy Nazi terms from laws

German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann has resolved to remove any remaining terms from the Nazi era from the statute books.

In a letter to his departmental colleagues, he recently pointed out "that there are still laws and ordinances that use terminology from the Nazi era or in which the 'Reich' is mentioned," the lawyer told Sunday's edition of Die Welt newspaper in comments seen in advance by dpa.

The linguistic remnants appear in laws ranging from those on banking to practitioners of alternative medicine, he said.

"My goal is to eliminate these pre-constitutional remnants," the politician from the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) continued. For example, he said, there are still formulations in the criminal code for the offences of murder and manslaughter that go back to a "National Socialist theory of types of perpetrators."

"In general, I have set myself the goal this year of bringing the entire special section of the criminal code up to date," the justice said.

In the end, it is always up to the legislators to decide. However, he sees "a great openness" in the ruling coalition in which his party is the junior partner with the Greens and the Social Democrats (SPD).