Uschla/Supreme Party Court

The Uschla (Untersuchung und Schlichtungs-Ausschuss, roughly translated as the Investigation and Settlement Committee) was an internal Nazi Party tribunal that was established by Adolf Hitler in 1925 to settle intra-party problems and disputes. After the Nazi seizure of power, the Uschla was renamed the Supreme Party Court (Oberstes Parteigericht) in January 1934, under which title it functioned throughout the remainder of the Nazi regime until May 1945.

The Uschla had its origins at the very beginnings of the Nazi Party in the Party statutes (satzung) of 29 July 1921 when Hitler established two separate committees for resolving conflicts in the Party. Each was to consist of a chairman and two members. The first was the Investigation Committee, headed by himself, and the second was the Settlement Committee, headed by Party cofounder Anton Drexler.

These components existed until the Party was banned in the wake of the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923. The Party was reestablished on 27 February 1925 and Hitler subsequently resurrected these two committees in the Party statutes of 21 August 1925. They were soon combined into a unified Investigation and Settlement Committee, and its organization and functions were described in the subsequent Party statutes of 22 May 1926.

One task of the new body was the examination of the validity of applications by prospective Party members. In examining membership applications, the Uschla applied the Nazi Party's racial policies in excluding Jews, along with Freemasons or anyone with communist or socialist ties. It specifically excluded anyone with any trace of Jewish blood dating back to 1800, or anyone having marriage ties to such persons.

Another function was conducting expulsion procedures for Party members. Expulsion offenses were broadly defined and members could be removed for a variety of vague reasons, including "disgraceful actions" and any "general offense" that might be judged to be injurious to the Party. This gave the committee wide latitude to exclude anyone the political leadership opposed. Once excluded, it was rare for anyone to be readmitted to the Party.

The committee was also charged with the settlement of internal disputes and feuds among Party members. The Uschla was patterned on the former honor courts of the German Imperial Army, and Party members could appeal to it to absolve them of any unjustified attacks on their character leveled by a comrade. Examples of the types of complaints handled were slander, adultery, homosexuality, drunkenness and embezzlement of Party funds. The Party leadership intended that such issues be handled not in the law courts where they would be a matter of public record, but in the Party tribunal whose members were sworn to secrecy. This had the advantage of avoiding public scandal and preserving the Party's image of respectability.

When the Uschla first convened in January 1926, Hitler envisioned it at the top of a network of Party tribunals at the regional and local levels. Therefore, beginning in July 1926, Uschla committees began to be formed at lower Party levels. A three-level system was established which was expanded to a four-level system in 1931.

At the national level, the Reichs-Uschla presided at Karolinenplatz 4 in Munich, the city where the Nazi Party had its origins and its headquarters. Immediately below this level was the Gau-Uschla, a regional level body with one such tribunal for each Gau. The lowest level of tribunal, the Orts-Uschla was based in the Ortsgruppe, or local branch organization. A typical Gau might contain approximately 100 Orts-Uschlas. Subordinate level Uschlas began to be organized in summer 1926 and were largely complete by October 1930. In 1931, the Kreis-Uschla level was established to function at the kreis ('county') level between the Orts-Uschla and the Gau-Uschla.