ABSTRACT
When the convictions of Müller, Ostermayer, and the other protestors from Mutlangen and Großengstingen were affirmed in the criminal courts, the way was free for their cases to move to the German Constitutional Court. At this point we leave the realm of the “ordinary” criminal process. For in the Constitutional Court, the judges would no longer consider the questions of coercion, force, and “reprehensible” acts as part of the interpretation of the “ordinary” lawthe German Criminal Code. Rather, the Court would concentrate on the question of whether punishment of these protestors for Nötigung was consistent with the Basic Law (Constitution) of the Federal Republic of Germany.
