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The system of German criminal law is the product of a centuries-long project of scientific discovery undertaken by scholars who traditionally have defined the science of criminal law (Strafrechtswissenschaft) in contradistinction to the markedly unscientific business of criminal justice policy (Kriminalpolitik). Insular and formalistic by design, the resulting highly differentiated taxonomy of doctrinal categories can claim only a loose connection to rules of positive law as codified in the general part of the German Criminal Code and instead derives more directly from scientific inquiries into the ontology of crime dating back to the early decades of the twentieth century.