For years, the concept of blocking effect has enjoyed great popularity, as it seems to provide solutions for issues in the relationship of facts that cannot easily be categorized into well-known dogmatic structures. Originating from Maurach, the term blocking effect has now found its way into the Special Part of the Criminal Code, as well as into sentencing law, criminal law ancillary statutes, and criminal procedural law. The investigation questions the accuracy of the solutions associated with the blocking effect and provides a dogmatic classification of the identified blocking effects to clarify whether and to what extent the blocking effect possesses the quality of an independent legal institution. Ultimately, the blocking effect proves to be a coherent and useful legal institution, although its scope of application is relatively limited compared to the linguistic use of the term blocking effect.