Erich Wulffen

Wolf Hasso Erich Wulffen (born October 3, 1862 in Dresden ; † July 10, 1936 there ) was a German criminologist .

Life

Erich Wulffen was born as the second child of the book printer owner and publisher Edmund Wulffen. The father, who died in 1898, comes from a Berlin officer family; the mother, Alma Wulffen geb. Clauss, a landowner's daughter from Wantewitz in Saxony, died in 1911. Erich Wulffen had a sister.

The first years of childhood were marked by illness and a resulting two-year stay in a clinic. It was a special facility with school education, but limited to girls. Erich was only accepted here at the request of his father. Further school attendance and adolescence were also hampered by illness, so that he could only attend university at the age of 23. In addition to law studies in Freiburg and Leipzig, he studied literature and German . According to his inclination, he wanted to devote himself to the fine arts as a private lecturer, but his father urged him to become a civil servant. Nonetheless, Wulffen wrote and published poems and plays and, in addition to his studies, completed a real dramaturgical training, which in 1888 brought him to the Leipzig city theater as a trainee and to roles at other stages.

In July 1890 Wulffen passed the first legal exam. The preparatory service that followed took him as a trainee lawyer to Leipzig, Waldheim , Chemnitz and Dresden . In 1895 he married Illa Behrisch, the daughter of a prison director. The marriage resulted in two sons and two daughters.

In March 1895, Erich Wulffen passed the second state examination and joined the public prosecutor's office. In Chemnitz he was also made familiar with the work of the criminal police as an assessor . During this preparation for the civil service career he continued to pursue his theatrical inclinations. Last but not least, the artistic examination of the heroic criminal figures in the great dramas of literature had cemented his decision to become a public prosecutor.

On April 1, 1899, Erich Wulffen was appointed public prosecutor in Dresden and after just a few years was appointed to the general public prosecutor's office and as an assistant to the Saxon Ministry of Justice . In 1913 he was transferred to the Zwickau District Court as a civil judge .

In 1919 the Saxon Minister of Justice appointed Rudolf Harnisch Wulffen to be the district court director in Dresden. In 1920 he was briefly a member of the Saxon People's Chamber as a successor for the German Democratic Party and participated in the drafting of the Saxon constitution. In October 1920 he began a ministerial career and finally took over the management of the Saxon prison administration in 1923. On February 1, 1928, Wulffen retired.

Wulffen died in Dresden in 1936 and was buried in the Johannisfriedhof .

Services

Criminal law reform

Advertisement for Erich Wulffen's Sexual Criminal Literature (1929)

Erich Wulffen was a conservative humanist . Like many of his colleagues at the beginning of the 20th century, he saw the legal system as something "artistic". Its aim was to modernize substantive criminal law , criminal procedural law and the penal system . He gave a lecture at the non-profit association in Dresden on February 5, 1908, the title "The criminal trial - a work of art of the future", equated the lack of artistic sense of judge and public prosecutor with cold feeling and made numerous demands. Wulffen criticized the fact that the prosecutor only speaks to the accused and the witnesses during the trial, not before. He denounced inconsistencies in criminal law, such as the fact that someone who cracks a piggy bank on the spot and disappears with ten Reichsmarks will face a much harsher prison sentence than someone who steals the piggy bank, quietly empties it at home and wastes 20 marks. His criticism also affects the tone in criminal trials:

“It is not artistic when the policeman Schulze is addressed with 'Herr' and the lady of the state with 'Madame', whereas the worker Müller is addressed with 'witness Müller' and the maid Lehmann with 'die Lehmann'. [...] It is unartistic when the chairman lets wit and irony play with the accused. "

Crime psychology

In the years 1905 to 1913, the criminological works Manual for the Executive Police and Detective Officer , Criminal Code for the German Reich , Psychology of the Criminal , The Sexual Criminal , and The Child appeared in quick succession . Its essence and its degeneration and Reichspreßgesetz .

The two-volume manual published in 1905 for the executive police and detective officers, for juries and lay judges, as well as for prison officials begins with the warning:

“The law enforcement officer works in his profession without pleasure in the woes that he has to inflict on his fellow men; he feels at all times that even the most rejected criminal is still his, even if for this life he is perhaps a lost brother who fell into guilt through born or inherited disposition, through upbringing, fate and opportunities in daily life. "

Wulffen added a quote from Sophocles ' Antigone to the study on reform efforts in the area of ​​the penal system from the same year : "Not to be hated, to be loved." He summarized his suggestions and demands with the words:

“Education, psychology and inwardness, these are the three increased demands that we have to make on the penal system of the future. With military discipline, bureaucratic formalism and craftsmanship alone nothing is gained. "

Sex crimes

Women, according to Wulffen, were particularly suitable for service in the penal system, even if, in keeping with the thinking of the times, it challenged their sense of justice:

“By nature, woman has a whole series of qualities which the overseer needs. It is sympathetic and skillful to treat the suffering and unhappy, and more reliable for this profession. In addition, the female overseers often come from better and educated circles and thus also have an education of the heart and a sense of justice, insofar as the latter is characteristic of the female sex. "

With the two-volume work Psychologie des Verbrechers , Berlin 1908/1913, Wulffen began a series of criminalistic writings in which he introduced new knowledge of psychology into criminology . He gave the concept of the sex criminal a new and significantly expanded content at the time by including social references in the considerations. Nevertheless, like generations before him (and after him), he clung to the myth that crime is innate:

"The social environment of the individual, his upbringing, his life's fate, his struggle for existence increase the effect of innate crime."

He speaks of sex crimes not only when the motives are obviously of a sexual nature, but in all cases in which the deepest and most secret roots of the motive and purpose of the crime are somehow related to the gender sphere. He considers crime in general to be

“Something unalterable, something necessary, a function in the overall organism, a disease by means of which the national body - like the body of the individual - has to get rid of certain bad substances. [...] The criminal psychology of the human race already begins with the sin trap. "

Image of women

For Wulffen the woman is a being of lesser intelligence and sensitivity; he assumes that she has an innate disposition to prostitution and contradicts contemporary theses that women become prostitutes solely through impoverishment and social conditions:

“Even if capitalism could be completely eliminated in a future state, prostitution would always raise its head because the future state could not also change the natural disposition of women. Their organic nature is the ground on which prostitution will always thrive, as long as man's nature remains polygamically unchangeable. We finally have to get used to making suggestions for improvement against nature. Such idealism only leads to the dead ends of philosophy and legislative madness. "

In his most widely used work, The Woman as a Sexual Criminal: A Handbook for Lawyers, Administrators and Doctors from 1923, he develops a theory that any crime committed by a woman can be traced back to sexual factors,

“Because with the woman most of the criminal effects are for obvious psycho-physiological reasons in some closer or more distant connection with his sexual life. So also the thief and cheat, the blackmailer and arsonist, the robbery and killer of relatives can be sex criminals in this sense. This assumption is so plausible and easy to understand that its terminology promises to become common property. "

Erich Wulffen wrote some psychograms of well-known criminals of his time, which are particularly successful because of the author's literary background. The study Manolescu and his memoirs , Berlin 1907, portrays the character of the impostor and master thief Georges Manolescu . For this he was in correspondence with Manolescu himself, since other sources appeared too unreliable due to Manolescu's vanity.

Psychograms from contemporaries

Wulffen was suggested by Karl May's publisher EA Schmid to evaluate the police and court files on the writer's criminal case. Before his literary breakthrough, Karl May had spent four years in prison for imposture. However, the writer's widow did not consent to this investigation. In his applied criminal psychology , Wulffen explains the connection between creative power and criminal energy as follows: “All three - psychopaths, criminals, geniuses - suffer from egocentric consideration and goal setting, which, however, also find an objective objective extension in the genius in his“ work ”. The fact that there are not many criminal outbreaks of geniuses in art and cultural history is due to the fact that with them the criminal impulses are consumed in psychologically related genius work. "

Wulffen gave a profound account of the imposture that was rampant at the time in the small book Die Psychologie des Hochstaplers . In this book, Wulffen develops a kind of “cultural criminology”. According to Wulffen, the origins of deception lie in the human instinct . Nature has given man an original instinct to hide and pretend, which comes to the aid of the general instinct for self-preservation . He traced these drive structures back to the animal kingdom and leads bears, monkeys, horses and the like. a. that have already been observed during adjustments.

In the novel Frau Justitias Walpurgisnacht , published in 1913 , Wulffen drew a moral picture of the judiciary of the time and found a lively response. Some of his colleagues thought they recognized each other in the characters in the novel. It therefore does not have to be a coincidence that Wulffen was transferred to the district court of Zwickau as a civil judge shortly after the book was published.

Works

• Handbook for the executive police and detectives, for juries and lay judges as well as for prison officials. 2 volumes. Lehmann, Dresden 1905.
• Criminal Code for the German Reich. In addition to a compilation of the provisions of the Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Exchange Code and the Commercial Code that are essential for understanding the StGB. Under common understanding of the case law of the Reich Court. Lehmann, Dresden 1906.
• Arson Investigation Form Book. Rößner, Merseburg 1906.
• Compilation of the provisions of the Criminal Code, the Courts Constitution Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the State Legislation that are relevant for police discussions of arson. Rößner, Merseburg 1906.
• Georges Manolescu and his memoir: Criminal psychological study. With several portraits and facsimiles. Langenscheidt, Berlin [1907].
• Ibsens Nora before the criminal judge and psychiatrist. Marhold, Halle 1907.
• Criminal Psychology and Psychopathology in Schiller's Robbers. Marhold, Halle 1907.
• Public prosecutor's office and criminal police in Germany. Guttentag, Berlin 1908; Reprint: Keip, Goldbach 1995.
• Psychology of the criminal: a handbook for lawyers, doctors, educators and educated people of all classes. 2 volumes. Langenscheidt, Berlin 1908/1913; “Cheap, unabridged edition”: crime and criminals. Hanseatischer Rechts- und Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1925.
• Gerhart Hauptmann in front of the forum for criminal psychology and psychiatry: Scientific studies. Langewort, Breslau 1908.
• The sex criminal: A manual for lawyers, administrators and doctors: With numerous original criminal recordings. Langenscheidt, Berlin 1910; 11th edition 1928.
• Crook and criminal types. Langenscheidt, Berlin 1910.
• The child. Its essence and its degeneration. Langenscheidt, Berlin 1913.
• Shakespeare's great criminals: Richard III, Macbeth, Othello. Langenscheidt, Berlin 1911.
• Shakespeare's Hamlet: A Sexual Problem. Duncker, Berlin 1913.
• Mrs. Justitias Walpurgis Night. Novel. Duncker, Berlin 1913.
• Criminal Education: An Educational Book. Voigtländer, Leipzig 1915.
• The dream dancer. Novel. Duncker, Berlin 1915.
• Psychology of poisoning. Wiener Urania, Vienna 1917.
• The man with the seven masks. Novel. Reissner, Dresden 1917.
• The power of Michael Argobast. Novel. Reissner, Dresden 1917.
• German Renaissance. Novel. Reissner, Dresden 1917.
• Read out, approved! Novel. Duncker, Berlin 1917.
• The house without a window. Novel. Duncker, Berlin 1919.
• The closed chain. Novel. Mosse, Berlin 1919.
• The blue diamond. Novel. Leipzig newspaper publisher Huck, Leipzig 1919.
• The women of Loburg. Novel. Uhlmann, Berlin [1921].
• Psychology of the impostor. Dürr & Weber, Leipzig 1923.
• The woman as a sex criminal: A handbook for lawyers, administrative officials and doctors Langenscheidt, Berlin 1923; Reprint: Orion, Flensburg 1993.
• Criminal psychology. Offender psychology. Langenscheidt, Berlin 1925.
• Sex mirrors of art and crime. With over 100 plates and illustrations in collotype. Aretz, Dresden [approx. 1928].
• Wrong ways of eros. With an introduction: mothers and daughters. Avalun, Hellerau 1929.
• Karl May's Inferno. Edited by Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen and Jürgen Seul. Karl-May-Verlag, Bamberg / Radebeul 2017, ISBN 978-3-7802-0561-2

literature

• Alexander Baumgarten , Hugo Dingeldey (ed.): Erich Wulffen. Festschrift for his 70th birthday. Hanseatischer Rechts- und Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1932 ( table of contents; PDF; 8 kB ).
• Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen , Jürgen Seul: The criminologist Erich Wulffen and "Karl Mays Inferno". On the relationship between criminology, criminal psychology and literature . In: Christian Bachhiesl, Sonja Maria Bachhiesl and Johann Leitner (eds.): Criminological development lines. An interdisciplinary synopsis. LIT Verlag Berlin, Münster, Vienna, Zurich, London 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-50599-6 , pp. 325–339.
• Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen , Jürgen Seul: The miraculous changes of Dr. Erich Wulffen. Public prosecutor, criminal psychologist, consultant and researcher ›in the matter of May‹ . In: Communications from the Karl May Society. No. 179 (2014), pp. 3–10.
• Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen , Jürgen Seul: In the footsteps of Karl May's Inferno. Erich Wulffen and Karl May's criminal history research. In: Jürgen Wehnert, Michael Petzel (Ed.): Karl-May-Welten III. Karl-May-Verlag, Bamberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7802-3027-0 , pp. 63-79.
• Jürgen Seul : Erich Wulffen: Life and Work . In the S. (Ed.): Erich Wulffen: Kriminalpsychologie und Psychopathologie in Schiller's robbers. With a bibliography, explanations, contemporary reviews and a catalog raisonné. With an introduction by Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8305-1442-8 , pp. XI – XXII.
• Jürgen Seul: Erich Wulffen: A life between art and crime. In: Communications from the Karl May Society. No. 153 (2007), pp. 6-23, and No. 154 (2007), pp. 10-24.
• Jürgen Seul , Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen (ed.): Erich Wulffen - Between Art and Crime: Criminal Psychology Articles and Essays. Elektrischer Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-943889-66-6 .
• Jürgen Seul , Erich Wulffens "Karl May's Inferno". The story of a burned manuscript. In: Special issue of the Karl May Society (S-KMG) 156/2016, pp. 67-86.
• Volkmar Sigusch : Erich Wulffen (1862–1936). In: Volkmar Sigusch and Günter Grau (eds.): Personal Lexicon of Sexual Research. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-593-39049-9 , pp. 783-788.
• Volker Wahl : The Dresden criminal psychologist and writer Erich Wulffen (1862-1936) in his relationships with Goethe research and with Karl and Klara May. In: Nachrichten der Karl-May-Gesellschaft. No. 143 (2005), pp. 13-22.

Web links

Wikisource: Erich Wulffen  - Sources and full texts

Commons : Erich Wulffen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Erich Wulffen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by Erich Wulffen in the Gutenberg-DE project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erich Wulffen: The criminal trial - a work of art of the future , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1908, p. 19
2. ↑ Gehe-Stiftung zu Dresden (Ed.): Neue Zeit- und Streitfragen , v. Jahn and Jaensch, Dresden 1905. Therein: Erich Wulffen: Reform aspirations in the field of the penal system , p. 159f; 168
3. ↑ The woman as a sex criminal: A handbook for lawyers, administrative officials and doctors , Berlin 1923, p. 402
4. ↑ The woman as a sex criminal , p. 4