Josef Wintrich

Josef Wintrich 1951

Josef Marquard Wintrich (born February 15, 1891 in Munich ; † October 19, 1958 in Ebersberg ) was President of the Federal Constitutional Court from 1954 to 1958.

biography

Education and profession (1910 to 1933)

Josef Wintrich was born in Munich in 1891 as the son of a postal assistant. After attending Luitpold High School, he studied law at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich from 1910 to 1915 . He also attended lectures on history, philosophy and economics. In 1915 he passed the trainee examination. Wintrich, who could not take part in the First World War because he lost a hand , became an assessor in 1918 and worked in a law firm in the following years. 1921 Wintrich was the work studies the problem of official and employment with special emphasis on service command doctorate . Josef Wintrich was a member of the Catholic student association KDStV Aenania Munich and a founding member of the KDStV Trifels Munich, both in the CV . In July 1921, Josef Wintrich began his civil service career as an assessor at the Munich Regional Court and from there in 1923 came as the 3rd Public Prosecutor to the Munich II Regional Court . From the mid-1920s he taught administrative and constitutional law as a part-time job at the Bavarian Administration Academy and later worked as a lecturer at the University of Munich. In 1926 Wintrich became a district judge and in 1930 he was appointed first public prosecutor at the Munich District Court II.

Punishment transfer under the National Socialists and resurgence (1933–1953)

In November 1933 Wintrich was transferred to the Ebersberg District Court as chief magistrate because, as a public prosecutor, he had been too interested in the skyrocketing death rates in the Dachau concentration camp . 1936 it was used by the Nazis , the teaching license revoked. Shortly after the end of the war, Wintrich was employed by the American occupation as the first district administrator from May 8, 1945 to May 20, 1945. In 1947 the unencumbered Josef Wintrich advanced to the higher regional judge in Munich and in 1949 took over the chairmanship of a senate. As a judge at the Bavarian Constitutional Court , he worked on the statutes of this highest Bavarian court from 1947 and became its vice-president in 1953. In the same year he was appointed President of the Munich Higher Regional Court.

At the Federal Constitutional Court (1953 to 1958)

In November 1953, CSU member Wintrich accepted his appointment as a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe . Josef Wintrich adopted essential elements for his constitutional image of man from Catholic social teaching . After the death of his predecessor, Hermann Höpker-Aschoff , he was appointed President of the highest German court on March 23, 1954. In 1955 and 1956 he was re-elected and could have served until 1963.

In July 1956 he was made an honorary professorship for constitutional justice at the University of Munich and at the end of January 1958 Wintrich took over the position of head of the Administration and Business Academy in Munich, which he had helped to rebuild in the late 1940s. On October 19, 1958, he died unexpectedly of a heart attack . He was buried in the cemetery in Ebersberg . On November 13, 1958, the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg , Gebhard Müller , was appointed his successor .

On July 18, 1981, the secondary school in the Upper Bavarian district town of Ebersberg , which had existed since 1965, was renamed the Dr. Wintrich School. In Ebersberg the "Dr.-Wintrich-Strasse" in the city center and in Munich in the Moosach district the Wintrichring is named after him.

Historical meaning

To this day, opinions have been divided about the biography of the second President of the Federal Constitutional Court. From a conservative point of view, it was often emphasized that Wintrich was "deported" to his hometown by the Nazis in 1933 because he was unpopularly interested in the numerous deaths in Dachau concentration camp . In addition, the withdrawal of his university teaching license was brought up as evidence of an attitude far removed from the Nazi regime. Left-wing critics, on the other hand, accused Wintrich as early as the 1950s of having been a lawyer valued and decorated by the National Socialists .

The KPD ban

The most outstanding decision of his term of office is the KPD ban of August 17, 1956 (file number 1 BvB 2/51) , which is still controversial under state and constitutional law . In 1955, in preparation for the judgment at the University of Salzburg , Wintrich had heard from the Jesuit and philosophy lecturer Gustav Wetter (born May 4, 1911 in Mödling ; November 5, 1991 in Rome ) a course on the world power of dialectical materialism , “about his knowledge of the to deepen the intellectual foundations of the KPD ” . As early as the 1950s , Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was accused of advancing an argument in favor of the KPD's intended ban by banning the National Socialist SRP in 1951 and 1952 . Adenauer was also accused of exerting massive pressure on the Federal Constitutional Court . The appointment of the right-wing conservative lawyer Wintrich as the successor to the liberal Höpker-Aschoff , who had been critical of a KPD ban, was viewed by the contemporary left-liberal press as a political trick of the second government of Adenauer . Adenauer took his time with this “powerful trick”. "When in November 1954 to ban the KPD in the third year hindümpelte right to Josef Wintrich, the President of the Constitutional Court, Konrad Adenauer sought to clarify the Chancellor whether the federal government would stick to its request." She did.

Publications

• Wintrich, Josef: Protection of fundamental rights through constitutional complaints and popular lawsuits: Lecture given on January 16, 1950 in front of the Society for Civil Liberties, Munich headquarters. - Regensburg: Habbel, 1950. - 22 pp. - (The discussion; 9)
• Wintrich, Josef: On the problem of fundamental rights . - Cologne: Westdt. Verl., 1957. - 54 pp. - (Working group for research of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: Publications: Series 1: Humanities; 71)

literature

• Farewell to the President of the Federal Constitutional Court Josef Marquard Wintrich d. 10.10.1958 and the judge of the Federal Constitutional Court Franz Wessel d. 10.9.1958 . - Karlsruhe: Federal Constitutional Court, 1958. - 31 pp. - (Typewriter copied)
• Speeches for the inauguration of the President of the Federal Constitutional Court Dr. Josef Wintrich on June 9, 1954. - Karlsruhe: CF Müller, 1954. - 32 pp.
• Habbel, Josef: Josef Wintrich and the spirit of the "onion dome" . - in: Der Onion Dome, Vol. 14 (1959), 5, p. 107
• Fraja, Teta: Josef Marquart Wintrich as a draftsman from his homeland . - in: Der Onion Tower, Vol. 14 (1959), 5, pp. 103-106
• Geiger, Willi: Our portrait - Dr. Josef Wintrich . - in: Erbildung und Beruf, Vol. 9 (1960), 11, pp. 419-420. ISSN  0174-8947
• Goppel, Alfons : In memory of Josef Wintrich . - in: Juristenteitung, Vol. 14 (1959), 5/6, pp. 186-188. ISSN  0022-6882
• Heuss, Theodor : Farewell to Dr. Wintrich: Commemorative speech by the Federal President at the memorial ceremony for the late President of the Federal Constitutional Court Dr. Josef Wintrich on November 6, 1958 in the Bundeshaus in Bonn . - in: Deutsche Richterzeitung, Vol. 36 (1958), 12, p. 329
• Katz, Rudolf: Law and Political Violence: Commemorative speech at the funeral service for the late President of the Federal Constitutional Court Dr. Josef Wintrich and the late Federal Constitutional Judge Franz Wessel on October 24, 1958 . - in: Die Gegenwart <Frankfurt, Main>, Vol. 13 (1958), 22, pp. 693-694
• Lang, Hugo: Obituary for Prof. Dr. Josef Marquart Wintrich . - in: Der Onion Dome, Vol. 14 (1959), 5, pp. 102-103
• Maunz, Theodor: Struggle for a Value-Based Right: The President of the Federal Constitutional Court Dr. Josef Marquard Wintrich . - in: Yearbook of Public Law of the Present, Vol. 33 (1984), pp. 167-174
• People and Politics: Obituary for President Dr. Josef Wintrich. - in: Politische Studien <München>, Vol. 9 (1958), 103, pp. 764–765
• Obituaries for Josef Wintrich . - in: Correspondence sheet AH-Verband and the Aktivitas of the KDStV Aenania Munich, (1959), 19, pp. 29-40

Web links

Commons : Josef Wintrich  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Josef Wintrich in the catalog of the German National Library
• Information on the homepage of the Realschule Ebersberg (Dr.-Wintrich-Schule)

Individual evidence

1. ^ V. von Zühlsdorff: The highest judge . In: The time . March 25, 1954, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed April 26, 2016]).
2. ^ City of Ebersberg: Citizens of the City , accessed on February 16, 2020.
3. ↑ International Biographical Archive, 51/1958 of December 8, 1958 ( Munzinger Archive )
4. ↑ Claus Leggewie , Horst Meier: Apart from expenses, nothing was , taz of February 12, 2002, p. 12