Wilhelm Stuckart

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Stuckart as a defendant in the Wilhelmstrasse trial. Photo taken on October 1, 1948.
Stuckart, Frick and Globke , 1941 in Bratislava
Stuckart as representative of the Interior Ministry in the minutes of the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942
Commentary on the Reich Citizenship Law (1936)

Wilhelm Stuckart (born November 16, 1902 in Wiesbaden , † November 15, 1953 in Egestorf ) was a German administrative lawyer , politician ( NSDAP ) and SS-Obergruppenführer . He was convicted as a war criminal in the Wilhelmstrasse trial .

Career

Stuckart was the son of a railway employee and was raised in a Christian way. After graduating from high school in 1922 at the Staatliche Realgymnasium in Wiesbaden, he studied law at the universities of Munich and Frankfurt am Main . He allegedly joined the NSDAP in December 1922 ( membership number 378.144) and became its legal advisor from 1926. In 1928 he received his doctorate as Dr. jur. Declaration to the public with the dissertation , in particular the registration with the commercial register . From 1930 he served as a magistrate, from 1932 to March 1933 he was a lawyer and legal adviser for the SA in Pomerania . Stuckart belonged to the SA from 1932. From April to May 1933 he was temporarily provisional mayor in Stettin and then moved to the Prussian Ministry of Culture . In 1933 Stuckart was one of the founding members of the National Socialist Academy for German Law Hans Frank .

State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Education

Hermann Göring appointed the 31-year-old lawyer on May 15, 1933 as Ministerialdirektor in the Prussian Ministry of Culture and on June 30, 1934 as State Secretary . On July 7, 1934, Stuckart was appointed Reich Secretary of State in the newly formed Ministry of Education. According to later portrayals of those involved, Stuckart was supposed to ensure "orderly conditions" in the ministry headed by Bernhard Rust .

Since the summer of 1933, Stuckart was responsible for the application and implementation of the law to restore the professional civil service and he was in fact often the last resort in the dismissal of teachers and university lecturers. According to Hans-Christian Jasch, who researched some cases by way of example, Stuckart had a certain leeway, which he used partly in favor of, but partly to the detriment of the person concerned.

In 1934, as State Secretary and Deputy Prussian Minister of Culture, Stuckart was significantly involved in the still controversial acquisition of the so-called Welfenschatz , then still owned by Jewish art dealers, by the State of Prussia under Hermann Göring .

Stuckart's relationship with his Minister Rust was fraught with conflict from the start. At the end of August 1934, Rust issued an "organizational decree", which was accompanied by the disempowerment of his State Secretary. Stuckart considered this reorganization of the Ministry to be unlawful and protested, but was reprimanded, excluded from the Nazi Party Congress at the instigation of his minister , put on leave and put into temporary retirement on November 13, 1934. With the intercession of Roland Freisler , Stuckart was temporarily appointed President of the Higher Regional Court in Darmstadt; he was allowed to retain the title of "State Secretary" as well as the salary. On March 11, 1935, Stuckart was appointed to the Reich and Prussian Ministry and Reich Ministry of the Interior (RMI) and was appointed head of "Department I - Constitution and Legislation".

Activity in the Reich Ministry of the Interior

Stuckart was involved in drafting anti-Jewish legislation. He was involved in the formulation of the Nuremberg Laws and the ordinances based on them and in 1936 wrote a commentary on German race legislation together with Hans Globke . The name change ordinance of August 17, 1938, which prescribed a compulsory first name for Jews such as Sara or Israel, was signed by Franz Gürtner and Stuckart. Stuckart supported efforts to have Jews in Bohemia and Moravia identified and in a letter dated August 14, 1941, raised the question of whether a corresponding ordinance could not be issued for the entire territory of the Reich. He was instrumental in drafting the Eleventh Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law involved, by when deportation nationality and the assets were deprived German Jews.

With his work, Stuckart secured the expansion policy under constitutional and international law: for example, he drafted the law for the reunification of Austria with the German Reich (RGBl. I 1938, p. 237), legitimized the incorporation of the rest of Czech Republic through the Reich Protectorate Decree and worked on Decree on the administration of the occupied Polish territories with. During the war, Stuckart was also concerned with National Socialist plans for Europe for the period after the final victory that was sought.

Stuckart was a participant in the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 and already knew beforehand that Reinhard Heydrich would demand the deportation of the so-called first degree mixed race . Stuckart justified his proposal to instead prescribe compulsory sterilization and dissolve mixed marriages with the endless administrative work that would otherwise arise. After the war, Stuckart asserted that with his proposal for compulsory sterilization he only wanted to sabotage Heydrich's plans: mass sterilization was not feasible in times of war, so time was gained and the mongrels were saved. The law proposed by Stuckart on the compulsory divorce of mixed marriages was still being negotiated until 1943, but was no longer passed.

When Wilhelm Frick was replaced as Minister of the Interior, Stuckart hoped for this office. Goebbels wrote in his diary on August 21, 1943: “Stuckart is somewhat depressed by the development around RIM. I can understand that; he actually deserved to take over the administration. ” Heinrich Himmler , who was appointed Reich Minister of the Interior, cared little about his office and largely delegated his powers to Stuckart, to whom he also left the personnel policy decisions.

Shortly before the end of the war , Stuckart was appointed executive minister of the interior and culture (education) by the new head of state Karl Dönitz after the death of Paul Giesler on May 3, 1945 . On May 23, 1945, Stuckart was interned as Minister of the Dönitz government in Flensburg - Mürwik . Until he was transferred to Nuremberg in August 1945, he stayed in prison camp No. 32 ( Camp Ashcan ) in Bad Mondorf , Luxembourg, together with other greats of the National Socialist system and the Wehrmacht .

SS career

  • SS-Standartenführer, September 13, 1936 (SS-No. 280.042)
  • SS-Oberführer, January 30, 1937
  • SS Brigade Leader, January 1938
  • SS-Gruppenführer, January 1942
  • SS-Obergruppenführer, January 1944

Trial 1947

Stuckart was charged with the following crimes in the Wilhelmstrasse Trial in 1947 :

  • I: Crimes against peace: preparing, initiating and conducting wars of aggression and wars in violation of international treaties ... (p. 6).
  • V: War crimes and crimes against humanity : atrocities and offenses against the civilian population. Persecution of Jews, Catholics and other minorities (p. 78).
  • VI: War crimes and crimes against humanity: robbery and looting (p. 187).
  • VII: War crimes and crimes against humanity: slave labor (p. 241).
  • VIII: Membership in criminal organizations (p. 270).

In point I, Stuckart was acquitted:

As a member of the Reich Defense Committee he was informed about the planning for the economic exploitation of the areas to be conquered, the mobilization plans were available to him, but no evidence was found that “he planned, prepared, initiated or carried out the wars of aggression” (p. 52).

With regard to point V, he presented his plan, put forward at the Wannsee Conference, to sterilize all “ half-Jews ” as a delaying tactic: the “ Jewish half- breeds ” had been saved from deportation and murder; mass sterilization was ruled out during the war. After Bernhard Lösener, who was also involved in “Jewish affairs” but was imprisoned in 1944 because of his ties to the resistance , had largely confirmed this version as a witness, the court saw this allegation in favor of Stuckart as not unequivocally resolved. However, the judges assessed Stuckart's drafting of the Nuremberg Laws and their implementing ordinances as part of the extermination program:

“The extermination of the Jews was no secret within the Reich Ministry of the Interior. The witness Globke […], as a witness for the defendant, testified: '[…] I knew that this extermination was carried out systematically.' ”(P. 167)

Addressing the desk criminals, it stated:

“If the commanders of the death camps ... are punished - and there is no doubt about that - then the men are equally punishable who, in the peaceful quiet of their offices in the ministries, took part in this campaign by drafting the ordinances, edicts and instructions necessary for its implementation have. ”(p. 169).

With regard to point VI, the court found that he took an active part in the planned economic looting of the occupied territories and found Stuckart guilty. Regarding the extraordinarily comprehensive statements made by the witnesses:

"In his civil servant work he was certainly not that harmless mannequin as who tried to portray him in the explanations put forward in the course of the demonstration" (p. 167).

Regarding point VII slave labor, the court is of the opinion "that the evidence of Stuckart's alleged involvement [...] did not show beyond reasonable doubt", and Stuckart is "not guilty".

With regard to item VIII membership in criminal organizations, the court found that Stuckart, as a member of the SS, discussed criminal measures and program items of the SS with Himmler. He was informed about the mass murders of Jews in Riga and took part in the Wannsee Conference. He participated in the enactments that were useful to the SS in many of their crimes. "He is found guilty of the charge under Count VIII" (p. 273).

Stuckart was in the hospital and was only able to participate in the trial during "a short period of time in which he was making his own defense" (p. 278). "Neither the American medical board nor the German doctors were able to give a favorable prognosis ... Under these circumstances it is not unlikely that imprisonment would amount to a death sentence." The sentence was therefore to exactly three years, ten months and 20 days from his arrest on May 26, 1945 measured so that he was a convicted war criminal with the sentencing, but free.

post war period

Wilhelm Stuckart quickly made a career in the young Federal Republic. In 1950 the German authorities only classified him as a “ fellow traveler ” denazified and in 1952 he was fined 500 DM .

At that time he was already managing director of the "Institute for the Promotion of Lower Saxony's Economy". He also quickly became active again politically and was involved in the Lower Saxony board of directors of the Federation of Expellees and Disenfranchised (BHE), which, under the leadership of the Federal Minister of Expellees Theodor Oberländer, managed to participate in the government. Stuckart was also a member of the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party, which was banned in 1952 . Again and again you can read that Stuckart was the city ​​treasurer of Helmstedt for "a while" after 1945 . However, this term of office can neither be substantiated nor precisely quantified.

Shortly before his death in a traffic accident, in proceedings under Article 131 of the Basic Law, he had achieved the determination of pensionable remuneration according to salary group B 3 of the federal pay regulations . According to this salary group, a ministerial councilor (if not classified in the lower salary group A 16) is paid in the ministerial administration of the federal government , which is usually assigned the function of a head of department .

Interpretations

In a self-portrayal, Stuckart stated that he was merely against the - allegedly - disproportionate influence of Jews in culture and economy. In view of the ongoing radicalization of the party and arbitrary attacks, the Nuremberg Laws, in which he was involved, were at least a legal basis for coexistence - albeit not entirely satisfactory for him. Otherwise, too, he was always looking for milder solutions.

Cornelia Essner reconstructed how the Nuremberg Laws came about . It refers to earlier preparatory work and exposes Bernhard Lösener's account, according to which the lawyers involved always endeavored to find a milder solution than a legend. According to the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court, the Eleventh Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law , to which Stuckart contributed significantly, violates fundamental principles of justice and has reached such an unbearable level that it must be considered null and void from the start.

Dieter Rebentisch judges that Stuckart was not free from "career-addicted adaptations", but has at times shown courage to show moral courage and at least tried "systemic corrections". In the Jewish question, Stuckart supported the moderation of his racial advisor, Lösener. Hans-Christian Jasch explains that after the beginning of the war, Wilhelm Stuckart rose to become the actual Minister of the Interior alongside the weak and often absent Minister Frick and the “Senior State Secretary” Pfundtner. Stuckart and his employees were co-creators of the Nuremberg race legislation and dynamically developed the disenfranchisement policy. In the history of the creation of the Eleventh Ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act, it becomes clear that Stuckart and his colleagues played a central role in legally safeguarding the deportations and that in some cases they developed particularly radical proposals, such as withdrawing German citizenship from Jews. At the end of 1941, Stuckart was verifiably aware that Berlin Jews had been murdered near Riga ; According to Lösener, he justified this as a "decision from the highest authority" and as a "world-historical necessity of this hardship." This foreseeable consequence is inconsistent with Stuckart's alleged mitigating intentions. Jasch is of the opinion that the Ministry's influence was by no means consistently used to alleviate the injustice, but rather contributed to making the disenfranchisement and destruction process even more efficient and problem-free. Stuckart contributed to it.

selected Writings

  • History in history class . Moritz Diesterweg publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1934. - The 2nd edition was published under the same title and by the same publisher.
  • National Socialist legal education . Frankfurt am Main 1935.
  • (with Hans Globke ): Reich Citizenship Law of September 15, 1935. Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor of September 15, 1935 . Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health of the German People (Marriage Health Law) of October 18, 1935. In addition to all implementing provisions and the relevant laws and ordinances . Berlin 1936.
  • (with Wilhelm Albrecht): New constitutional law . Leipzig 1936.
  • National Socialism and Constitutional Law . Berlin 1937.
  • (with Walter Scheerbarth): Administrative law . Leipzig 1937.
  • Party and state . Vienna 1938.
  • (with Rolf Schiedermair ): Race and inheritance maintenance in the legislation of the Third Reich . Leipzig 1938.
  • (with Harry von Rosen-von Hoewel ): The defense of the empire (military law) . Leipzig 1940.
  • Leadership and administration in war . Berlin 1941.
  • (with Harry von Rosen): New municipal law. With a representation of the community associations . Leipzig 1942.
  • Constitution, Administration and European Reorganization , Bucharest 1942.
  • (with Reinhard Höhn and Herbert Schneider): Constitutional, administrative and economic laws of Norway. Collection of the most important laws, ordinances and edicts . Darmstadt 1942.
  • (with Harry von Rosen and Rolf Schiedermair): The state structure of the German Reich in a systematic representation . Kohlhammer, Leipzig 1943.

In the Soviet occupation zone , all of Stuckart's writings were placed on the list of literature to be segregated.

literature

  • Hans-Christian Jasch: State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart and the Jewish policy. The clean management myth. Oldenbourg, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70313-9 .
  • Martin Otto:  Stuckart, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-428-11206-7 , pp. 614-616 ( digitized version ).
  • Peter Schöttler : A kind of “General Plan West”: The Stuckart memorandum of June 14, 1940 and the plans for a new German-French border in World War II. In: Social.History. NF 18, No. 3, 2003, ISSN  1660-2870 , pp. 83-131 [with edition pp. 110-131].
  • The verdict in the Wilhelmstrasse trial. The official wording of the decision in case no.11 of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal against von Weizsäcker and others, with differing reasons for the judgment, rectification decisions, the basic legal provisions, a list of court persons and witnesses and introductions by Robert MW Kempner and Carl Haensel . Edited with co-author from CH Tuerck. (officially recognized translation from English). Bürger, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 1950.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Stuckart  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ August Schnell et al., The high school graduates from the Realgymnasium, in: 100 Jahre Staatliches Gymnasium und Realgymnasium Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 1951, pp. 167 ff., 176.
  2. ↑ Stuckart claims to have lost his NSDAP membership card; his efforts to get a prestigious lower membership number remained "largely unsuccessful" - Hans-Christian Jasch: On the role of Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart. In: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 285.
  3. ↑ a b c d SS personnel chancellery: SS seniority list of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel, as of December 1, 1937, Reichsdruckerei, Berlin 1937, p. 18 f.
  4. ↑ a b c d Hermann Weiß (Ed.): Biographisches Lexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main, 1998, p. 452.
  5. ^ Yearbook of the Academy for German Law, 1st year 1933/34. Edited by Hans Frank. (Munich, Berlin, Leipzig: Schweitzer Verlag), p. 258.
  6. ^ Hans-Christian Jasch: State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart and the Jewish policy. Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70313-9 , p. 53.
  7. ^ Hans-Christian Jasch: State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart and the Jewish policy. Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70313-9 , p. 91.
  8. ^ Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz , Yearbook Preussischer Kulturbesitz, vol. 23, Berlin 1987, p. 422.
  9. ^ Hans-Christian Jasch: State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart and the Jewish policy. Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70313-9 , pp. 59-74.
  10. ^ Document VEJ 2/84 = Susanne Heim (edit.): The persecution and murder of the European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection) Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939 , Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486 -58523-0 , p, 270.
  11. ^ Raul Hilberg : The annihilation of the European Jews . Frankfurt / Main 1990, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , Vol. 1, p. 186.
  12. ↑ Cornelia Essner: The “Nuremberg Laws” or the administration of Rassenwahns 1933–1945 , Paderborn 2002, ISBN 3-506-72260-3 , pp. 292–304 as well as chapter The 11. VOzRBüG and the deportation , pp. 305–326 / VEJ 3/166.
  13. ↑ Hans-Christian Jasch: On the role of Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart. In: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , pp. 286/287.
  14. ↑ He wrote: 1. The reorganization of the continents and the cooperation in the field of administration , in: Wilhelm Stuckart, Werner Best (ed.), Reich, Volksordnung, Lebensraum. Zs. Für Völkische Constitution and Administration , vol. 1, 1941, pp. 3–28; 2. Nationality and Reich administration. in ibid. Vol. 5, 1943, pp. 57-91; 3. On the reorganization of living spaces , in: Joachim Moras, Axel von Freytagh-Loringhoven (ed.), Europäische Revue , Stuttgart, Berlin, year 1941, pp. 361–368. After the war that his people lost, Moras switched to the editor of a new magazine, Merkur .
  15. ↑ Hans-Christian Jasch: On the role of Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart. In: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 300.
  16. ↑ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels ed. by Elke Fröhlich, Volume 9, Munich a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-598-22305-6 , p. 324 (August 21, 1943).
  17. ↑ Stephan Lehnstaedt : “The Reich Ministry of the Interior under Heinrich Himmler”, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 54 (2006), ISSN  0042-5702 , p. 642.
  18. ^ Biography of Wilhelm Stuckart ( Memento from September 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Page references: The judgment in the Wilhelmstrasse trial. The official wording of the decision in case no. 11 of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal against von Weizsäcker and others, with differing reasons for the judgment, corrective decisions, the basic legal provisions, a list of court officials and witnesses. Introductions by Robert MW Kempner and Carl Haensel. Alfons Bürger Verlag, Schwäbisch Gmünd 1950.
  20. ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär (Hrsg.): National Socialism in front of court. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-596-13589-3 , p. 192.
  21. ^ Catalog House of the Wannsee Conference . Berlin 2006. p. 107.
  22. ^ Wilhelm Stuckart ( memento from January 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on www.ghwk.de.
  23. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 612.
  24. ↑ Short biography at www.zukunft-brauch-erinnerung.de.
  25. ↑ Hans-Christian Jasch: State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart and the Jewish Policy , Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70313-9 , p. 451 with reference to Stuckart's brief in the denazification process.
  26. ↑ Cornelia Essner: The “Nuremberg Laws” or the administration of Rassenwahns 1933–1945 , Paderborn 2002, ISBN 3-506-72260-3 , pp. 305–326 as well as chapter The 11th VOzRBüG and the deportation .
  27. ↑ Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of February 14, 1968 ; see. for this purpose the Radbruch formula .
  28. ↑ Dieter Rebentisch: Führer State and Administration in World War II - Constitutional Development and Administrative Policy 1939–1945. Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-515-05141-4 , p. 108.
  29. ↑ Hans-Christian Jasch: On the role of Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart. In: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 283.
  30. ↑ Hans-Christian Jasch: On the role of Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart. In: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 301.
  31. ^ Hans-Christian Jasch: State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart and the Jewish policy . Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70313-9 , p. 366.
  32. ^ Hans-Christian Jasch: State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart and the Jewish policy . Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70313-9 , pp. 456/467.
  33. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet occupation zone, list of literature to be sorted out.
personal data
SURNAME Stuckart, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and politician (NSDAP), State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior
DATE OF BIRTH November 16, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1953
Place of death Egestorf