Axel von Freytagh-Loringhoven

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Mr. Axel von Freytagh-Loringhoven

Axel August Gustav Johann Freiherr von Freytagh-Loringhoven (born December 1, 1878 in Arensburg (Kuressaare) on Ösel (Saaremaa), in the then Russian province of Estonia ; † October 28, 1942 in Breslau , Lower Silesia ) was a lawyer (professor for state - and international law). In 1917 he received a full professorship in Breslau and lived there. He was a völkisch -minded and anti-Semitic nationalist , monarchist , member of the Reichstag in the DNVP / NSDAP from 1925 to 1942 and a Prussian State Councilor.

Life until the end of the First World War

Axel von Freytagh-Loringhoven came from a German-Baltic noble family; He studied at the largest Estonian, partly German-speaking university Dorpat , where he was a member of the German-speaking student union Livonia Dorpat . He took part in the Russo-Japanese War as a reserve officer . After his doctorate he became a private lecturer in St. Petersburg in 1908 . In St. Petersburg, Freytagh-Loringhoven wrote political articles in a German-language newspaper alongside his work as a lecturer. From 1910 he became professor of international law in Yaroslavl, 220 km northeast of Moscow. In 1911 he received a chair in Dorpat (Tartu). With the beginning of World War I , Freytagh-Loringhoven had to flee Russia. Because of his language and legal knowledge, he became adviser to the Commander-in-Chief in 1917 . In 1918 he received a chair for law at the University of Breslau and moved there. He taught constitutional, administrative and international law. He stayed in Breslau until the end of his life.

Life in the Weimar Republic

Freytag-Loringhoven was shocked by the 1918 revolution. He rejected a democratic system of government. At first he felt like a monarchist standing on nationalistic soil and regarded the abdicated Kaiser Wilhelm II as his head of state. In 1919 he was a member of the board of directors of the local branch of the German National Guard and Defense Association (DVSTB) in Breslau . Like the other members of the DVSTB, who were definitely anti-democratic, Freitagh-Loringhoven was very anti-Semitic. He was also a member of the monarchist League of the Upright , which was also very anti-Semitic and saw itself in the tradition of Adolf Stoecker . Both organizations were banned after the right-wing extremist murder of Walter Rathenau . Freitagh-Loringhoven rejected the Weimar Constitution, among other things, because the author of the constitutional provisions Hugo Preuss was a Jew. In his anti-democracy book about the Weimar Constitution, he had developed an anti-Semitic program that the National Socialists could have used as a template for the Nuremberg Laws .

Freitagh-Loringhoven blamed the Social Democrats, the Communists and, above all, the Jews for the war defeat that resulted from the revolution in his opinion. He found it particularly reprehensible that most of the state-supporting parties such as the SPD, German Center Party and DDP had voted in favor of signing the Versailles Treaty , as if there had been an alternative. Therefore, these parties are responsible for the adverse provisions of this treaty and not the defeat in World War I.

From a legal point of view, Freitagh-Loringhoven expressed the opinion that the constitution of the Weimar Republic was illegal because of its revolutionary origin, and that Prince Max von Baden , Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann were treason. He also spread these theses in his lectures. Disciplinary proceedings, which were then initiated against him as an official of the state he considered illegal, he was able to fend off with reference to his parliamentary immunity after he had become a member of the Reichstag (MdR) in 1924 . Another complaint against him was dealt dilatorily by a Prussian minister of education. He was able to spread his anti-state views and doctrinal opinions unhindered in his books and newspaper articles, including in the book The Weimar Constitution in Doctrine and Reality , which was published by the völkisch publisher JF Lehmann in 1924. Overall, Freytagh-Loringhoven was a bitter enemy of democracy and the Weimar Republic . So it was not surprising that Freitagh-Loringhoven was one of the founders of the anti-Semitic and anti-republican DNVP in 1919 . The Neue Deutsche Biographie calls him “one of the most pronounced representatives of bourgeois nationalism in its völkisch form.” The Wroclaw legal scholar Ernst J. Cohn, who emigrated in 1933, described Freytagh-Loringhoven as one of the most extreme representatives of the anti-Semitic wing of the DNVP.

From 1924 Freytagh-Loringhoven was a member of the German National Reichstag . In parliament he was a member of the foreign affairs committee. He fought against the rapprochement policy of Gustav Stresemann . He refused to conclude the Locarno Treaties . He also rejected Germany's admission to the League of Nations , which was agreed there , just as he considered the entire League of Nations institution to be harmful.

From 1921 to 1925 he was a member of the Provincial Parliament of the Province of Lower Silesia . This elected him from May 1921 to February 1929 as a deputy member of the Prussian State Council .

Life in the time of National Socialism

With Alfred Hugenberg , Freytagh-Loringhoven supported the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor in 1933 and was even considered a candidate for a ministerial post. He also managed the dissolution of the DNVP into the NSDAP and remained a member of the Reichstag from June 1933 as a guest of the NSDAP. From 1938 the Reichstag administration led Freytagh-Loringhoven as a member of the Reichstag and the NSDAP. The Prussian Prime Minister Goering appointed him to the Prussian State Council in 1933 . Another recognition by the National Socialists was that Freytagh-Loringhoven was appointed by the German government in 1934 as a permanent member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, a position with which he inherited the international lawyer Walter Schücking . Schücking had fallen out of favor because he was a democrat and pacifist. He had already lost his professorship in Kiel, but Schücking did not give up his seat in the International Court of Justice in The Hague despite a request from his government. In his function as arbitrator, Loringhoven was also involved in solving the case of the kidnapping of Berthold Jacob by German secret services from Switzerland in 1935 .

The contents of his book Germany's Foreign Policy 1933-1941 , which first appeared in many editions, make it clear that Freitagh-Loringhoven fully supported the foreign and conquest policy of the Hitler Empire. The book was also given to the soldiers as a knapsack of the Wehrmacht High Command for official use. This shows that Freytagh-Loringhoven had advanced to become the semi-official interpreter of National Socialist foreign policy .

Freitagh-Loringhoven became a member of the Academy for German Law in 1933 and was chairman of the committee for colonial law . On his 60th birthday, Hitler awarded him the Goethe Medal for Art and Science . In addition, he had been appointed legal knight of the Order of St. John .

Freytagh-Loringhoven published the monthly newspaper for the League of Nations and International Law , which was launched in 1933 . It appeared until 1938. He then became editor of the European Review , which was funded by the Propaganda Ministry . This newspaper propagated the National Socialists' plans for domination of Europe under the title National Socialist Europe Idea .

In 1938/1939 Freytagh-Loringhoven was involved in the Aryanization of the journal for comparative jurisprudence, including ethnological legal research . Leonhard Adam was forced to resign and Freytagh-Loringhoven inherited him as editor on behalf of the Academy for German Law.

Freytagh-Loringhoven is listed on the 400-name " List of Key Nazis " that John Franklin Carter , adviser to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt , had compiled for the White House in 1942 and also sent to Military intelligence relayed OSS .

After 1945, various writings by Freytagh-Loringhoven were placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet zone of occupation and in the German Democratic Republic .

Works (selection)

  • Вступление наследника в обязательства и права требования наследователя по остзейскому праву . K. Matthiesen, Jurjew (Dorpat) 1905 ( digitized version ).
  • Наследование в крестьянской недвижимости по германскому праву. Том 1, Исторические основы . K. Matthiesen, Jurjew (Dorpat) 1910 ( digitized ).
  • History of the Russian Revolution . JF Lehmann, Munich 1919.
  • The Weimar Constitution in Doctrine and Reality . JF Lehmann, Munich 1924.
  • Germany and the League of Nations . JF Lehmann, Munich 1925.
  • From Locarno to Geneva and Thoiry . Brunnen-Verlag K. Winckler, Berlin 1926.
  • The statute of the League of Nations . With an introduction and explanations by Frhrn v. Freytagh-Loringhoven. G. Stilke, Berlin 1926.
  • German foreign policy and national opposition: Speeches from the Reichstag by Otto Hoetzsch and Freiherr von Freytagh-Loringhoven (= German national leaflet of the German national writings agency . No. 276). German National Font Distribution Agency, Berlin 1926.
  • Germany's foreign policy 1933–1939 . Otto Karl Stollberg , Berlin 1939; from the 6th edition 1940 as Germany's foreign policy 1933–1940 , as the 9th edition 1942 as Germany's foreign policy 1933–1941 , 11th edition 1943 (special edition as knapsack of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, Domestic Department, only for official use).
  • Outbreak of war and war guilt in 1939 . Essen publishing house, Essen 1940.
  • Co-editor of the magazine Europäische Revue . Stuttgart / Berlin 1938–1942 (Freytagh as editor can be verified from 1939.)

Journal articles (small selection):

  • Memel . In: German legal journal . 40 Jg. (1935), Issue 4, Column 193 (An article in which Freytagh-Loringhoven refers to the breaches of treaty with Germany committed by the Lithuanian government in his opinion.)
  • The Geneva resolution . In: German legal journal . 40 Jg. (1935), No. 9, columns 527-530 (Here Freytagh-Loringhoven tried to prove that the reintroduction of compulsory military service announced by Germany on March 16, 1935 was not a breach of the Weimar Treaty League of Nations resolution of April 17, 1935 on conscription against the procedural law of the League of Nations.)
  • Sanctions . In: Deutsche Juristenteitung , 40 Jg. (1935), Issue 21, columns 1261–1268 (This was about international reactions to the actions of Italy, which had violated international law with the beginning of the Abyssinian War on October 3, 1935. Freytagh -Loringhoven explained in the contribution the position of Germany, which had declared itself neutral in this conflict.)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Stolleis : History of Public Law in Germany. Weimar Republic and National Socialism . Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-406-48960-0 , p. 161.
  2. ↑ All information from an obituary for Freytagh-Loringhoven in the Ostexpress Berlin magazine , November 1942, contained in the press kit of the 20th century. Digitized press clipping of the HWWA, JPEG No. 12 http://webopac0.hwwa.de/digiview/DigiView_NxtPrv.CfM ? ID = P05575 & doc = 0012
  3. ^ A b Michael Stolleis: History of Public Law in Germany. Weimar Republic and National Socialism . Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-406-48960-0 , p. 162.
  4. ↑ Uwe Lohalm: Völkischer Radikalismus. The history of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutz-Bund, 1919–1923 . Leibniz-Verlag, Hamburg 1970, pp. 213, 390. ISBN 3-87473-000-X .
  5. ^ Michael Stolleis: History of Public Law in Germany. Weimar Republic and National Socialism . Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-406-48960-0 , p. 92, footnote 116.
  6. ↑ See obituary for Freytagh-Loringhoven in the Ostexpress Berlin magazine , November 1942, contained in the press kit of the 20th century Digitized press excerpt from the HWWA, JPEG No. 12 http://webopac0.hwwa.de/digiview/DigiView_NxtPrv.CfM?ID= P05575 & doc = 0012
  7. ^ Ernst J. Cohn: Student in times of need. In Herbert Hupka (ed.): Life in Silesia. Memories from five decades . Gräfe and Unzer, Munich 1966, p. 244.
  8. ↑ s. Axel von Freytagh-Loringhoven in the database of members of the Reichstag
  9. ^ Michael Stolleis: History of Public Law in Germany - Weimar Republic and National Socialism . Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-406-48960-0 , p. 393.
  10. ↑ Horst Göppinger : Jurists of Jewish descent in the "Third Reich". Disenfranchisement and persecution , 2nd edition, Munich: CH Beck, 1990, ISBN 3-406-33902-6 . P. 384
  11. ↑ Germany, July 1941-1944 List of Key Nazis (December 10, 1942), p. 65, National Archives NARA
  12. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-f.html
  13. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-f.html
  14. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1953-nslit-f.html

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Axel von Freytagh-Loringhoven  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Freytagh-Loringhoven, Axel von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Freytagh-Loringhoven, Axel August Gustav Johann Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, MdR, Prussian State Council and member of the permanent International Court of Arbitration in The Hague
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Arensburg , on Ösel , Estonia
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1942
Place of death Wroclaw , Lower Silesia