Bernhard Lösener

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Bernhard Lösener (born December 27, 1890 in Fürstenberg (Oder) , † August 24, 1952 in Cologne ) was a German administrative lawyer , among others during the time of National Socialism . In 1935 he was involved in drafting the Nuremberg Laws as a “racial officer” , but was arrested in 1944 for supporting a resistance fighter. Many historical accounts that deal with the racial laws are based on Lösener's statements, which were often taken over uncritically.

Life

Losener was the son of a magistrate. From the summer semester of 1909 to 1913 he studied law at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen , where he became a member of the Derendingia fraternity in Tübingen . After military service, doctorate to Dr. jur. In 1920 and second state examination in 1922, he joined the Reich customs administration. First in the country's tax authority of Berlin-Brandenburg as a Government accredited, he was chief in 1929 in the main customs office Glatz . In 1930 he joined the NSDAP . In 1931 he was transferred to the state tax office in Neisse and in April 1933 to the Reich Ministry of the Interior ; there he rose to Ministerialrat in August 1935 . As " race referee " he was on the night of September 14, 1935 after Nuremberg ordered to there together with his department heads Wilhelm Stuckart and civil status officer Hans Globke formulate hastily the Nuremberg Laws. Lösener was also involved in the formulation of the implementing ordinances and co-author of a further commentary on race laws that appeared in 1937. From 1938 he participated in the National Socialist Institute for the History of New Germany as an advisory board member of the “Research Department” on the Jewish question .

Christopher Browning describes the differences between State Secretary Stuckart and Lösener in 1941. According to an eyewitness, his assistant Werner Feldscher described the murder of German deported Jews in Riga . As a result, Lösener no longer wanted to work in the Ministry of the Interior, even if he could then no longer work on his project to distinguish "mixed race", in Nazi jargon, from "full Jews". Losener claimed that he had told Stuckart at the end of December 1941 that he could not support the practice of the extermination of the Jews and that he had asked for immediate release from his position and for a transfer. Stuckart had ironed him out, the decision to murder the Jews came "from the highest authority", that is, Hitler, and he shouldn't be so squeamish that the murder was necessary "in terms of world history". So much for Lösener in his "reference files". Browning shows the contrast to the fact that Lösener successfully stood up for Stuckart after 1945, which the editor of these sources had already noted.

Stuckart is said to have promised the release of Lösener from his position, but this dragged on, as did the transfer, which only took place from April 1943 to the Reich Administrative Court as a "legally qualified member of the Reich War Damage Office". On January 29, 1942, Lösener took part in the first follow-up conference to the Wannsee Conference in the premises of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Alfred Rosenberg in Berlin. The central topic of this conference was who exactly should be considered a “Jew” so that a regulation could be made about who should be included in the extermination actions. With his participation, the term was defined and established particularly broadly and subsequently applied uniformly to all occupied areas.

Losener was arrested on November 11, 1944, because he had hosted Captain Ludwig Gehre for a few days in August 1944 , who was friends with Count Stauffenberg . According to its own information, Lösener also had loose connections with Hans Bernd Gisevius , who belonged to Carl Friedrich Goerdeler’s resistance group, since 1936 . In January 1945, Lösener was expelled from the NSDAP. There was no more trial; Losener was released shortly before the Red Army arrived in Torgau .

Bernhard Lösener's grave in Cologne's North Cemetery

After the war, Lösener appeared as a witness in the Wilhelmstrasse trial and exonerated Wilhelm Stuckart. In April 1949, he got a job with the Jewish aid organization Joint Distribution Committee . It was re-used in September 1949, initially in the legal office of the United Economic Area , through its head Walter Strauss , from 1950 onwards at the regional tax office in Cologne as a government director in the customs department.

Losener died in 1952 after biliary surgery. His grave is located in Cologne's North Cemetery (Hall 54 No. 287-9).

reviews

Lösener's version of his work as a consultant for “racial law” in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, which was written back in 1950 and identifies him as a secret resistance fighter, was printed as documentation post mortem in a respected specialist journal. Walter Strauss, according to his own statements, had requested the publication in 1948, but did not arrange for it to be published until 1961. He thus exonerated Globke, who at that time was attacked for his involvement in the Nuremberg Laws and, like Strauss, had meanwhile become State Secretary.

Lösener's presentation of the Nuremberg Laws has long been accepted uncritically by the research literature. Historians such as Peter Longerich and Günter Neliba only complained at a late stage that this disregarded the participation of Rudolf Hess , Wilhelm Frick and Joseph Goebbels, which has been attested elsewhere .

Lösener's work in the “ Third Reich ” is controversial. In a similar way to Globke, Lösener asserted that he had rejected further demands when formulating the racial laws and that he had always only formulated the mildest version imaginable. Critics, on the other hand, take the view that the cooperation on the part of the state bureaucracy accelerated the practical implementation of the National Socialist party program or at least removed one obstacle.

Works

  • Bernhard Lösener, Outline of German Customs Law, 1927, 2nd and 3rd edition 1928, with Walter Lottner 4th "completely revised" edition 1938
  • Bernhard Lösener, with Friedrich August Knost : The Nuremberg Laws on Imperial Citizenship and the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, together with the implementing ordinances and all relevant provisions and fee regulations. Vahlen, Berlin 1936 (often quoted as: "Lösener / Knost")
    • Fifth edition: The Nuremberg Laws with the implementing ordinances and other relevant regulations. [Comment] Vahlen, Berlin 1942 (in between three further editions, from the 2nd edition 1937 called "revised")

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Membership directory of the Derendingia fraternity in Tübingen. 1967, master roll no. 440.
  2. ↑ a b Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer TB, second act. Ed., Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 378
  3. ↑ Kurt Pätzold, Erika Schwarz: Agenda, Judenmord: the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. Documentation on the organization of the "Final Solution" . Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-926893-12-5 , p. 160
  4. ↑ Browning, The Entfesselung der " Endlösung ", Propylaen, Munich 2003, (List TB 2006) ISBN 3549071876 , p. 578f. with note 103
  5. ↑ HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk. Materials on the German perpetrator biography. Hamburg Institute for Social Research , Ed .: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 180 f., ISBN 3-88022-953-8
  6. ↑ An early reproach as an apologetic account by Reinhard Rürup: The end of emancipation. The anti-Jewish policy in Germany ... in: Arnold Paucker et al. (Hrsg.): The Jews in National Socialist Germany. Tübingen 1986. ISBN 3-16-745103-3 , page 111f. / Lösener's memory report is discussed in detail by Cornelia Essner: The "Nuremberg Laws" or the administration of Rassenwahns 1933–1945 , Paderborn 2002, ISBN 3-506-72260-3 , pp. 111-134.
  7. ^ Peter Longerich : Politics of Destruction. Munich 1998, page 102f as well as Günter Neliba: Wilhelm Frick: The legalist of the injustice state. Paderborn u. a. 1992.
personal data
SURNAME Lösener, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Fürstenberg (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1952
Place of death Cologne