Curt Joël

Curt Walter Joël , also Kurt (born January 18, 1865 in Greiffenberg , Silesia , † April 15, 1945 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer , administrative officer and politician .

Life and work

Joël came from a Jewish family. After graduating from high school, he began studying law at the universities of Jena , Freiburg im Breisgau and Berlin , which he completed in 1888 with the first state examination and in 1893 with the second state examination and with a doctorate in Dr. jur. finished. During his studies in 1884 he became a member of the Teutonia Jena fraternity . He then joined the Prussian judicial service as a court assessor. In 1899 he married Vally von Dreßler (1880–1968) in Breslau. The marriage resulted in two children, including their son Günther Joël (1899–1986), who later became Ministerial Director in the Federal Ministry of Justice . From 1899 he worked as a public prosecutor in Hanover and at the Berlin Higher Court . In 1908 he was appointed to the Reich Justice Office as a lecturer and secret councilor , and in 1911 he was appointed secret supreme councilor. During the First World War , Joël was Section Head in the General Government of Belgium . At the same time he was appointed head of the central police station in Brussels . In these functions he was responsible for counterintelligence. In 1917 he was appointed Ministerial Director in the Reich Justice Office.

During the Weimar Republic , Joël was seen as the so-called “gray eminence” or “central figure of the German judiciary”, as he held key positions in the administration of justice for many years. After leaving the Reich government, he withdrew from politics and retired. Although he came from a Jewish family, he was not persecuted by the National Socialists . He spent his twilight years as a so-called “protective Jew” in Silesia and Berlin.

Curt Joël's grave in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

Curt Joël died shortly before the end of the Second World War on April 15, 1945 at the age of 80 in Berlin. His grave is on the state's own cemetery in Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend (grave location: 6-Db-10/11).

Public offices

Joël did not belong to any party and served from 1920 to 1931 as State Secretary (initially Undersecretary) in the Reich Ministry of Justice . After the resignation of Reich Justice Minister Erich Emminger , he de facto took over the management of the ministry from April 16, 1924 to January 15, 1925, but did not belong to the Reich government led by Chancellor Wilhelm Marx . In the government headed by Chancellor Heinrich Brüning , he took over the post of Reich Minister of Justice on October 10, 1931, which he had already temporarily administered since December 5, 1930. On May 30, 1932, he resigned from the Reich government.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 3: I-L. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0865-0 , p. 24.
• Klaus-Detlev Godau-Schüttke: Legal Administrator of the Reich State Secretary Dr. Curt Joël . Legal history series Volume 12, Frankfurt am Main (among others) 1981.
• Otto Riese:  Joël, Curt. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , pp. 456-458 ( digitized version ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Riese, Otto, "Joël, Curt" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 10 (1974), pp. 456–458 [online version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/gnd118557661.html#ndbcontent
2. ^ Riese, Otto, "Joël, Curt" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 10 (1974), pp. 456–458 [online version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/gnd118557661.html#ndbcontent
3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 488.

Web links

• Literature by and about Curt Joël in the catalog of the German National Library
• Curt Joël in the files of the Reich Chancellery