Curt Wessig

Curt Wessig (born June 11, 1896 in Weißenfels , † June 10, 1980 in Kreuth ) was a German criminal defense attorney .

Before the time of National Socialism

Curt Wessig was the son of an officer in the Prussian army . Since the father's place of residence often changed, Wessig attended high schools in Düsseldorf and Colmar from 1902 and finally a high school in Altona . Immediately after the outbreak of World War I , my school years ended without a degree.

On August 3, 1914, Wessig reported as a flag junior at a garrison in Altona. He fought in France and was promoted to lieutenant on January 24, 1914 . In the summer of 1915 he visited his former school on a short home leave . Here he took exams and received his Abitur on August 25 of the same year without a visit from the upper prima . He then served as a soldier on the Western Front and in Hungary. He reached the ranks of company commander , battalion and regiment adjutant . He survived three injuries in 1918 without permanent physical impairment. During another home leave he studied law for the first time.

After the end of the war, Wessig participated in voluntary corps associations. In 1919 he fought for the Bahrenfeld Freikorps in the brawn riots and in 1921 in the fighting around St. Annaberg . At the same time he studied law. After his first legal exam and his doctoral thesis in 1922, he passed the second state examination in 1923. Since 1924 he was allowed to work as a lawyer. In 1930 he himself stood before the court as a defendant: previously he had been convinced in a civil case that his client was wrong and then switched to the other side in order to repair any damage he might have caused. Because of this prevarication , he received a three-month prison term. Since the judge credited him with honest motives, this is the minimum sentence that Wessig did not have to serve.

time of the nationalsocialism

In 1930 Wessig left the Evangelical Church and tried to join the NSDAP . However, the National Socialists refused to accept him because of the previous criminal proceedings. He saw himself as an “old national fighter” and wrote in 1933 that it was his duty to “intervene in the political struggle”. Therefore, in the winter of 1931/32 he joined the Revolutionary National Socialist League . Wessig spoke from time to time at events and, for example, on May 10, 1932, in the Curiohaus , expressed himself critical of the foreign policy views of the NSDAP. Before the Reichstag elections in 1932, he fought for Ernst Thälmann .

After the seizure of power , Wessig had to spend four days in " protective custody " from April 16, 1933 . The National Socialists justified the punishment with suspicions expressed by Wessig that NSDAP officials from some Hamburg districts were communists. However, Justice Senator Curt Rothenberger did not withdraw his license to practice law. According to Rothenberger, Wessig was the only “right-keeper” from Hamburg who fought for Germany in the Battle of Annaberg against Polish territorial claims. In 1934 Wessig joined the National Socialist Lawyers' Association , most likely in order to continue working as a lawyer.

In 1934 the state police arrested Wessig again and held him in protective custody in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp for about two weeks . Since he allegedly worked illegally for the KPD , the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court pronounced a prison sentence for “preparation for high treason ” after criminal proceedings . Although he was considered a criminal record, Wessig had to do military service as an officer in the reserve from November 1939 . He served first with a replacement unit in Vienna and in 1941 with the Army Control Commission II in France . In 1943 he switched to the staff of the General of the Commander-in-Chief West in Vichy . Towards the end of the war, when the Wehrmacht withdrew, he reached Vienna again with the rank of major and resigned from the troops there in March 1945. He found his family again in nearby Baden .

After the Second World War

After the end of the war, Wessig hoped to be able to revive the communist movement. That is why he wrote the brochures “What One Should Know About Communism” and “Hitler's War Policy”. In September 1945 he was in charge of a children's transport from the Austrian capital to Hamburg organized by the KPÖ . Here, the British military government classified him as "not affected" as part of a denazification process. Wessig was then chaired the denazification committee for legal professions.

Then Wessig worked as a criminal defense attorney. As part of the Neuengamme main trial , he represented Max Pauly , in 1951 several members of the Free German Youth who had entered the Heligoland without permission. With their protest, they wanted to ensure that the island, which was classified as a restricted military area at the time, came under German responsibility again. From 1951 to 1956 he defended the KPD during the KPD ban proceedings .

literature

• Reimer Möller: Wessig, Curt . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 369-370 .