German marriage law in World War II

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Long distance wedding of a lieutenant (saluting) of the Luftwaffe , table with candles and pictures of Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring , photo taken by a propaganda company from June 21, 1944

During the Second World War , various special regulations on marriage law were created in the German Reich . There was the possibility of a distance marriage, a posthumous marriage (“funeral marriage”) and a divorce. Post-mortem marriages had already taken place in France during the First World War .

Since 1935, marriages between " German-blooded " people and Jews have been forbidden by the Nuremberg race laws . Different regulations applied to “ Jewish mixed race ”; their applications for marriage permits were no longer processed from 1942 "for the duration of the war".

Long distance marriage

According to §§ 13 ff. Of the Third Ordinance on the Implementation of the Personal Status Act (Wehrmacht Personal Status Ordinance ) of November 4, 1939, members of the Wehrmacht who “took part in a war, a war-like enterprise or a special mission” and left their location were able to marry had. Members of the Wehrmacht were the soldiers and the Wehrmacht officials. The regulations applied accordingly to armed units of the SS . This required a declaration of intent from the Wehrmacht member for the battalion commander to write it down, an affidavit about “ Aryan descent ” and the OKW's marriage license for the bride's registry office. To speed it needed no banns . Exemption from the call could already be granted according to the Second Ordinance for the Implementation of the Personal Status Act of August 30, 1939.

In August 1940, the scope of application was extended to members of the Wehrmacht and other German citizens who were outside the German Reich territory. In the case of members of the Wehrmacht, the responsible German military attaché took the place of the battalion commander, and in the case of prisoners of war a shop steward or the highest-ranking officer of the highest rank determined according to the agreement on the treatment of prisoners of war .

The marriage ceremony in the local registry office had to take place in front of two witnesses within two months, since February 1941 within nine, since July 1941 within six and since October 1942 again within nine months of the declaration of the man sent to the registrar. Colloquially, this long-distance wedding was referred to as a "steel helmet wedding" or "steel helmet wedding ceremony", since a steel helmet was placed in the place of the ceremony in the registry office that the groom would otherwise have taken.

The marriage came into effect at the moment the woman declared her will to marry before the registrar. This also applied if the man had already passed away by this point. The marriage was then considered to have taken place on the day on which the man had declared his will to enter into the marriage for the record. Otherwise, the registrar sent the man a free marriage certificate, from which the fact of the distance marriage was not evident.

From the sheet to be opened in the family register at the time of the marriage , however, it was to be made clear that the marriage had been concluded in the absence of the husband.

"Funeral ceremony"

The possibility of long-distance marriage excluded those soldiers who had no longer come to write down their will to enter into marriage, but in which evidence could be provided that they were willing to enter into marriage.

On November 6, 1941, Adolf Hitler signed a corresponding secret decree together with Hans Heinrich Lammers , the head of the Reich Chancellery and Wilhelm Keitel , the head of the Wehrmacht High Command . In it, Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick was empowered to “order the subsequent marriage of women to soldiers who had fallen or died in the field, if it can be proven that there was a serious intention to marry and there are no indications that the intention was given up before death. For professional soldiers, the consent of the Wehrmacht High Command must be obtained. ”This order should not be published. On March 25, 1942, the Reich Ministry of the Interior announced the wording of the authorization within the administration. On June 15, 1943, the Reich Minister of the Interior informed the registry offices "confidentially" of the existence of the Fuehrer's Decree and established guidelines for processing the applications. In particular, the usual obstacles to marriage under the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor and the Marriage Health Act should be taken into account.

While there was a written consensus between the soldier and his future wife for long-distance weddings, in the case of “funeral marriage” or “death marriage” it was up to the woman alone to testify to the authorities of the last will of the fallen person. The woman who married a dead woman did not become a wife through marriage but a widow. The marriage entered into retrospectively was dissolved again when it was officially consummated through the death of the fallen or deceased spouse.

As a war widow, the woman was socially secure, and having a child was not considered illegitimate . State Secretary Franz Schlegelberger from the Reich Ministry of Justice expressed concerns about this decree in vain : It is now possible to sneak a marriage in order to obtain financial benefits as a war widow or to claim an inheritance .

In its reports from the Reich on March 2, 1944, the SS security service stated that the possibility of subsequent marriage had meanwhile been widely known and "generally received with satisfaction". However, "difficulties arose which gave rise to unfavorable mood effects". In many cases, the parents of the dead objected on the grounds that it was not a serious marriage promise. In numerous cases the accusation is justified that the bride is only concerned with economic advantages. Inheritance claims would be made retrospectively and the parents of the fallen victim were now excluded from the succession in some cases. After all, the subsequent marriage leads to "biologically unfavorable results", since a well-cared for young widow will not start a new family and no further children can be expected from her. The suspicion is also expressed that the possibility is being abused to legitimize children conceived by other men.

Finally, the “suggestions” provided are summarized in the report: A subsequent marriage should only be approved if a child resulted from this connection. In principle, only the child should be entitled to inheritance, but not the bride.

Similar suggestions from the Department of Justice experts had been put aside; the “suggestions” from the people compiled by the SD were partially successful: In June 1944, the right to inheritance was limited to the child conceived by the fallen groom. In total there were around 25,000 such weddings with fallen soldiers.

Divorce

In accordance with the discussion about entering into a marriage with the deceased, the Reich Ministry of Justice discussed whether a marriage that had already been dissolved by death could still be divorced. The considerable number of funeral weddings had reinforced the already rampant rumors about the "hero widows". They were said to be dishonorable and "lead a carefree life and get involved with other men."

Reich Justice Minister Otto Thierack had issued confidential guidelines for the courts in November 1942, according to which the "war adultery" (§ 172 RStGB ) should be punished.

In the Fifth Implementing Ordinance to the Marriage Act of March 18, 1943, the possibility of a "death divorce" was created so that "forgotten women who, while the husband was at the front, broke their marriage under offensive circumstances [...] .], are not allowed to act as a war widow after her husband's soldier death ”.

The prosecutor initiated the procedure for the divorce of the deceased at the district court responsible for the divorce petition. He applied for a declaration of the right to divorce for the deceased. Misconduct on the part of the surviving spouse could be asserted, which has been proven or can be assumed to be certain that the deceased would have based a request for divorce on them (Section 7 of the Fifth Implementing Ordinance). If the court found that the deceased's petition for divorce was justified, the surviving wife obtained the legal status of a divorcee. The divorce took effect retrospectively from the day before the husband's death and was therefore comparable in its legal effect to the regulation for marriage in the dead. The finding also decided to what extent the surviving wife is to be considered guilty . A wife culpably divorced under Section 47 of the Marriage Act lost the right of inheritance and the survivors' pension under Sections 100 et seq. Of the Wehrmacht Welfare and Supply Act of August 26, 1938.

Legal effects after 1945

On February 28, 1946 , the British military government prohibited subsequent marriages of missing or fallen soldiers in north-west Germany . In 1947, consideration was given to invalidating all marriages in the dead. But they moved away from this idea in order to maintain legal security and to preserve pension entitlements. Through the law on the legal effects of subsequent marriage of March 29, 1951, the federal legislature granted the surviving wife's funeral weddings up to March 31, 1946 a status corresponding to that of a widow with regard to the family name, pension entitlements and marital status of any common children.

On June 23, 1950, the law on the recognition of free marriages of the racially and politically persecuted was enacted as part of the German reparation policy. According to this, fiancées who had been refused civil marriage due to National Socialist laws or political persecution and "a life outside the civil order" could be granted the legal effects of a legal marriage by the state justice administration if the death of one part meant that the civil marriage was made up for made impossible (so-called persecuted marriage). By 1963 1,823 corresponding applications had been made, of which 1,255 were approved.

In 1956, the Federal Court of Justice recognized distance and funeral weddings as effectively concluded marriages, but recognized free marriage of racially and politically persecuted persons only as an “administrative order of certain consequences of marriage”.

In Austria, distance weddings were not abolished until 1983.

literature

  • Heinz Boberach (editor): Reports from the Reich 1938–1945. The secret situation reports of the security service of the SS. Herrsching 1984, ISBN 3-88199-158-1 , (quotations from pages 6390-6394).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ RGBl. I, p. 2163
  2. ↑ RGBl. I p. 1540
  3. ^ Ordinance amending the Third Ordinance for the Implementation of the Civil Status Act of August 15, 1940, RGBl. I p. 1107
  4. ↑ Second regulation amending the civil status regulation of the Wehrmacht of February 18, 1941, RGBl. I p. 124
  5. ↑ Third ordinance amending the civil status ordinance of the Wehrmacht of July 23, 1941, RGBl. I p. 441
  6. ↑ Fourth ordinance amending the civil status ordinance of the Wehrmacht of October 17, 1942, RGBl. I p. 595
  7. ↑ Wolf Stegemann: Long-distance marriage in the Dorsten town hall: Maria Kosulski had a steel helmet next to her instead of her groom. Mayor Gronover presented her with Hitler's “Mein Kampf” website, accessed on December 9, 2018.
  8. ↑ Cornelia Essner, Edouard Conte: Fernehe, funeral marriage and death divorce. Metamorphoses of marriage law in the Third Reich. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . Volume 44 (1996), Issue 2, pp. 201-227. ( PDF , 7 MB), p. 211.
  9. ↑ Cornelia Essner, Edouard Conte: Fernehe, funeral marriage and death divorce. Metamorphoses of marriage law in the Third Reich. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . Volume 44 (1996), Issue 2, pp. 201-227. ( PDF , 7 MB), p. 213.
  10. ↑ RGBl. I p. 1146; Blood Protection Act on Wikisource
  11. ↑ Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health of the German People (Marriage Health Law) of October 18, 1935, verfassungen.ch
  12. ↑ Heinz Boberach (Ed.): Reports from the Reich 1938–1945. Herrsching 1984, ISBN 3-88199-158-1 , Vol. 16, pp. 6390-6394.
  13. ↑ Cornelia Essner, Edouard Conte: Fernehe, funeral marriage and death divorce. Metamorphoses of marriage law in the Third Reich. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . Volume 44 (1996), Issue 2, pp. 201-227. ( PDF , 7 MB), p. 216 f.
  14. ↑ RGBl. I p. 145
  15. ↑ Law for the standardization of the law of marriage and divorce in Austria and the rest of the Reich of July 6, 1938, RGBl. I p. 807
  16. ↑ RGBl. I p. 1080
  17. ↑ Law on the legal effects of pronouncing a subsequent marriage of March 29, 1951
  18. ↑ Federal Law Gazette p. 226
  19. ^ The unknown widow Der Spiegel , December 3, 1958
  20. ↑ Beate Meyer: Notgemeinschaft of the website affected by the Nuremberg Laws, accessed on December 11, 2018
  21. ^ BGH, judgment of October 24, 1956 - Az. IV ZR 75/56
  22. ↑ Martin Rath: Wedding in and after the Second World War: funeral marriage beats the persecuted marriage LTO , December 3, 2017