Eduard Tigges

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Eduard Tigges (born January 13, 1874 in Sachsenberg near Schwerin ; † June 27, 1945 in Wuppertal - Barmen ) was President of the Court of Appeal from 1922 to 1933 .

Life

Eduard Tigges was the son of Wilhelm Tigges, a doctor at the Sachsenberg asylum and later a secret medical councilor in Düsseldorf , and his wife Louise, née Schramm zu Sachsenberg, and had accordingly attended grammar schools in Schwerin and Düsseldorf. After brief stays at the universities of Marburg , Strasbourg and Heidelberg , he stayed in Bonn for three semesters. He passed his state examinations in Düsseldorf, where he also worked at the local court from 1900 after he had obtained his doctorate in Göttingen in 1895 with a dissertation on the "Concursus duarum causarum lucrativarum". In 1905 he became a district judge. From his home in Düsseldorf he was transferred to the Ministry of Justice for ten years as a lecturer in 1911, where he became a secret councilor in 1915. In 1921 he returned to Düsseldorf as President of the Higher Regional Court , but on August 5, 1922, he was again called to Berlin, this time as President of the Higher Regional Court . Until the National Socialists came to power , Eduard Tigges was, together with the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice Curt Joël, the driving force behind the Weimar reform of matrimonial property law and a supporter of the community of gains. A legal reform model that was particularly favored by the German women's movement at the time and the first German female lawyers. In the eleven years of its administration, the Chamber Court reaffirmed its old, inviolable reputation as an independent court. As President of the Chamber Court, Tigges campaigned for one of the first German female lawyers, Marie Munk , to be the first female judge in Berlin .

Highly respected as a person, feared as a visitor to the courts under his control, Eduard Tigges was not the man to the taste of the new rulers: in June 1933 he was forced into retirement. He stayed in Berlin until bombs destroyed his home in Grunewald. Then he was accepted by relatives in Barmen, where he died soon afterwards. He is buried in the family's hereditary funeral in Düsseldorf.

Appointment as President

In the handwritten accompanying letter from the Prussian Minister of Justice at Zehnhoff that has survived , it says on August 5, 1922:

“Dear Chief President!

In its meeting today, the Prussian State Ministry decided to appoint you as the highest judicial official in the country. In congratulating you on this honor, I would also like to thank you warmly for having decided, at my urgent request, while neglecting your personal interests, to leave your cherished post in Düsseldorf and move to the Supreme Court. I am convinced that you will be able to benefit the fatherland even more here than in Düsseldorf.

With great respect and best regards

Your most devoted at the Zehnhoff. "

Deposition by the National Socialists

The President of the Court of Appeal Eduard Tigges had made himself unpopular with the right-wing extremists because the large disciplinary senate of the court under his chairmanship had convicted two right-wing judges Hoffmann and Kölling (on the background: Magdeburg judicial scandal ).

"The judgment, which the President of the Chamber Court Tigges justified with classic clarity and concise completeness, combines ruthless determination and clarity in the matter itself with humanity and mildness towards the accused (...) Nobody who followed the solemn pronouncement of the verdict in the large plenary chamber of the Chamber Court is, the minutes will be forgotten as soon as possible. It was not only human fates that were completed here, it was also the work of the self-purification of the judiciary. "

The SA forced its way into the Supreme Court to get Jewish judges and lawyers out. The police did nothing. Some broke into the official apartment located there. Others tried to hoist the swastika flag on the dome of the court . To no avail, since the President had taken the keys to the entrance in time. The newly appointed Justice Minister Kerrl , previously a middle-class judicial officer, was reportedly unavailable. Spontaneously, the president drove to the ministry to force the man in charge to intervene. The latter refused to speak to him by not showing up. The President of the Court of Appeal then resigned from his position under protest, a unique event in the history of the Prussian judiciary! For weeks the rulers searched unsuccessfully for incriminating material. Then he was retired “with thanks from the Fatherland” within 24 hours.

literature

  • Oda Cordes: Marie Munk (1885–1978) Leben und Werk , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2015, pp. 114–116, 198–212, 925–926.
  • Rudolf Wassermann : “The Supreme Court should stay”. A walk through the history of the most famous German dish (1468–1945) . Berlin 2004, pp. 88-90.
  • Erik Amburger: The Chamber Court and its Presidents . Berlin 1955, pp. 54-55.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Oda Cordes: Marie Munk (1885–1978) life and work . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2015, pp. 198–199, 200–212
  2. ^ Oda Cordes: Marie Munk (1885–1978) life and work . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2015, pp. 114–116, 925–926
  3. ↑ Miss. Information from the Göttingen University Archives (Prof. v. Seile); Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 2: L-Z. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1931, DNB 453960294 , Sp. 1911 (with a portrait from younger years); Family news
  4. ^ Extract from the Vossische Zeitung
  5. ^ Hans Tigges: A student's memory of the seizure of power in 1933
personal data
SURNAME Tigges, Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, President of the Supreme Court (1922–1933)
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Sachsenberg near Schwerin
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1945
Place of death Wuppertal - Barmen