Elsbeth of Ameln

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Elsbeth von Ameln (* 16th June 1905 in Cologne as Elsbeth Pollitz ; † thirtieth April 1990 ibid) was a German lawyer to the Allied military courts and later in the office - and Cologne Regional Court . After receiving her doctorate on February 18, 1933, she was ostracized during the Nazi era , as her father was of Jewish descent, and not admitted to the bar. In 1944 she resisted the deportation order and spent the last few months on the run. In April 1945, she was approved by the military government to serve in the American military and civil courts. Its powers were later extended to all Allied military courts. Since 1946 she was admitted to the Cologne District and Regional Court as a defense lawyer .

life and work

Elsbeth Pollitz was born in Cologne as the first daughter of the Jewish authorized signatory Oskar Pollitz and his wife Josephine Reh. She grew up in a middle-class family in Cologne. Her father Oskar Pollitz converted to evangelicalism before the wedding in 1903 . Elsbeth Pollitz attended the Kaiserin-Augusta-Schule and the Königin-Luise-Gymnasium in Cologne. Elsbeth Pollitz was confirmed at Easter 1920 . After graduating from school, she began studying law in Marburg in 1925 and moved to Cologne at the end of 1927. In 1925 she was the only law student in her semester in Marburg. She completed her legal clerkship at the local court in Brühl, where she was trained by judge Marie Klahr. Later she worked at the civil chamber , the public prosecutor's office and at the jury in Cologne. In June 1929 she passed the legal clerkship examination in Cologne and began working on her doctorate. Her professional goal was to be a defense lawyer at the juvenile court . On February 18, 1933, she did her doctorate with Gotthold Bohne on the subject of "The Court Assistant".

She only found out about her Jewish descent in April 1933 through the repititor Victor Loewenwarter , a relative of her father who was preparing Elsbeth Pollitz for the assessor examination. As a result of her declaration on the law to restore the professional civil service , she was informed on August 23, 1933 by the President of the Cologne Higher Regional Court that she could still complete the Grand State Examination , but that she would not be appointed as a court assessor.

On October 17, 1933, she married the lawyer Hermann von Ameln, whom she had met in 1928 during her legal clerkship at the auction and land registry department.

On June 2, 1934, Elsbeth von Ameln passed the legal state examination in Berlin . Eight days later she was dismissed from civil service as a “ Jewish half-breed ” on the basis of the lawyer’s law and denied her appointment as a lawyer. In the following years she worked in the office of her husband. She worked with him on the new editions of Viktor Loewenwarter's textbooks. Out of concern for her father, Elsbeth von Ameln decided against emigrating . She was involved in the Paulus Bund , the association of non-Aryan Christians , of which she was deputy chairwoman in 1936. After the chairman, Kurt Frankenstein , fell ill , she took over the leadership of the Cologne Paulus Association in 1937. After the passing of the law that forbids Jewish citizens to get involved in associations, the Cologne association dissolved in 1937. As a precaution, Elsbeth von Ameln immediately destroyed all association documents. Two days later, she was summoned to the Cologne Gestapo headquarters, the El-DE-Haus , but was released after the interrogation .

Because her husband was married to a Jewish “mixed race”, he became increasingly socially isolated and during the Second World War he was not called up for military service. Due to the exclusion, the law firm almost completely came to a standstill. In November 1939, her husband was denounced and the exclusion from the Bar Association threatened because he employed his wife in the office and Oscar Pollitz lived with in the family home. The couple moved to Braunsfeld at Paulistraße 11, while their parents had to move to a small apartment in Lindenthal . The couple's closest friends at this time were the former Senate President Alfred Wieruszowski and his wife , Frieda Fischer-Wieruszowski , who had been director of the East Asian Museum in Cologne for many years, and shared a similar fate.

When in the last years of the war people of Jewish descent were increasingly marginalized, hostile and deported together with their non-Jewish spouses , Elsbeth von Ameln decided to go into hiding in 1944 after receiving the deportation order. She initially fled to friends within Cologne, to Düren and later again to Cologne and Remscheid . Her husband was called up for the Volkssturm in Müngersdorf on February 28, 1945 .

Just one month after Cologne was liberated by the US Army , Elsbeth von Ameln was admitted to the American military tribunal on April 2, 1945 as a criminal defense lawyer. On June 6, 1945, the Allied occupying powers extended her powers as judge to all military and civil courts. In June 1945 the Cologne juvenile court gave her the appointment as a court assessor, which she refused in 1934. On April 13, 1946, she was admitted to the bar at the Cologne District and Regional Court. She worked as a criminal defense attorney for many years while her husband was engaged in civil matters . In 1952 they opened a joint law firm on Gereonsplatz.

Until her retirement on July 2, 1984, she was instrumental in building up the democratic judiciary in Cologne. She was committed to the revival of the German Lawyers' Association in Cologne after the Second World War. She was elected to the permanent deputation of the German Lawyers' Association, but renounced her seat.

Elsbeth von Ameln died on April 30, 1990 in Cologne.

souvenir

Stumbling block for Elsbeth von Ameln, laid in front of the Queen Luise School in Cologne in March 2019.

On March 18, 2019, the artist Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block in front of the entrance to the Königin-Luise-Schule in memory of Elsbeth von Ameln .

Works by Elsbeth von Ameln (selection)

  • Elsbeth Pollitz: The court assistant , doctorate, Cologne 1933
  • Elsbeth von Ameln: Cologne, Appellhofplatz: Looking back on an eventful life , Cologne 1985, ISBN 978-3-87909-147-8

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Elsbeth von Ameln (née Pollitz) - Queen Luise School | Municipal high school for boys and girls. Retrieved March 24, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Irene Franken with the help of Saskia Morrell and Marina Wittka: “Yes, it is difficult to study women!” Female students and lecturers at Cologne University until 1933 . Ed .: Women's representative of the University of Cologne; Cologne Women's History Association; University and City Library Cologne. M & T Verlag, Cologne 1995, p. 115 .
  3. ^ Marion Röwekamp: The first German lawyers . Böhlau Verlag, 2011, ISBN 3-412-21439-6 , pp. 414 .
  4. ^ A b Marion Röwekamp: Lawyers: Lexicon to life and work . Ed .: German Association of Women Lawyers. 1st edition. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2005, ISBN 3-8329-1597-4 , p. 14 .
  5. ^ A b c d Klaus Luig: ... because he is not of Aryan descent .. Jewish lawyers in Cologne during the Nazi era . Ed .: Cologne Bar Association. O. Schmidt, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-504-01012-6 , pp. 105-107 .
  6. ^ Marion Röwekamp: The first German lawyers. Böhlau Verlag, 2011, ISBN 3-412-21439-6 , pp. 668 .
  7. ↑ Alexander-Sas̆a Vuletić: Christians of Jewish Origin in the Third Reich: Persecution and Organized Self-Help 1933-1939 . P. von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-1967-3 , p. 242 .
  8. ↑ Elsbeth von Ameln: Cologne, Appellhofplatz: Review of an eventful life . Wienand, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-87909-147-1 , p. 85 .
  9. ^ Marion Röwekamp: The first German lawyers . Böhlau Verlag, 2011, ISBN 3-412-21439-6 , pp. 657 .
  10. ^ Claudia Huerkamp: Bildungsbürgerinnen: Women in studies and in academic professions 1900-1945 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1996, ISBN 3-525-35675-7 , pp. 288 .
  11. ^ Marion Röwekamp: The first German lawyers . Böhlau Verlag, 2011, ISBN 3-412-21439-6 , pp. 672 .
  12. ↑ A Jewish Life in Nazi Germany - Memoirs of Elsbeth von Ameln. May 22, 2016, accessed March 17, 2019 .
  13. ^ Marion Röwekamp: Jurists: Lexicon to life and work . Ed .: German Association of Women Lawyers. 1st edition. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2005, ISBN 3-8329-1597-4 , p. 116 .
  14. ^ Deutscher Juristinnenbund (Ed.): Jurists in Germany: the period from 1900 to 2003 . 4th, revised edition Nomos, Baden-Baden 2003, ISBN 3-8329-0359-3 , p. 40 .

literature

  • Survival underground - Dr. Elsbeth von Ameln , In: Simone Ladwig-Winters: Lawyer Without Law: Fates of Jewish Lawyers in Germany after 1933 , 2007, ISBN 9783898090742 , p. 261ff.
  • Irene Franken with the help of Saskia Morell and Marina Wittka: “Yes, it is difficult to study women! Students and lecturers at Cologne University until 1933 ” . Ed .: Women's representative of the University of Cologne, Cologne Women's History Association, Cologne University and City Library, Cologne 1995, p. 115 (short biography)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ameln, Elsbeth from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pollitz, Elsbeth (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and defense attorney
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1990
Place of death Cologne