Erich Stolleis

Erich Peter Stolleis (born June 7, 1906 in Gimmeldingen ; † July 24, 1986 in Mußbach ; both places have been districts of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse since 1969 ) was a German lawyer . During the time of National Socialism he was first mayor of Landau in the Palatinate and then Lord Mayor of Ludwigshafen am Rhein .

family

Stolleis was born in Gimmeldingen, Kunzengasse 11, as the son of the winery owner Heinrich Stolleis and his wife Lisa. Hoos born. Erich Stolleis' older son is the legal historian Michael Stolleis , who also made outstanding contributions to the legal history of National Socialism. Michael Stolleis dedicated the first volume of his history of public law in Germany to the memory of his father in 1988 . The family's winery, the Carl-Theodor-Hof on the western edge of Mußbach, is run by Stolleis' younger son Peter.

Life

After graduating from the Humanist Gymnasium (today Kurfürst-Ruprecht-Gymnasium Neustadt ), Erich Stolleis studied law at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . In 1926 he became active in the Corps Isaria . In 1929 he passed the assessor exam . The Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen doctorate him in 1931 Doctor of Laws .

time of the nationalsocialism

→ Main article : Era of National Socialism

Stolleis has been campaigning for the National Socialist German Workers' Party since 1929 and became a party member on May 1, 1931 (No. 519.227). From 1933 to February 1940 he was NSDAP Gauamtsleiter (head of the Gaurechtsamt) as well as NSDAP Gau leader in the Gau Saarpfalz of the Federation of National Socialist German Jurists (BNSDJ, until the renaming in 1936) and the National Socialist Legal Guards Association (NSRB, from the renaming in 1936). From September 16, 1935 to April 1, 1937 he acted as NSDAP district leader of Landau. In the SA , which he had joined in 1932, he rose over the years to SA Obersturmbannführer .

Stolleis was by its own account 1932-1935 lawyer , but kept his license until February 1939. From April 27 to September 30, 1935 he was Councilor at police headquarters Saarbrücken and from 1 October 1935 to 30 April 1937 Mayor of Landau . On May 7, 1937, at the instigation of the district leader Karl Kleemann and the Gauleiter Josef Bürckel, he was appointed Lord Mayor of Ludwigshafen am Rhein.

Since Stolleis occupied the city administration with people he trusted, tensions arose with the local party base, in the course of which the Gauleiter finally backed him up after initial hesitation. Already in Landau, Stolleis supported the anti-Jewish measures that began in 1933; in Ludwigshafen he brought the "de-Jewification" sought by the NSDAP to a large extent to a conclusion. On October 3, 1939, Stolleis instructed the police chief of Ludwigshafen in writing to “give any necessary emphasis and to remove the Jews from Ludwigshafen” to the request to Jews who had moved in to leave the city . On January 13, 1941, he was appointed by the trustee for the Jewish assets in the Gau Westmark as general representative for the assets of the Ludwigshafen Jews.

He was particularly committed to urban planning and incorporations . After the incorporation of Maudach , Oggersheim , Oppau and Rheingönheim , the Lord Mayor was given a new chain of office on April 1, 1938 in a solemn city council meeting in the Pfalzbau . In his celebratory address, he announced further large-scale projects that he was no longer able to realize.

Second World War

Stolleis reported to the Wehrmacht for the first time at the end of April 1940 with the approval of the Gauleiter, leaving a deputy behind, and initially remained for six months as a soldier on military training areas. On October 25, 1940, three days after being triggered by Gauleiter deportation of the remaining Jews, he was back in Ludwigshafen and held sway until the end of March 1941 from his post as mayor. On April 1, he moved in again, now as a non-commissioned officer , with a permit from the Gauleiter, this time limited to "two to three months".

The planned resumption of official business in Ludwigshafen did not take place because Stolleis was taken prisoner by the British for six years in North Africa towards the end of the planned period on June 15, 1941 . He spent it in the Murchison camp in the Australian state of Victoria . There he organized a "training work" for further training of fellow prisoners, which he directed together with a medical officer and a sergeant major . The degrees were recognized (as with similar self-help institutions) by the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and National Education . In 1947 Stolleis returned home.

post war period

In 1950, Stolleis acquired the Carl-Theodor-Hof winery in Mußbach and ran it alongside his work as a lawyer. Since the mid-1950s he tried again to gain influence in local, state and federal politics. He ran in the state elections in 1955 in the constituency of the Vorderpfalz for a Free Community of Voters and was a direct candidate of the German Party (DP) for the federal elections in 1957 in the constituency of Frankenthal (Palatinate) .

After lengthy, unsuccessful negotiations with the city of Ludwigshafen regarding the payment of a pension, Stolleis brought an administrative action in April 1953, which was successful in the first instance and finally rejected in the second instance. An ordinary legal action for payment of an arrears pension was also unsuccessful. Political interventions, in which the then CDU parliamentary group leader in the city and state parliaments, Helmut Kohl , was involved, ultimately led to him being granted a "quasi-pension" from the end of 1967.

In the context of these disputes about the pension, Josef Suttor, a long-time friend and colleague of Stolleis, signed a paper on January 16, 1967, in which for the first time something about the police operation against the SA, which was often mentioned afterwards, could be found. When Stolleis got married in Wernigerode in November 1938 and only "found out about the riots of the SA against the Jews on the morning after the so-called Reichskristallnacht " , he immediately called the police president and asked for "police measures against the SA" . This representation has been confirmed elsewhere several times.

Quotes

In 1936 Stolleis had the equestrian statue of Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria on Landauer Max-Joseph-Platz moved from the center to the edge and turned 90 degrees to the south. “The old gentleman has looked to Palestine long enough!” By “Palestine” he meant the Jewish commercial buildings on the east side of today's Town Hall Square.

Gauleiter Bürckel is said to have called the Stolleis, which he actually sponsored, around 1940 as "Party enemy No. 1". It is unclear when the rumor arose and where it came from; it could refer to Stolleis' alleged distancing from the SA immediately after the Reichskristallnacht in 1938.

Works

• The Carl-Theodor-Hof, winery and winery Peter Stolleis, Gimmeldingen-Mußbach on the German Wine Route . Industrial and advertising printing, Lampertheim 1963.

literature

• Lothar Meinzer: Stations and structures of the National Socialist seizure of power: Ludwigshafen am Rhein and the Palatinate in the first years of the Third Reich . Publications of the City Archives Ludwigshafen am Rhein. tape 9 . Ludwigshafen 1983, ISBN 3-924667-18-7 .
• Ulrike Minor, Peter Ruf: Jews in Ludwigshafen . Publications of the City Archives Ludwigshafen am Rhein. tape 15 . Ludwigshafen 1992, ISBN 3-924667-19-5 .
• Stefan Mörz, Klaus-Jürgen Becker (Hrsg.): History of the city of Ludwigshafen am Rhein (II) . Publications of the City Archives Ludwigshafen am Rhein. tape 33 . Ludwigshafen 2003, ISBN 3-924667-35-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 82 , 1108
2. ↑ Dissertation: The international labor protection law . Kallmünz 1931.
3. ↑ Ulrike Minor, Peter Ruf: Juden in Ludwigshafen , p. 160.
4. ↑ Stadtarchiv Ludwigshafen, LUN 1644 file : Erich Stolleis file note , April 8, 1941
5. ↑ Stadtarchiv Ludwigshafen, Rats-Protocols: Minutes of the private consultation with the councilors of the Ludwigshafen district. Rh. Of July 7, 1941, communication from the chairman of the meeting, the deputy Josef Suttor
6. ^ Stadtarchiv Ludwigshafen, memo , 1943
7. ^ District administrative court Neustadt: judgment , October 20, 1953
8. ^ Higher Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palatinate: Judgment 2 A 77/53 , May 14, 1954
9. ^ Stadt-Archiv Ludwigshafen, LUN 1644 file: Letter from Josef Suttor , January 16, 1967
10. ^ Stefan Mörz: History of the City of Ludwigshafen am Rhein , Volume 2, p. 358
11. ↑ In the hardly changed 2nd edition (1991) only as Ludwigshafen am Rhein and the Palatinate in the first years of the Third Reich