Erich Wedell

Erich Wilhelm Ernst Wedell (born October 15, 1888 in Eibenstock , † February 5, 1983 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer.

Live and act

Wedell was the son of the businessman Albert Wedell and his wife Elise, nee Siegel. In his youth he attended the community school from 1895 and the Latin school of his hometown from 1897. In 1901 he came to the Gymnasium zum Heiligen Kreuz in Dresden, where he passed the final examination in 1907. He then studied law and political science at the universities of Grenoble (1907), Leipzig (1907–1908) and Halle (1908–1910). On December 3, 1910, he passed the first state examination in law at the higher regional court in Naumburg an der Saale. He completed his legal preparatory service at the Kemberg District Court in the Halle district, at the Torgau District Court, the Halle Public Prosecutor's Office, with a lawyer and a notary in Halle and at the Naumburg District Court and Higher Regional Court (Saale) .

From August 1914 Wedell took part in the First World War with the 14th Field Artillery Regiment 55 Naumburg . He was deployed in Poland until September 1915 and then in France until the end of the war. After the war Wedell continued his education: at the University of Halle he submitted a dissertation on the basis of which he received his doctorate on August 8, 1919. On December 5, 1919, he passed the major state examination.

From January to June 1920 Wedell was a laborer at the Chamber of Commerce in Halle. He then worked for the German State Representation at the mixed court of arbitration in Paris created by the Versailles Treaty. Since August 24, 1922 Wedell was a lawyer at the regional, local and administrative court in Berlin. Together with Adolf von Gordon († 1925) and Werner Pünder , he founded a joint law firm in Berlin at that time. On May 3, 1928, Wedell was also admitted as a notary. On November 6, 1922, he married Annemarie Back. The marriage resulted in three daughters and one son.

Lawsuit against the Nazi government (1935)

The move by Wedell and his partner Pünder on March 27, 1935 on behalf of the family of the opposition member Erich Klausener , who was shot on June 30, 1934 at the behest of the Nazi government, received widespread attention as an act of political courage. The Berlin Regional Court filed a lawsuit for damages "for murder" against " the German Reich, represented by Adolf Hitler, and the Land of Prussia ”.

On the instructions of Gestapo chief Reinhard Heydrich , Wedell and Pünder were then taken into protective custody on April 16, 1935 . Wedell was taken to the Columbia-Haus concentration camp, where he was held in solitary confinement for six weeks. After initially considering shooting the two lawyers, they were released in the summer of 1935. Her step, which was singular in the legal history of the Nazi era, found multiple recognition after the Second World War. a. reflected in the foundation of the Werner Pünder Prize for research on totalitarianism.

Next life

On January 31, 1945, shortly before the end of World War II , Wedell was drafted into the Volkssturm without taking part in any fighting. On May 1, 1945, he was taken prisoner by the Soviets. He was first brought to Kralup an der Moldau and from there to the Pirna camp, from which he was released on August 22, 1945.

A few months after the end of the war, on September 29, 1945, Wedell applied for and received another license to practice as a lawyer and notary for the district of the Higher Regional Court in Berlin. He practiced his profession until the 1960s. He was dismissed from his office as a notary on December 31, 1977.

Fonts

• The relationship between the magistrate and the city council within the scope of the Prussian urban order for the eastern provinces , 1919.

literature

• Erika Bucholtz: The "house prison" of the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin , 2005.
• Angelika Königseder: Law and National Socialist Rule , 2001.