Erna Scheffler

Erna Haßlacher , b. Friedenthal, later Scheffler (born September 21, 1893 in Breslau ; † May 22, 1983 in London ) was a German lawyer and judge at the Federal Constitutional Court .

Apprenticeship and first years of employment

She attended secondary schools in Liegnitz and Breslau and passed her Abitur in 1911 as an external student at a boys' grammar school in Ratibor . She first studied medicine for a semester in Heidelberg and then switched to law in Breslau, Munich and Berlin . In December 1914, she completed her studies with a doctorate in Breslau. The topic of the dissertation was: Penal measures . At that time women were not yet admitted to the state law examination . She first worked in social welfare and then as an assistant in a legal practice. She married her first husband Fritz Haßlacher in 1916 and had a daughter in 1917. Until 1918 she was employed as a lawyer in the German civil administration in occupied Belgium, where her husband worked. After the First World War , she found employment with the Association of German Architects and in various law firms. From 1921 women were also allowed to take state exams. In 1922 she passed the first state examination and in 1925 the second state examination. Their marriage ended in divorce during their legal clerkship. From the end of 1925 to July 1928 she was a lawyer at the regional courts I to III in Berlin and at the district court in Berlin-Mitte . Afterwards she was a court assessor in Berlin, since February 1930 permanent laborer and since 1932 district court advisor at the district court Berlin-Mitte.

1933 to 1945

In April 1933 she was given a forced leave of absence and in July was initially recognized as an " Aryan " and was able to remain in office. In November 1933, however, she was banned from her profession with retroactive effect from March 1, 1933, as her Jewish origin had meanwhile been established. She received only a small pension. The second marriage with the judge of the chamber judge Georg Scheffler was forbidden in May 1934 because she was "half-Jewish". She worked as an accountant in a friend's shop and distributed ration cards in her neighborhood during the war. From January 1945 until the end of the war she hid in a garden shed outside Berlin.

After 1945

Immediately after the war she married Georg Scheffler and returned to the judiciary at the end of May 1945, first as a regional judge and later as a regional court director at the Berlin regional court. After the currency reform in 1948, she became an administrative judge in Düsseldorf and then director of the administrative court at the Düsseldorf Administrative Court . At the German Juristentag in 1950 she gave a lecture on the subject of equality between men and women and recommended herself as a federal constitutional judge. In September 1951 she was the only woman appointed to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe , where she was a judge until 1963. She then worked as an expert before the Interior Committee of the German Bundestag and in disputes under collective bargaining law.

Scheffler was a member of the German Association of Women Lawyers and founder of the Soroptimist International Club Karlsruhe, which awards the Erna Scheffler Prize for young women scientists every two years .

She died in 1983 with her daughter in London .

literature

• Antje Dertinger : women from the very beginning. From the founding years of the Federal Republic , J. Latka Verlag, Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-925-06811-2 . (P. 155ff)
• Erhard HM Lange: Dr. Erna Scheffler, b. Friedenthal (1893-1983). A woman from Wroclaw - first female judge at the Federal Constitutional Court . In: Yearbook of the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelms University in Breslau . Volume 42-44, 2001-2003, pp. 521-576.
• Till van Rahden: Democracy and Fatherly Authority. The Karlsruhe casting vote in the political culture of the early Federal Republic . In: Contemporary historical research . Volume 2, 2005, pp. 160-179. http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/site/40208410/default.aspx
• Christian Waldhoff : Erna Scheffler - first female judge at the Federal Constitutional Court . In: Yearbook of Public Law of the Present . New series, Volume 56, 2008, pp. 261-268 ISSN  0075-2517
• Hansen, Marike: “Erna Scheffler (1893–1983). First judge at the Federal Constitutional Court and pioneer of a more gender equitable society”. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 2019.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Soroptimists International

Web links

• Literature by and about Erna Scheffler in the catalog of the German National Library