Ernst Eckardt (lawyer)
Ernst Bruno Eckardt (born June 12, 1880 in Annen ; † December 28, 1945 in the Staumühle internment camp ) was a German lawyer . He was the presiding judge at the Dortmund Special Court and, with more than 60 death sentences, is considered the bloodiest judge in the Dortmund judiciary.
Legal career
As the son of the engineer and manufacturer Ernst Eckardt, he received a conservative upbringing in his Protestant parental home that tended towards self-denial. The strictness of the upbringing led to a sense of duty without critical distance from the tasks and an unconditional affirmation of the authority of the state. After studying law, he worked in Dortmund from 1903 to 1907 as a court referendar , then from 1907 as a court assessor .
In Schleswig he was a judge at the local court from July 1913. In the First World War he served as a soldier in the front line, where he suffered several wounds. He received the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class as an award . In 1919 he returned to Dortmund as a major in the reserve and took up the position of judge at the Dortmund Regional Court . He was appointed district judge in 1923 and district court director in 1925 . In 1923 he was one exception court in Dortmund District Court , where he was working as assessors.
After his parents died, he married in 1937, the marriage remained childless. In his free time he worked in the Dortmund hiking club. Whenever he spent vacation in health resorts, he went to places in western and southern Germany without exception.
Trial of the Schwanenfall affair
In 1932 a special court was set up for the months from August to December, at which Eckardt was appointed chairman by the district court president Palm. He received a lot of attention through several political trials. The process of police officers in the Schwanenfall affair in 1932, who had taken action against violent members of the NSDAP , became known. In the verdict, Eckart's police officers were sentenced to between four months and one year and three months in prison. In addition, several of the police officers were not allowed to hold public office for three years. With this sentence, Eckardt went beyond the prosecutor's request. Judgment and judgment were viewed by the public as a scandal . The National Socialists, however, welcomed the verdict.
Relationship to the NSDAP
In 1932 Eckardt was also chairman of the Dortmund jury court . In this function, Eckardt negotiated the murder of the National Socialist Albrecht of two communists who were shot at an NSDAP event near Dortmund. Eckardt sentenced several SA men to several years in prison. The jury had to decide on the basis of evidence , with Eckardt acting intensively on the jury. With this, Eckardt had turned large circles of the SA and the NSDAP against him. Nevertheless, on May 1, 1933, he became a member of the NSDAP with the number 3,576,731.
Despite the extreme hardship in the trials at the Dortmund Special Court, he was unable to continue his career as a lawyer. All proposals by the NSDAP to appoint Eckardt as President of the Senate or President of the Regional Court were rejected.
Chair at the special court in Dortmund
On May 15, 1933, the Dortmund Special Court was established at the Dortmund Regional Court. The area of jurisdiction of the special court included the district of the Hamm Higher Regional Court . Eckardt was appointed chairman of the special court. During his trial, at least 61 death sentences were pronounced, the majority of which were carried out. He regularly turned down requests for clemency.
Eckardt is therefore considered to be the judge who pronounced the most death sentences in Dortmund's legal history. In 1937 the President of the Regional Court, Paul Koch , gave the following assessment of him:
Iron criminal judge. Since 1933 he has headed the special court for the OLG district of Hamm in a strict military sense with relentless severity and determination to the full satisfaction of the party offices, the secret state police and the prosecution…. His administration shows that he stands up unreservedly for the National Socialist state. He has no nerves, he is healthy .
This assessment was called into question in November 1941 when Eckardt was transferred to the Higher Regional Court in Prague. He collapsed on the first day, and the doctor Dietrich Jahn diagnosed a nervous breakdown. In the same month, the transfer back to Dortmund was permitted. When the Hagen Special Court was established from November 1942 to December 1943 in 1942, Eckardt presided over it, only to return to Dortmund in December 1943.
19-year-old Ilse Mitze was sentenced to death by Eckhardt and his assessors in 1944 for stealing some of her employer's knickers, shirts and stockings while cleaning up after an air raid. Ilse Mitze was beheaded with a guillotine on May 12, 1944 in the Dortmund remand prison .
Post war 1945
After the surrender of the Nazi regime on May 8, 1945, Eckardt stayed in Bad Berleburg . When a complaint was brought against him to the occupation forces, he was arrested on May 12, 1945. He was detained in the Staumühle Detention Center. There he died on December 28, 1945, the causes being given as weakness of the circulatory system, malnutrition and pneumonia.
The pastor Ernst Krause accompanied Eckardt in his last hours. He gave his impression on the death camp as follows:
There was no remorse over precipitated misjudgments , it tormented him no compunction about possibly illegal executions. Then a man and a judge died who had lived legally, clearly and from deep, conscientious responsibility .
Individual evidence
- ↑ See: Günther Högl (ed.), Resistance and Persecution in Dortmund 1933–1945 , Dortmund 1992, page 325
- ↑ See on this: Hans-Eckhard Niermann, The implementation of political and politicized criminal justice in the Third Reich , Düsseldorf 1995, page 242
- ↑ See: Carsten Dams, The Schwanenfall Affair in Dortmund 1932 - On the relationship between the police, justice and National Socialism in the final phase of the Weimar Republic . In: Günther Högl (ed.), Contributions to the history of Dortmund and the Grafschaft Mark , Volume 90, Dortmund 1999, pages 145–167
- ↑ See on this: Carsten Dams, ibid, page 163
- ↑ See on this: Hans-Eckhard Niermann, ibid, page 244
- ↑ Niermann states that Eckardt chaired almost 70 proceedings and in which a death sentence was imposed. See: Hans-Eckhard Niermann, ibid, page 246
- ↑ See: Günther Högl, ibid, page 325
- ↑ See: Hans-Eckard Niermann, ibid, page 245
- ↑ See: Hans-Eckhard Niermann, ibid, page 246
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Eckardt, Ernst |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Eckardt, Ernst Bruno (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German lawyer and presiding judge at the Dortmund Special Court |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 12, 1880 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Anne |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 28, 1945 |
| Place of death | Staumühle internment camp |