Ernst Hermsen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernst Hermsen (born January 1, 1883 in Essen , † after 1946) was a German lawyer. From September 1933 to 1945 he was the chairman of a criminal senate of the OLG Hamm , which was responsible for state and high treason matters. Because of its jurisdiction over 16 million court residents , the OLG Hamm was also referred to as the “small people's court ”.

Career until 1933

The son of a merchant studied at the universities of Munich , Berlin and Münster law and was in 1909 at the University of Heidelberg to the Dr. jur. PhD . He joined the judiciary in 1911 as a court assessor. From 1913 he was a district court advisor in Essen , became a district judge in 1921 and worked as a director at the Duisburg-Hamborn district court from 1922 and in Essen from 1923. From 1926 to mid-September 1933 he was President of the District Court in Koblenz . From 1924 to 1933 he was a member of the Center Party .

time of the nationalsocialism

The National Socialists transferred him to the higher regional court Hamm , which was responsible for political offenses such as high and state treason in its own district, as well as in the higher regional court districts of Düsseldorf , Cologne and from the area of ​​the OLG Celle for the district court districts of Aurich, Osnabrück, Verden and Hanover .

When the Gestapo succeeded in smashing the party and trade union organizations of the workers' movements in the Rhineland and Bergisches Land in 1935, an unprecedented series of mass trials began in Wuppertal (Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court), which became known abroad as the Wuppertal union trials . More than 650 defendants were sentenced in these trials by the three senates of the People's Court for preparation for high treason to drastic prison and penal terms. Hermsen, who never became a member of the NSDAP , particularly distinguished himself in the service of the National Socialist terror justice system. His unscrupulous and cynical way of conducting the litigation was shaped by the intention to continue and increase the physical and mental torment and torture of the accused, which they suffered by the Gestapo, and to impose long-term prison and penal sentences. He took no notice of the inhumane mistreatment the defendants were subjected to for the purpose of extorting confessions by the Gestapo and made their trial material available, as a result of which thousands more men and women were arrested, beaten, extorted, desecrated and sentenced to long prison terms.

In a high treason trial in 1937 against around 230 accused of the Hanoverian resistance movement “Socialist Front”, during which a worker jumped out of the window of the Düsseldorf police headquarters in order to avoid constant abuse by the Gestapo, Hermsen expressed himself cynically: “An a communist is more or less important to us. If the man had had a clear conscience, he would not have jumped out the window. "Trauden, the main defendant in these proceedings, sneered at the fact that as a war participant they wanted to let him get away with a" small warning "of 10 years in prison. The defendant Schütt, who complained about the mistreatment at the Gestapo, he said: "Yes, if you Communists are not beaten like dogs, nothing can be found out from you." This last statement was a modified form in almost all trials under Hermsen again. The witness Runge , whose trial was running before the People's Court in Düsseldorf, threatened to announce: "Thank God that you will not be tried by me, I would sentence you to death!" If the accused wanted to revoke their statements, which they under the Hermsen committed them to these statements and threatened them frequently enough to bring them back to the Gestapo. With regard to the witness Heidhausen, Hermsen said: “I think we have to use the death penalty so that we can cope with the communist plague.” Hermsen harshly forbade the witness Bachmann, who had been terribly mistreated. He had threatened the witness Schappe that he would be taken to the concentration camp after he had served his sentence , which he then did.

Like no other judge under the National Socialists, Hermsen was involved in securing their claim to power in the Rhenish-Westphalian region through his merciless judgment in political criminal proceedings. During his presidency, the two criminal senates of the Hamm Higher Regional Court sentenced a total of around 15,000 people up to 1945 for preparation for high treason and degradation of military strength , including countless death sentences. In addition, there were a further 12,000 convictions from the special courts of Bielefeld , Dortmund , Hagen and Essen , which were under the control of the Hamm Higher Regional Court. No other higher regional court, not even the notorious People's Court in Berlin, had tried more people in political proceedings between 1934 and 1945. There were no legal remedies in these proceedings.

After the war

After the Second World War , the British military government appointed Hermsen as President of the Higher Regional Court in Hamm in December 1945 because he had not joined the NSDAP, although accusations had been increasing in the military administration since September 1945. An article about him under the title The Hangman of the Ruhr even appeared in the New York newspaper Aufbau in June 1946 . An investigative committee, which met publicly from February to April 1946, led by Curt Staff , Walter Klaas and Heinrich Lingemann , came to the conclusion that although Hermsen was considered an opponent of National Socialism, he was involved in the Nazi tyranny because of his activities between 1933 and 1937 being identified. The military administration therefore had to retire early in May 1946. Its further whereabouts are still unclear.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adolf Merkel's theory of retaliation , Essen-Rüttenscheid 1909 (dissertation)
  2. ^ The protocols of the Prussian State Ministry 1817-1934 / 38: Vol. 12, April 4, 1925 to May 10, 1938 / edit. by Reinhold Zilch, with collabor. by Bärbel Holtz. Acta Borussica, New Series / ed. from the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (formerly the Prussian Academy of Sciences)., Volume 2, Olms-Weidmann, 2004, p. 588
  3. ↑ a b c Edith Raim: Justice between dictatorship and democracy , 2013, pp. 364–370.
personal data
SURNAME Hermsen, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Judge and Senate President of the Hamm Special Court
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH after 1946