Ernst Wolff (lawyer)

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Ernst Bernhard August Wolff (born November 20, 1877 in Berlin , † January 11, 1959 in Tübingen ) was a German lawyer and President of the Supreme Court of the British zone of occupation in Germany.

Family, studies and military service

His father was the general physician Ernst Wolff. His mother Therese von Simson was the daughter of Eduard von Simsons , the first President of the Imperial Court . In 1895 Wolff passed the Abitur examination at the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Berlin. In the same year he began studying law in Lausanne and Berlin. Five days after his first state examination in Berlin, Wolff entered the Prussian civil service on November 26, 1898 as a trainee lawyer. The doctorate to Dr. jur. Wolff obtained "magna cum laude" on June 22, 1899 with a work on the subject of the liability of the counselor .

After completing his military service as a one-year volunteer , he passed the second state examination in law on July 11, 1904. Since he had already worked as a trainee lawyer in the legal practice of his uncle August von Simson, he resigned after his admission as a lawyer on July 4. October 1904 in his office on Jägerstrasse.

Lawyer in Berlin

With the outbreak of war he was drafted in 1914. He was seriously wounded in the Battle of the Marne near Sancy and was taken prisoner. As an intern, he came to Bern and worked there in the German embassy. He finished his military service as captain of the reserve , awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class.

After his return, Wolff, who had been admitted to the Central District Court and the Berlin District Courts I, II and III since August 1919 , resumed his legal practice. In the same year 1919 he was admitted as a notary . He established himself as one of the leading lawyers in the field of business advice and arbitration proceedings in Belgian-German and German-French disputes. When weapons were used during a demonstration in the course of the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, thirteen workers were killed and 41 injured. In the criminal case against Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach , he and other lawyers took over the defense.

In 1929 he became chairman of the Berlin Bar Association , which he joined in 1918. It was not until 1933 that he had to give up this office. His recognition as a lawyer was also reflected in the fact that he was elected chairman of the Association of Boards of Directors of the German Bar Associations in 1929. Ernst Wolff was also a member of the "Permanent Deputation", a group of twenty-four respected lawyers who were responsible for organizing the German Juristentage .

Until 1933, Ernst Wolff took part in traineeship training as a lawyer, including lawyers who later held well-known positions, Walter Hallstein , Hans-Joachim von Merkatz , Ulrich Scheuner and Walter Strauss, who later became State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice . The economic situation of the legal profession, especially the career prospects of young lawyers, deteriorated considerably as a result of the global economic crisis in the early 1930s. After heated, repeated discussions, the Assembly of Representatives of the German Lawyers' Association on December 4, 1932, came out in favor of restricting new admissions ; Ernst Wolff was a member of the delegation that presented this proposal to Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner at the beginning of February 1933 .

Conflict with the Nazi regime

The first confrontation with the National Socialists took place in 1932 as a result of abuse by the leader of the NSDAP parliamentary group in the Prussian state parliament , Wilhelm Kube , against the German legal profession. Rudolf Dix and he, as representatives of the German lawyers' associations, rejected these allegations in a statement read out to the state parliament on July 5, 1932. When, after the Reichstag fire, some of the accused's lawyers were arrested and their files confiscated, Wolff intervened with the judicial authorities on March 3, 1933. When the NSDAP came to power in January 1933, the entire board of the Berlin Bar Association resigned on March 22, 1933. Wolff also spoke out in favor of the self-dissolution of the German Juristentag, which was decided in a special session of the permanent deputation on April 29, 1933.

Like his parents and grandparents, Wolff was a Protestant Christian, but because of his Jewish ancestors he fell under the Aryan paragraphs of the Professional Civil Service Act of April 7, 1933, which was also applied to lawyers. However, since he had fought in World War I, he was allowed to practice law in 1933 for the time being. After the Nuremberg Laws were passed , his notary's office was withdrawn at the end of 1935. Ernst Wolff worked as a lawyer in Berlin until the general professional ban on lawyers considered to be Jews, which came into force on December 1, 1938. On February 16, 1938, he emigrated to England with his wife Richardis.

Exile in England and return

In England, Wolff, with his excellent knowledge of German company law, was soon able to act as chairman of a commission for questions relating to a peace treaty. When the Bishop of Chichester , George Bell, proposed him as chairman of a commission for the reform of German law, he also took on this task. On July 19, 1943, he submitted a memorandum in which new principles for reform were proposed. Thoughts of revenge and retribution played no part.

In 1947 Wolff returned to Germany alone - his wife had died in a bombing raid on London . The occupation authorities appointed Wolff Vice President on December 1, 1947 and President of the Supreme Court of the British Zone on March 1, 1949 . At the University of Cologne he was appointed honorary professor in 1950 and held lectures on the practice of civil law until 1958 .

When the Federal Court of Justice was founded in 1950 , Wolff was initially considered as its president. However, after Hermann Weinkauff , the Federal Minister of Justice's candidate, Thomas Dehler , had prevailed, Wolff's term as judge ended. The first German Juristentag after 1931 took place in Cologne in 1949 under his presidency. He also headed the Juristentage in Frankfurt in 1950 and in Stuttgart in 1951.

In 1959 he died at a family reunion in Tübingen. In the local cemetery he was buried next to his brother Walter Wolff and the Federal Constitutional Court judge Bernhard Wolff .

Awards

Fonts

As an author:

  • Relationships under private law between former enemies after the peace treaty. Vahlen, Berlin 1921.
  • Eduard von Simson. Heymann, Berlin 1929.
  • Bonds in Reichs- and Goldmark with a false value clause. German printing and publishing house, Mannheim 1935.
  • The Problem of Pre-War Contracts in Peace Treaties. Stevens, London 1946.
  • Pre-war treaties in peace treaties. De Gruyter, Berlin / Mohr, Tübingen 1949.
  • Civil law and procedural law in interaction. Mohr, Tübingen 1952.

As editor:

  • Contributions to civil law. De Gruyter, Berlin / Mohr, Tübingen 1950.
  • Contributions to public law. De Gruyter, Berlin / Mohr, Tübingen 1950.
  • Contributions to commercial and business law. De Gruyter, Berlin / Mohr, Tübingen 1950.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Simone Ladwig-Winters: Lawyer without law. The fate of Jewish lawyers in Berlin after 1933. 2nd edition. Bebra, Berlin 2007, p. 284.
  2. ^ Friedemann Utz: Prussian, Protestant, Pragmatist. State Secretary Walter Strauss and his state. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, p. 20.
  3. ^ Tillmann Krach: Jewish lawyers in Prussia. About the importance of the free lawyer and its destruction by National Socialism. Beck, Munich 1991, pp. 47 f., 52-54.
  4. ^ Tillmann Krach: Jewish lawyers in Prussia. About the importance of the free lawyer and its destruction by National Socialism. Beck, Munich 1991, p. 79 f.
  5. Horst Göppinger : Jurists of Jewish descent in the “Third Reich”. Disenfranchisement and persecution. 2nd Edition. Beck, Munich 1990, p. 118 ff.
  6. Ernst Wolff: Memories from the permanent deputation of the German Juristentag. In: Süddeutsche Juristen-Zeitung . Vol. 5 (1950), H. 11 (November), Col. 817-820 ( digitized from JSTOR ).
  7. ^ Udo Wengst : Thomas Dehler 1897–1967. A political biography. Oldenbourg, Munich 1997, p. 148.