Erwin Bumke

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Erwin Bumke

Erwin Konrad Eduard Bumke (born July 7, 1874 in Stolp ( Pomerania ), † April 20, 1945 in Leipzig ) was a German lawyer and President of the Reich Court .

Life

Erwin Bumke's family came from the Pomeranian bourgeoisie, his father was a doctor and his mother the daughter of a factory owner. His brother Oswald Bumke became known as a psychiatrist. Bumke was married to Eva von Merkatz, aunt of the later Federal Minister Hans-Joachim von Merkatz . Both sons Erwin and Wolfgang Bumke died in the war in 1942 and 1945, respectively.

After studying law in Freiburg, Leipzig, Munich, Berlin and Greifswald, he began to work in 1907 for the Reich Justice Office , which later became the Reich Ministry of Justice .

At the First World War Bumke took over as captain in part.

Two days after the American invasion in Leipzig committed Bumke on April 20, 1945 suicide .

Political party

Between 1919 and 1929 Erwin Bumke was a member of the national-conservative DNVP . During the “Third Reich”, Bumke was a sponsoring member of the SS from July 1933 and a member of the NSDAP from 1937 .

Political orientation

Erwin Bumke was one of the national-conservative lawyers in the judicial service who were willing to serve the Third Reich, alongside the Reich Minister of Justice Franz Gürtner and the State Secretary and Acting Reich Minister of Justice Franz Schlegelberger .

Offices

Imperial court building in Leipzig, around 1900

As head of Department II (criminal matters), among other things, he prepared the Reichstag bill for a new penal code of 1927, which of course was never finalized. In 1930 Erwin Bumke became President of the International Criminal Law and Prison Commission. In 1929 Bumke became President of the Reich Court. Under his leadership, the State Court of Justice for the German Reich declared in the main decision of October 25, 1932 the (emergency) ordinance of the Reich President regarding the restoration of public safety and order in the territory of the State of Prussia of July 20, 1932 ( RGBl. I, P. 377) for constitutional, insofar as it appointed the Reich Chancellor as Reich Commissioner for Prussia and empowered him to temporarily withdraw official powers from Prussian state ministers and to take over these powers themselves or to transfer them to other Reich commissioners (see Prussian strike ).

In December 1932, the Reichstag changed the Weimar Constitution (WRV) . Since then, according to Art. 51 para. 1 no longer the Reich Chancellor, but the Reichsgerichtspräsident, the representative of a Reich President who was unable to attend. The same was true according to Art. 51 para. 2 WRV also in the case of an “early termination of the presidency until the new election is held”. After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on August 2, 1934 - a little more than two years after his re-election - this was overlooked without further ado.

Bumke was chairman of the third criminal senate for " blood protection ". On 23/24 In April 1941 he was a participant in a conference of the highest lawyers in Berlin, in which the murders of the T4 were legalized as "the destruction of life unworthy of life". The death sentence that the Reichsgericht, under the personal direction of Erwin Bumke, sentenced Ewald Schlitt in 1942 was "nothing other than a judicial murder."

Afterlife

During the National Socialist era , Bumke was responsible for a number of unjust judgments. Perhaps that is why the portraits of all presidents of the Reich Court in Karlsruhe were missing for a long time that of Erwin Bumke. Today there are no more portraits of the former presidents of the Reichsgericht, only those of the former BGH presidents.

Works

  • Does the fulfilled resolute condition have material power? , Greifswald dissertation 1896
  • Ordinance on the Constitution of Courts and the Administration of Criminal Justice v. January 04, 1924 , Berlin 1924.
  • German prison system. A manual , Berlin 1928.
  • Courts Constitution Act and Code of Criminal Procedure. With subsidiary laws in the version valid from January 13, 1927; Text edition with an introduction to the provisions of the amendment of December 27, 1926 , Berlin 1927.
  • Two decisions on Article 48 of the Reich Constitution , Berlin 1932.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 84.
  2. ↑ RGZ 138, appendix p. 1 (21)
  3. ^ Speech by Günter Hirsch on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Federal Court of Justice on October 6, 2000
predecessor Office successor
Walter Simons President of the New Bach Society
1936–1945 		Karl Straube
personal data
SURNAME Bumke, Erwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bumke, Erwin Konrad Eduard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and President of the Reich Court
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Stolp ( Pomerania )
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1945
Place of death Leipzig