Erwin Garvens

Erwin Garvens (born June 30, 1883 in Hamburg ; † November 4, 1969 there ) was a German lawyer , administrative officer and publicist .

family

Garvens was born as the son of the doctor Dr. med. Hermann Garvens and his wife Olga geb. Telge born in Hamburg. On January 14, 1913, he married Elisabeth Hugo (1890–1965), daughter of the shipbroker George Henry Hugo, in Hamburg.

Life

Studies and professional career

Garvens studied law at the Université de Lausanne , the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen . During his time in Lausanne he became a member of the Société d'Étudiants Germania Lausanne . After his first state examination in law, he began his legal clerkship in 1905. In 1907 he was with his dissertation entitled "Offsetting and the Hamburg servants Law" at the University of Rostock Dr. iur. PhD . From 1909 he was a legal assessor and from 1920 worked as a government councilor in Hamburg. In 1926 he was appointed director of the Hamburg State Audit Office , the highest body responsible for financial control in the Hanseatic City of Hamburg .

Life after seizure of power

From 1934 Garvens was a member of the Hamburg Patriotic Society from 1765, from which he was excluded after a short membership after the introduction of the "Aryan Paragraph" there in 1935 because his wife was considered a " half-Jewish ". After 1945 he was able to rejoin the company. He also belonged to the association “ Friends of the Kunsthalle ” in Hamburg, from which he resigned because he and his wife were not supposed to receive tickets for the Kunsthalle for the same reasons. He commented on this with the statement: “Well, after all, we can get over it to hear the lectures - Prof. Waldmann from Bremen was always refreshingly clear - but the fact that Germany is so run-down in the cultural field is easy screaming. "

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Garvens was forcibly removed from office as director of the Hamburg Court of Audit in 1933 for conservatively motivated hostility to the regime and, according to Section 6 of the newly enacted Law on Civil Servants, was retired against his will.

His personnel file shows how badly he was played along in Hamburg. According to Section 6 of the Professional Civil Service Act, civil servants could be retired even if they were not yet incapacitated. The file does not reveal whether there were political reasons for the transfer - but they cannot be ruled out either. Garvens was officially “without any useful activity” during the Nazi era . In 1939 he - like other officials dismissed in 1933 - made himself available to the Reich Governor “if necessary” . In a letter from the NSDAP dated October 12, 1939, this offer was emphatically rejected with reference to the woman von Garvens, who was considered a “ half-Jewish ” and was a “first- degree hybrid ” . It was also said: “Politically, he is in opposition to the National Socialist state and economic conception.” His oppositional stance is evident “in all occurrences of daily life” , for example he “does not hoist the swastika flag” .

Garvens, who lived in Harvestehude, took great care of his Jewish acquaintances during the Nazi regime , especially his friend, the Hamburg lawyer and state councilor at the tax authority Leo Lippmann . As a highly competent specialist, he was also arbitrarily removed from office. From 1942 to 1944 Garvens was able to receive small additional remuneration as a notary representative of the notary Dr. de Chapeaurouge received.

Post-war period and literary work

From May 13, 1945, after a twelve-year hiatus, the British military government reinstated Garvens as head of the Hamburg auditing office. However, he was already on leave from this office in December 1946. He was previously criticized for a violent appearance in the budget committee. He was then transferred to the Hamburg cultural administration as head government director and from there he went into final retirement.

Later Garvens was mainly active as a journalist and was also known in Hamburg as the author of the multi-part anecdotal book "The happy Jungfernstieg" , which first appeared in 1940 and the complete edition of which was later reissued many times until 1988. In 1956 Garvens published his book "Die Stadt an der Alster" . In addition, he wrote the history of his student union Germania Lausanne .

Through his diary entries about his experiences during and after the Second World War in the city of Hamburg, Garvens is still a much-cited contemporary witness today.

Publications

• The happy Jungfernstieg - Hamburg anecdotes. 14th edition of the complete edition. Christians, Hamburg 1988.
• A woman from Hamburg travels all over Germany and Italy and again through Switzerland back to Hamburg, 1829–1830. Using Mamsell Catharina Charlotte Osmann's diary. Hamburg 1960. (Library holdings of the Association for Hamburg History )
• Senator Carl Cohn, President of the Finance Department, b. 11/19/1857. 1957.
• Rhymed annual reports of Veronika [est. 1830]. 1954.
• The city on the Alster - tour and review. Appel, Hamburg 1955.
• The happy Jungfernstieg - Hamburg anecdotes. New episode. Kiepenheuer, Cologne / Berlin 1949.
• Stupidity. 1945. (Library holdings of the Association for Hamburg History)
• Interim balance. 1945. (Library holdings of the Association for Hamburg History)
• How it happened 1945. (Library holdings of the Association for Hamburg History)
• What is needed 1944. (Library holdings of the Association for Hamburg History)
• The happy Jungfernstieg - Hamburg anecdotes. Kiepenheuer, Berlin 1940, DNB 573214875 .
• Germania-Lausanne 1887/1937. Self-published, Hamburg 1937.
• 100 years of "Veronica" [1830-1930]. 1930, OCLC 248403337 .
• Erwin Garvens' diary, Hamburg State Archives 622-1 / 124, B2, Vol. 1–14.
• Offsetting and right of retention in the Hamburg public law. Inaugural Dissertation, 1907.

literature

• Erwin Garvens: Directory of members of the Société d'Étudiants Germania Lausanne. Hamburg 1937.
• Marlis Roß: The exclusion of the Jewish members in 1935. The Patriotic Society under National Socialism. In memory of the Jewish members of the Patriotic Society. Patriotic Society of 1765, Hamburg 2007, OCLC 254081277 .
• Joist Grolle, Ina Lorenz : The exclusion of Jewish members from the Association for Hamburg History. A long silent chapter of the Nazi era (with biographical appendix). In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Volume 93, Hamburg Verlag, 2007, pp. 1–145, here: pp. 20 ff. ( Online )
• Theresa Müller: Erwin Garvens, lawyer. In: Olaf Matthes, Ortwin Pelc : People in the Revolution. Hamburg portraits 1918/19. Husum Verlag, Husum 2018, ISBN 978-3-89876-947-1 , pp. 36-37.

Web links

• Literature by and about Erwin Garvens in the catalog of the German National Library

Remarks

1. ↑ Birth register StA Hamburg 1, No. 2770/1883
2. ↑ Death register StA Hamburg-Nord, No. 2978/1969
3. ↑ Marriage Register StA Hamburg 21, No. 11/1913
4. ↑ Marlis Roß: The Exclusion of the Jewish Members 1935 The Patriotic Society in National Socialism. , (PDF; 1.7 MB) p. 69 ff.
5. ↑ Joist Grolle, Ina Lorenz: The exclusion of Jewish members from the Association for Hamburg History. A long silent chapter of the Nazi era (with biographical appendix). In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Volume 93, Hamburg Verlag, 2007, pp. 1–145, here: p. 20 ( online )
6. ↑ Hamburg State Archive, 131-15 Senatskanzlei personnel files, C 544, personnel files Erwin Garvens.
7. ^ Hamburg State Archive, Senate Chancellery, personnel files C 544, "Erwin Garvens"
8. ↑ Hamburg State Archives 131-8, Senate Commission for Higher Administrative Service G 4c HV 1939 × 30
9. ↑ The term "audit office" instead of "audit office" comes from the administrative terminology of the immediate post-war period under British military administration and was used for Hamburg in 1945 when the city was not yet reorganized as a state.
10. ↑ See: "End of the war in Hamburg - a city remembers" Hamburger Abendblatt series, April 23, 2005 on page 3 .; Tanja Drössel: The English in Hamburg 1914 to 1945. Göttingen 2008, pp. 205, 274.