Erwin Schüle

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Erwin Schüle (born July 2, 1913 in Cannstatt ; † September 5, 1993 in Stuttgart ) was a German public prosecutor . From December 1958 to August 1966 he was the first head of the central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes in Ludwigsburg .

Life

After completing his school career, Schüle studied law at the University of Tübingen . He became a member of the SA in 1933 and of the NSDAP in 1937 . During the Second World War Schüle was a soldier in the Wehrmacht . In March 1945 Schüle was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets .

He was sentenced to death by a Soviet court in 1949 for alleged war crimes in the Volkhovo, Chudovo and Krasnoye Selo districts. As a member of the 215th Infantry Division, Schüle is said to have participated in the execution of a Russian boy, as well as to have shot and mistreated two Soviet citizens. However, the sentence was commuted to a 25-year prison sentence and Schüle was released to Germany in April 1950.

Immediately after his release from Soviet captivity, he joined the judicial service in Baden-Württemberg in April 1950 , where he was promoted to public prosecutor in Stuttgart on December 1, 1950 and to senior public prosecutor on March 1, 1958 . The informer Schüles, who was interned with him in the same prisoner of war camp, received a two-year prison sentence from the Hamburg district court in 1951 for deprivation of liberty. Schüle represented the prosecution at the Ulm Einsatzgruppen trial.

From December 1, 1958, Schüle was the first head of the newly created Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes in Ludwigsburg. His NSDAP membership was already known internally. According to the historian Klaus Bästlein, Schüle encouraged the refusal to suspend the statute of limitations for manslaughter, which resulted in a corresponding restrictive resolution by the Bundestag in 1960. Schüle's NSDAP membership only became publicly known in February 1965 through the General German Intelligence Service . In September 1965, the Soviet Union turned to the federal government with a note branding Schüle as a war criminal. As of December 1965, the Stuttgart attorney general started investigative proceedings against Schüle on the basis of these allegations, which, however , were discontinued at the beginning of April 1966 "for lack of well-founded suspicion ". For this investigation, the Soviet authorities made the propaganda film The Cause by Erwin Schüle, shot especially for this purpose, available, which was dubbed in German. On April 6, 1966, the investigations against Schüle were resumed after Soviet authorities had offered to allow witnesses to confront him with Schüle in the Federal Republic. Since these testimonies did not stand up to an examination, the investigation against Schüle was set again. Until August 31, 1966, Schüle was head of the central office and then worked again as a senior public prosecutor in Stuttgart. His successor at the Central Office was Adalbert Rückerl .

Schüle was listed in the GDR Brown Book .

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Baden-Württemberg State Archives
  2. ↑ a b c d Federal Archives: The Ludwigsburg branch: From the files: Chronology of an investigation procedure: Excerpt from a report by the head of the Central Office Erwin Schüle on the reasons for the long duration of NSG proceedings, 1963 (PDF; 512 kB)
  3. ^ NS crimes / statute of limitations / healthy public sentiment . In: Der Spiegel , issue 11 of March 10, 1965, p. 33.
  4. ↑ a b c Schüle - The investigation . In: Der Spiegel , issue 17 of April 18, 1966, p. 67.
  5. ^ Ministry of Justice Baden-Württemberg: 50th anniversary of the central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes - ceremony and reception of the state government on December 1st with Federal President Horst Köhler in Ludwigsburg
  6. ^ Klaus Bästlein: Zeitgeist and Justice. The prosecution of Nazi crimes in a German-German comparison and in the historical course . In: Journal of History . 64th year 2016, issue 1, pp. 5–28, here p. 11.
  7. ↑ Brown Book of the GDR
  8. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 31, No. 19, January 27, 1979.
personal data
SURNAME School, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German public prosecutor
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Cannstatt
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 1993
Place of death Stuttgart