Friedrich Nowakowski

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Friedrich Nowakowski (born October 15, 1914 in Vienna ; † June 21, 1987 ) was an Austrian criminal law scholar , public prosecutor and university professor . Nowakowski taught from 1952 as a professor for criminal law and criminal procedure law at the University of Innsbruck and is considered the “chief ideologist of criminal law reform” by Justice Minister Christian Broda in the mid-1960s.

Professional background

Friedrich Nowakowski was born on October 15, 1914 as the son of a major general in the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Austrian capital Vienna. He completed his law studies at the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna , where he received his doctorate in law ( Dr.iur. ) In 1938 . On 3 January 1939 Nowakowski started as a trainee lawyer, the court practice at the Regional Court for Civil Matters Vienna , where he already January 27, 1939 to the court clerk and March 21, 1942 the court assessor appointed and the Juvenile Court was transferred as a judge. Subsequently, in June 1942, he was assigned to the public prosecutor's office at the Regional Court for Criminal Matters in Vienna . During the time of National Socialism in Austria he also worked at the associated special court of the Nazi judiciary and was involved as a prosecutor in at least two death sentences against Czech agricultural unskilled workers for "broadcasting offenses". In July 1943, Nowakowski was finally appointed public prosecutor in Wiener Neustadt, whereby the assignment to the Vienna public prosecutor's office remained upright. The historian Gerhard Oberkofler wrote in a comment in the Austrian daily Der Standard in 2018 that Friedrich Nowakowski was later attributed to the University of Innsbruck the statement "I'll get this head too" from his time as a Nazi public prosecutor.

Nowakowski, who had been a member of the NSDAP since 1940 , tried to submit a habilitation thesis at the University of Vienna in 1944 , but this failed because of the resistance of the professor of criminal law there, Erich Schwinge . He saw in the diabetic , slightly physically handicapped Friedrich Nowakowski, who was not called up for military service for this reason, no " Aryan " law professor according to his ideas. With the submission of formal reasons - the habilitation thesis was written on both sides contrary to the Reich Habilitation Regulations - Schwinge prevented Nowakowski's habilitation at the University of Vienna.

Nowakowski survived the end of the war in Überlingen on Lake Constance , where he had moved in August 1944 to cure pulmonary tuberculosis. From summer 1945 to May 1946 he was subsequently employed by the Direction de l'Economie - General Service des Statistiques et d'Etude Economiques of the French occupation authorities . In May 1946 he was appointed judge in Innsbruck , in 1949 he was again prosecutor in Innsbruck after the Higher Regional Court of Vienna had refused to accept a post in Vienna in 1947 because of his Nazi past. In 1948 - after another failed attempt - he was finally able to complete his habilitation at the University of Innsbruck with the support of the local criminal law professor Theodor Rittler and his previous sponsor Ferdinand Kadečka and was granted the license to teach Austrian criminal law and criminal procedure law as a private lecturer. Nowakowski's opponent is the Viennese criminal lawyer Wilhelm Malaniuk , who strove for a strict legal approach to the Nazi crimes.

In 1952 Friedrich Nowakowski finally succeeded his predecessor Theodor Rittler to his chair as university professor for criminal law and criminal procedure law at the University of Innsbruck. In 1954 he was nominated as a member of the Criminal Law Commission, of which he was a member until 1962. From 1960 he was also a consultant for the planned criminal law reform of Justice Minister Broda in the Federal Ministry of Justice , where he was soon considered the "chief ideologist of the criminal law reform". In the years that followed, the Minister of Justice stood by Nowakowski, whose past in the Nazi special jurisdiction was discussed in the Vienna magazine Forum in 1965 . On December 11, 1961, he was appointed a substitute member of the Constitutional Court by Federal President Adolf Schärf on the proposal of the National Council, effective January 1, 1962 , which he remained until his constitutional resignation on December 31, 1984. In the years that followed, Friedrich Nowakowski became known in the Austrian legal world in particular as co-editor of the “Vienna Commentary on Criminal Law”, a standard legal commentary that has been published since 1979 . In 1972 Nowakowski was awarded the City of Vienna Prize for the Humanities .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Viktor Liebscher: Friedrich Nowakowski † . In: Legal papers . 109th year, issue 15/16, 1987, p. 508 .
  2. ^ Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider: The Engerau case and the post-war jurisdiction. Reflections on the significance of the Engerau trials in Austrian post-war justice history . In: Documentation archive of Austrian resistance (ed.): Yearbook 2001 . Vienna 2001, p. 79 , footnote 44 ( doew.at [PDF]).
  3. ↑ Susanne Lichtmannegger: The Law and Political Science Faculty of the University of Innsbruck 1945–1955 (=  Wilhelm Brauneder [Hrsg.]: Law and Social Science Series . Volume 23 ). Peter-Lang-Verlagsgruppe , 1999, ISBN 3-631-34711-1 , ISSN  0938-7277 , p. 343–349 (Document No. 85: Reprint of the death sentence against Rudolf and Johann Schalplachta from January 20, 1944).
  4. ↑ a b c d Maria Wirth: Christian Broda. A political biography (=  contemporary history in context . Volume 5 ). V&R unipress , Vienna, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-89971-829-4 , p. 224–226 (Friedrich Nowakowski's detailed curriculum vitae on pages 224–226).
  5. ↑ Gerhard Oberkofler : 70 years ago: Austrian universities erect an academic wall. In: derStandard.at . January 26, 2018, accessed September 17, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Karin Bruckmüller, Frank Höpfel: Criminal Law - a focal point in National Socialism . In: Franz-Stefan Meissel , Thomas Olechowski , Ilse Reiter-Zatloukal , Stefan Schima (eds.): Displaced law - displacing law. On the history of the Vienna law and political science faculty between 1938 and 1945 (=  Juridicum Spotlight . Volume II ). Manz , Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-214-07405-0 , pp. 364 , footnote 63 .
  7. ↑ Susanne Lichtmannegger: The Law and Political Science Faculty of the University of Innsbruck 1945–1955 (=  Wilhelm Brauneder [Hrsg.]: Law and Social Science Series . Volume 23 ). Peter-Lang-Verlagsgruppe , 1999, ISBN 3-631-34711-1 , ISSN  0938-7277 , p. 357–358 (Document No. 93: Expert opinion by Prof. Rittler on Nowakowski's habilitation thesis of March 12, 1948).
  8. ↑ Kuretsidis-Haider, The Engerau case (2001), p. 78ff; see. also Schuster / Weber, denazification in regional comparison (2004), p. 649
  9. ↑ Kurt Heller : The Constitutional Court. The development of constitutional jurisdiction in Austria from the beginning to the present . Verlag Österreich , Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-7046-5495-3 , chapter short biographies of the members and substitute members of the Constitutional Court 1945-2010 , p. 646 .
  10. ^ Gina Galeta: Vienna 1972: Reports from May 1972. In: Website of the City of Vienna (wien.gv.at). Town hall correspondence (MA53), accessed on July 14, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Nowakowski, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian lawyer, university professor and public prosecutor
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1987