Friedrich Weissler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Friedrich Weißler (born April 28, 1891 in Königshütte , Upper Silesia , † February 19, 1937 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a German lawyer . He belonged to the Christian resistance against National Socialism .

Life

Stumbling block at the house, Meiningenallee 7, in Berlin-Westend

(Georg) Friedrich Weißler was the youngest of three sons of the lawyer and notary Adolf Weißler and his wife Auguste geb. Hayn. In turning away from the family's Judaism , his father - co-founder of the German Notarial Association - had him baptized by a Protestant pastor like his brothers in infancy. In 1893 the family moved to Halle (Saale) . Friedrich Weißler went to school here. After graduating from high school, he began to study law at the Friedrichs University in Halle . Like his father and his brothers, he became a member of the Ascania Halle singers' association in the special houses association . He moved to the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . In 1913 he served as a one-year volunteer in the Prussian Army . He then went to the Eilenburg District Court as a trainee lawyer . In 1914 he received his doctorate in Halle as a Doctor iuris . At the beginning of the First World War , Weißler volunteered as a war volunteer . His last post as a lieutenant was until 1918 on the war front.

After the end of the war, he resumed his legal clerkship in Halle in 1920 and after its completion received a position in the Prussian judiciary. Weißler worked at various courts, including at the Naumburg Higher Regional Court and as chairman of the Halle Labor Court . On October 29, 1932 he was appointed regional court director (today corresponds to a presiding judge at the regional court) at the Magdeburg regional court , where he took office on December 1, 1932.

A few months after taking office, the National Socialists came to power. At the beginning of February 1933, in a criminal case led by Weissler, an SA man who had forbidden to appear in court in full uniform was sentenced to a fine of 3 Reichsmarks for improper behavior . A short time later, Weissler was attacked by SA men in his office. He was beaten and kicked, presented to the mob on the balcony of the district court, and forced to salute a swastika flag. As a result, Weißler was dragged through the city and held for a short time in an SA camp. A short time later, he was suspended from duty. Basically due to his Jewish origin, he was finally released from the judiciary on August 4, 1933.

Weissler then moved to Berlin and from November 1934 worked initially as a legal advisor and later as head of the office of the Confessing Church . He worked with Karl Barth and Martin Niemöller and was co-author of a memorandum of the Confessing Church addressed to Adolf Hitler , in which the National Socialist racial ideology and the terror against dissenters were criticized. The document, in which a position was also taken against the glorification of the state, anti-Semitism, the oppression of the churches and the concentration camps , was handed over to the Berlin Presidential Chancellery on June 4, 1936. Not intended by the authors, the text came through publication and the like. a. in the Basler Nachrichten on July 23, 1936 to the international public. Weißler was suspected of having given the information abroad.

Weißler was arrested by the Gestapo on October 7, 1936 . On February 11th, Weißler was admitted to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and served there for six days as z. B. insulted, spat at and beaten "Jewish pig". On the night of February 18 to 19, 1937 Weissler was "punched down, trampled in heavy boots and brutally murdered". The body was then "hung up" in order to simulate suicide. He is considered the first martyr of the Confessing Church.

dig

tomb

Weißler's grave is located in the south-west cemetery Stahnsdorf near the Berlin city limits (Epiphany area, garden block II, garden point 17).

On March 24, 2020, the Berlin Senate decided to designate Weißler's grave as an honorary grave .

Works

Weißler was one of the co-authors of a "Commentary on the Land Register Regulations " that is still regularly published today, but without naming his name . As his father's successor, he published the “Prussian Archive” and the “Form Book for Voluntary Jurisdiction ”.

Honors

Memorial plaque on the former residential building in Berlin-Westend

The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) commemorates Friedrich Weißler with a memorial day in the Evangelical Name Calendar on February 20th .

By unanimous decision of the community council of Stahnsdorf the "OdF-Platz" was renamed on March 5th, 1992 in Friedrich-Weißler-Platz. A memorial stone for the victims of fascism has stood on it since 1951.

In honor of Weißler, a memorial plaque was unveiled in Sachsenhausen on February 19, 2005 in the presence of Federal Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries and the chairman of the EKD Council, Bishop Wolfgang Huber . It was created by Karl Biedermann and donated by the EKD.

In 2006 a memorial plaque for Weißler was unveiled in the Magdeburg district court. Previously, on April 7, 2005 , the city of Magdeburg named a street in his honor as Dr.-Weißler-Weg .

On November 19, 2008 the building of the Magdeburg Regional Court was named after Friedrich Weißler.

literature

  • Friedrich Weißler: On the legal meaning of the creed. (PDF) In: Junge Kirche , issue 8, 1935, pp. 362–367. Retrieved August 27, 2019 .
  • Heinz Bergschicker: German Chronicle 1933–1945. A picture of the times of the fascist dictatorship / Wiss. Advice: Olaf Groehler. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1981, 2nd dgs. 1982 edition (ill. P. 195)
  • Manfred Gailus : Friedrich Weißler. A lawyer and an avowed Christian in the resistance against Hitler . Göttingen 2017. ISBN 978-3-525-30109-8
  • Albrecht Geck : Friedrich Weißler (1891–1937). Confession and Law . In: Jürgen Kampmann (Hrsg.): Protestantism in Prussia, Vol. 4: From the First World War to the division of Germany . Frankfurt 2011, pp. 263–289.
  • Michael Germann : Friedrich Weißler in the service of the Confessing Church . In: Armin Höland , Heiner Lück (Ed.): Legal careers in the Prussian province of Saxony (1919–1945). Paths of life and effects, Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle, 2004, pp. 52–80.
  • Thomas Kluger: Weissler, Friedrich. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 , p. 785 f.
  • Martin Wiehle : Magdeburg personalities. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Magdeburg, Department of Culture. imPuls Verlag, Magdeburg 1993, ISBN 3-910146-06-6 , p. 144.
  • Werner Koch: Friedrich Weißler (1891-1937), Christian martyr of the law . In: Controversial Jurists, Festschrift for Jürgen Seifert, ed. by Thomas Blanke u. a., Baden-Baden 1998, pp. 330-341.
  • Dieter Miosge : Friedrich Weissler (1891-1937). A legal fate . In: Armin Höland, Heiner Lück (Ed.): Legal careers in the Prussian province of Saxony (1919–1945). Paths of life and effects , Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle, 2004, pp. 43–51.
  • The Weißlers - A German Family Fate . Notes by Johannes Weißler. 144 pages, paperback, with numerous photos and historical documents. Oase Verlag Badenweiler, 2011. ISBN 978-3-88922-098-1 .
  • Rüdiger Weyer:  Weissler, Friedrich. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 25, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-332-7 , Sp. 1465-1472.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Weißler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolf-Georg Harms: Adolf Weißler. Lawyer - Notary - Judicial Council. 1855-1919: A biographical documentation . Deutscher Notarverlag Bonn 2017 [about Friedrich Weißler's father]
  2. ↑ Auguste Weißler b. Hayn (Stolperstein Berlin) Friedrich Weißler (Stolperstein Berlin)
  3. ↑ Dissertation: The treatment of distant possibilities in private law - A contribution to the teaching of protection of trust . Halle an der Saale, 1914
  4. ↑ Johannes Weissler: The Weißlers. A German Family Fate , Oase Verlag, Badenweiler 2011; Dieter Miosge: Friedrich Weissler (1891-1937). A legal fate. In: Armin Höland / Heiner Lück (eds.), Legal careers in the Prussian province of Saxony (1919–1945), Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle, 2004, pp. 43–51.
  5. ↑ Horst Göppinger : Jurists of Jewish descent in the “Third Reich”. Disenfranchisement and persecution . Munich: CH Beck, 1990, ISBN 3-406-33902-6 , p. 263f.
  6. ↑ Horst Göppinger : Jurists of Jewish descent in the “Third Reich”. Disenfranchisement and persecution . Munich: CH Beck, 1990, ISBN 3-406-33902-6 , p. 264.
  7. ↑ Christian Feldmann: The deadly protest , In: Der Sonntag, No. 7 of February 18, 2007, p. 3
  8. ↑ Loriot and Günter Pfitzmann receive an honor grave. Senate Chancellery Berlin, March 24, 2020, accessed on March 25, 2020 (German).
  9. ↑ Friedrich Weißler in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints
personal data
SURNAME Weissler, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Königshütte , Upper Silesia
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1937
Place of death Sachsenhausen concentration camp