Georg Erler (lawyer)

Georg Heinrich Johannes Erler (* 20th January 1905 in Münster ; † 10. March 1981 in Goettingen ) was a German jurist and professor of Public Law , heads of state and international law .

Life

Origin, studies and career entry

Georg Erler was the son of the secret government councilor Georg Erler and his wife Anna, née Lehmann. After graduating from high school , he studied law and political science, history and modern languages from 1923 at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster and at the University of Zurich . In 1927 he passed the first state examination in law. In 1928 he obtained his doctorate from the University of Münster. jur. and then worked as an assistant at the law faculty there for two years. He passed his second state law examination in 1930. As a court assessor, Erler embarked on a career in justice and in 1934 became a district judge or judge. In 1933/34, he also took over a lectureship in public law at the law faculty of the University of Münster.

Since 1933 he was with Maria Erler, geb. Pale, married. The couple had three children.

Turning to National Socialism

In the time of National Socialism , Erler joined the National Socialists early on. Shortly after their " seizure of power ", he became a member of the NSDAP in early May 1933 ( membership number 2.156.865). For the party, he acted as a local group training leader, district and district group leader and as a Gaufach speaker. He also joined the Nazi lecturers' association . In addition, he was a member of the Nazi legal guardian association, for which he was active as a special commissioner. From 1938 he was lecturer for legal literature at the NSDAP Reichsleitung .

Professorship in Göttingen and internment

Erler, who held a lectureship in addition to his work as a regional judge, was motivated to move to the University of Göttingen by his friend Karl Siegert despite his failed habilitation attempt in Münster . Although Erler did not qualify as a National Socialist and scientist, he seemed suitable to represent the chair of the emigrated Gerhard Leibholz in Göttingen . In November 1938 Erler was appointed as a permanent adjunct professor. In the spring of 1939 he went on a research trip and was surprised by the start of the Second World War . His attempt to take the ship home from Portuguese East Africa failed because the ship was seized by the British Navy in November 1939 off Sierra Leone . Erler was arrested and interned in Australia for eight years from 1940. In his absence he was appointed full professor in Göttingen in 1943, which was communicated to him in writing.

Post-war period, chair of international law in Göttingen, retired

In his absence, Erler was released from his university post for political reasons in the spring of 1946 by the British military administration . In January 1948, Erler returned to Germany as a result of his release from internment. In August 1948, as part of the denazification process , he was classified in Category V (exonerated) after a panel proceedings . During the proceedings, Erler's law faculty had certified that he owed his position at the University of Göttingen “neither entirely nor predominantly to his ties to National Socialism”.

Due to a lung disease that Erler contracted during internment, he was initially unable to work and therefore retired at the end of 1950. In the course of his recovery, however, he took on a teaching position again from 1952 at the University of Göttingen, where he became honorary professor in 1953 and was reinstated in the university office. In 1954 he was appointed to the chair of international law as successor to Herbert Kraus . At the Institute for International Law, Erler set up a nuclear research department and added international business law to the institute's research. He acted as an advisor to the Federal Republic in international organizations. In 1960 Erler became a judge at the European Nuclear Energy Court in Paris , and from 1963 he was a member of the German Atomic Energy Commission . At the beginning of April 1968, due to a worsening eye disease, he made his ordinariate available early.

Georg Erler spent his retirement in Göttingen and died there in 1981 at the age of 76.

Confession to the Nazi past

In 1968 Erler confessed to the Munich publisher Rolf Seeliger about his Nazi past and did not look for justifications for “political and scientific misjudgments”. Rather, he was "convinced of the correctness of many of the thoughts and aspirations of National Socialism in the pre-war years".

Fonts (selection)

• The administrative policy ideas of the 1848 movement, their bases and effects with special consideration of the Prussian laws of 1850 , Münster 1928 (at the same time: Münster, Rechts- und staatswiss. Diss., 1928).
• The right of national minorities , Aschendorff, Münster 1931 (= series of publications by the Research Center for German Abroad and Abroad Studies , Volume 37/39).
• The influence of supranational powers on the politics of war and the League of Nations Woodrow Wilson , Deutscher Rechtsverlag, Berlin 1938 (reprint from: Zeitschrift Deutsches Recht, Zentralorgan des Nationalsozialistische Rechtsswahrerbund , vol. 8, issue 7/8 1938).
• The Geneva League , Rather, Berlin 1939 (= National Socialist training pamphlets , no.1).
• War impact on foreign contracts. An investigation into the legal fate of unsettled contracts for work and services between German entrepreneurs and foreigners from the pre-capitalization period - with special consideration of the advance payments made by foreign buyers , Heider, Bergisch Gladbach 1950.
• Freedom and limits of professional self-administration. Represented on the basic constitutional questions of the Federal Lawyers' Act , Schwartz, Göttingen 1952.
• The legal problems of the German foreign debt regulation and their treatment at the London Debt Conference , Verlag für Geschichte u. Politics, Frankfurt a. M. 1952 (From: Europa-Archiv . Episode 18/1952 of Sept. 20, 1952 in a revised and amended version).
• (Ed.) Research on international law. [25 years at the Institute for International Law at the University of Göttingen (1930–1955)] , Göttingen 1955.
• Basic problems of international commercial law , Schwartz, Göttingen 1956 (= Göttingen legal studies , vol. 15).
• The legal problem of federal compensation for internal German reparations dismantling , Musterschmidt, Göttingen, Berlin, Frankfurt 1958 (attached work: Friedrich-Wilhelm Siburg: The comparable legislation for the compensation regulation for reparations dismantling since 1871 (= Göttingen contributions on contemporary issues of international law and international relations , Vol. 13)).
• The legal development of international cooperation in the atomic area , Schwartz, Göttingen 1963 (= contributions to international economic law and atomic energy law , vol. 1, no . 1).
• The crisis in the European Communities. European federal state or Europe of the fatherlands? , Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, Göttingen 1966 (= series of lectures by the Lower Saxony state government for the promotion of scientific research in Lower Saxony , no.33).
• Kokusai-keizaihō-no-kihon-mondai = basic problems of international commercial law , Sagano Shoin, Kyōto 1989.

literature

• Anikó Szabó: eviction, return, reparation. Göttingen university professor in the shadow of National Socialism, with biographical documentation of the dismissed and persecuted university professors: University of Göttingen - TH Braunschweig - TH Hannover - University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover. Wallstein, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 978-3-89244-381-0 (= publications of the working group history of Lower Saxony (after 1945), volume 15) (also dissertation , University of Hanover , 1998).
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Lieselotte Steveling: Lawyers in Münster. A contribution to the history of the law and political science faculty of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster / Westf. , Lit, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-8258-4084-0 .
• Frank Halfmann: A "planting place for the best National Socialist legal scholars". The legal department of the Law and Political Science Faculty . In: Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler (eds.): The University of Göttingen under National Socialism , KG Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-10853-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Georg Erler in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Who is who? , Volume 16, Arani, 1970, p. 263.
2. ^ Lieselotte Steveling: Lawyers in Münster. A contribution to the history of the law and political science faculty of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster / Westf. , Münster 1999, p. 274 f.
3. ↑ Frank Halfmann: A "planting place for the best National Socialist legal scholars". The legal department of the Law and Political Science Faculty. In: Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler (eds.): The University of Göttingen under National Socialism , Munich 1998, p. 144.
4. ↑ Anikó Szabó: Expulsion, Return, Reparation - Göttingen University Lecturers in the Shadow of National Socialism , Göttingen 2000, p. 304.
5. ^ ^{A b} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 139.
6. ↑ Frank Halfmann: A "planting place for the best National Socialist legal scholars". The legal department of the Law and Political Science Faculty . In: Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler (eds.): The University of Göttingen under National Socialism , Munich 1998, p. 121.
7. ^ Anikó Szabó: Expulsion, return, reparation. Göttingen university professor in the shadow of National Socialism, with biographical documentation of the dismissed and persecuted university professors: University of Göttingen - TH Braunschweig - TH Hannover - University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover. Wallstein , Göttingen 2000, ISBN 978-3-89244-381-0 (= publications of the Working Group on the History of Lower Saxony (after 1945), Volume 15) (also: Dissertation , University of Hanover , 1998), p. 383 f.
8. ↑ ^{a b c d} Frank Halfmann: A "planting place for the best National Socialist legal scholars". The legal department of the Law and Political Science Faculty . In: Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler (eds.): The University of Göttingen under National Socialism , KG Saur, Munich 1998, p. 135.
9. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.