Hans Eberhard Rotberg

Hans Eberhard Rotberg (born February 20, 1903 in Unna ; † February 23, 1995 ) was a German lawyer and a judge at the Federal Court of Justice from 1952 to 1969 . During this time he was President of the 3rd , 4th and 5th Criminal Senate in alternating order .

Life

Empire and Weimar Republic

The son of the District Court Councilor Ernst Rotberg and his wife Elli, née Löcke, grew up in a strictly Catholic family. He attended pre-school in Mülheim an der Ruhr and then the reform humanist grammar school. In the summer of 1921 he began studying law at the University of Würzburg , which he continued a year later in Munich and which he finished in Münster in 1924 after three more semesters . He passed his first state examination with the grade "good". He completed his legal preparatory service in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Duisburg , Altenburg and Düsseldorf . In the second state examination he also achieved the grade "good".

In 1927 he received his doctorate in law with a thesis on "The judgment in the name of a deceased before the filing of an action: at the same time a contribution to the doctrine of the invalidity of the judgment". As a young assessor in 1928, he initially found a job as a laborer in the Prussian Ministry of Justice. During this time he was mainly concerned with the handling of the judicial affairs from the Treaty of Versailles and the matters in the department for name changes. In 1931 he became a district judge in Koblenz.

National Socialism

After the seizure of power he joined the National Socialist People's Welfare and the Association of National Socialist German Lawyers . In 1937 he was appointed district judge in Koblenz. At first he was employed as a criminal judge. There he was chairman of the special criminal chamber for moral crimes against clergy and religious (so-called monastery criminal cases) for almost a year .

Since his judgments were considered too understanding by the local Gauleitung and therefore aroused displeasure, he was later transferred to a civil chamber. Alexander Bergmann , the President of the Cologne Higher Regional Court , suggested that Rotberg be promoted to regional court director or higher regional judge in 1939. The Gauleitung did not advocate this, as they doubted his commitment to National Socialism out of inner conviction because of his strict Catholic attitude . At the end of 1941 it was the President of the Koblenz Regional Court who tried to get Rotberg to be promoted to the Higher Regional Court. This time the Gauleitung gave their consent, but demanded that Rotberg should not be considered for a position as a head of an authority or a regional court director. Rotberg objected to this in a letter of complaint in which he above all emphasized his activity as chairman of the criminal chamber for monastic criminal matters and declared that he had thereby demonstrated his internal independence from the church. Ultimately, he was able to convince the Gauleitung to withdraw their reservations.

In early 1942 he was given a teaching position at the University of Bonn for civil law and procedural law. There are contradicting statements at the time of his entry into the NSDAP . While, according to one source, he did not join the NSDAP until November 1942, as this had been a requirement for a promotion position since August 1942, another source assumes that he will join the NSDAP on July 1, 1940. Rotberg did not know how to name the exact time. On August 1, 1943, he was appointed district court director in Bonn .

A short time later, Rotberg was confronted with an investigation for failure to report a highly treasonable company under Section 139 of the Criminal Code. The Gestapo had learned that he had received a visit in July 1943 from his former school friend Otto Weiß , who was on home leave from the Eastern Front and reported to him about plans for a coup. In August 1943 he was therefore summoned by the Gestapo. During the interrogation, on the one hand, he relativized the statements that Weiss had made to him and, on the other hand, exaggerated his work for the Nazi regime by presenting himself as an employee of the SD , the SS and officials in the National Socialist Legal Guardian Association, who dealt with legal-political tasks such as the Drafting of reports and expert opinions on the general mood and on questions of legal policy in particular had been consulted. In reality, only young trainee teachers, whose community leader he temporarily functioned, presented Rotberg with work that they had done for the SD and SS. With his admission, he managed to avert an arrest and a home search. In July 1944, the senior Reich attorney at the People's Court dropped the proceedings. Nevertheless, the matter was not without consequences for Rotberg: The Gestapo threatened him with the harshest state police measures in the event of another offense. His teaching position at the University of Bonn was withdrawn from him. In addition, his UK position was canceled with effect from October 5, 1944, which resulted in his draft as a recruit to the Wehrmacht . At the beginning of 1944, Weiss was sentenced to death by the People's Court for high treason and executed a little later.

Federal Republic

After the war he returned to Koblenz in July 1945. He was denazified by the Allies as exonerated. In 1946 he was appointed director of the Koblenz Regional Court and in 1948 President of the Senate of the Koblenz Higher Regional Court. However, he did not practice this legal activity, since he had also been in charge of the legislative department in the Ministry of Justice of Rhineland-Palatinate since 1946 . On February 1, 1950 he was appointed ministerial director in the Federal Ministry of Justice . There he took over the management of Department II responsible for criminal law . Adolf Süsterhenn , Minister of Justice of Rhineland-Palatinate , had campaigned for Rotberg with Federal Minister of Justice Thomas Dehler . Rotberg was not a party member himself, but was close to the CDU .

In 1952 he was appointed judge at the Federal Court of Justice. After a few months he was promoted to Senate President in 1953. Initially, he chaired the 3rd Criminal Senate . This was withdrawn from him in July 1954 by BGH President Hermann Weinkauff . The reason was the frequent unannounced absence of Rotberg. By order of the Federal Ministry of Justice, he was then assigned as President of the Senate to the Berlin- based 5th Criminal Senate , in which a vacant post was to be filled. Rotberg, however, was willing to return to Karlsruhe , which was achieved when the chairman was next filled. From 1956 to 1962 he chaired the 4th Criminal Senate . As the successor to Heinrich Jagusch , who in turn moved to the 4th Criminal Senate, he took over the chairmanship of the 3rd Criminal Senate in 1963, which at that time was the only authority responsible for state security offenses. This transfer took place against his will, and in the following years he repeatedly expressed the wish to be released from this task.

In autumn 1965 there were allegations that he had worked for the SD. Federal Justice Minister Karl Weber had already investigated the allegations personally in the spring, but saw no reason to intervene. A short time later, his supposed activity in the SD was brought up again when Rotberg led the negotiation against the former secret service employee Werner Pätsch . In November 1965, the Federal Ministry of Justice was challenged to comment not to take any action against Rotberg. As the head of a working group for young trainee lawyers at the Koblenz regional court, Rotberg had only been of assistance to young lawyers who had to provide the SD with “opinion reports and legal opinions”. When he was interrogated by the Gestapo because of his contacts with a resistance fighter, he exaggerated his activities in the SD in order to protect himself.

At the end of 1966 Rotberg was finally able to relinquish the unpopular chairmanship of the 3rd Criminal Senate and in 1967 took over the chairmanship of the 4th Criminal Senate again. When he retired early in 1969, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

From 1925 he was first married to Anneliese Rabe, daughter of the deceased Privy Councilor and District Judge Georg Rabe from Halberstadt , and his second marriage from 1956 to Gabriele Kuhnen. He published a commentary on the Administrative Offenses Act , which appeared in five editions, including three under his direction.

literature

• Klaus-Detlev Godau-Schüttke: The Federal Court of Justice: Justice in Germany. Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-922654-66-7 . Pp. 383-394.
• Lutz Meyer-Goßner : Hans-Eberhard Rotberg +. In: New legal weekly. Volume 48, No. 20, 1995, p. 1337.
• Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is Who. The German who's who. 16th edition of Degeners Who's it? , 1969/70, volume 1. Arani, Berlin 1970. p. 1074.
• Hans Eberhard Rotberg: The judgment in the name of a deceased before the filing of a lawsuit: at the same time a contribution to the doctrine of the invalidity of the judgment. Dissertation, Würzburg 1927, own curriculum vitae on the back.
• Otto Wenig (Ed.): Directory of professors and lecturers at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn 1818–1968. Bouvier, Bonn 1968, ISBN 978-3-416-00495-4 . P. 251.
• International Biographical Archive 46/170 of November 2, 1970.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Klaus-Detlev Godau-Schüttke: Der Bundesgerichtshof: Justiz in Deutschland , p. 383, with reference to the Rotberg personal file at the Federal Archives in Koblenz. In the International Biographical Archive 46/170 of November 2, 1970 and Wer ist Wer. The German who's who. on the other hand, there is talk of 1932.
2. ↑ International Biographical Archive 46/170.
3. ↑ Godau-Schüttke, p. 388.
4. ↑ Manfred Görtemaker, Christoph Safferling (ed.): The Rosenburg: The Federal Ministry of Justice and the Nazi past. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen and Bristol, 2013, ISBN 978-3-647-30046-7 , p. 64 f.
5. ↑ Godau-Schüttke, p. 389, and Gerhard Mauz : The state of justice corresponds to that of the people. In: Der Spiegel, issue 48, year 1965, p. 53.
6. ↑ Der Spiegel, 48/1965, p. 53.
7. ↑ Görtemaker and Safferling, p. 65.
8. ^ Udo Wengst: State structure and government practice 1948–1953: on the history of the constitutional organs of the Federal Republic of Germany. Droste, Düsseldorf 1984, ISBN 3-7700-5122-X . P. 166.
9. ↑ Der Spiegel, 48/1965, p. 53f.
10. ↑ Eberhard Rotberg , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 46/1970 of November 2, 1970, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)