Hans Koch (lawyer)

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Hans Koch (born August 16, 1893 in Bartenstein in East Prussia , † April 24, 1945 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Hans Koch was the son of a high school professor who was appointed director of a high school in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1903. After graduating from high school in Berlin in 1911, Hans Koch studied law at the Albertus University in Königsberg . In the same year he became a member of the Corps Baltia Königsberg . After two semesters, he finished his studies on February 25, 1914 and joined the Prussian Army .

Western Front and France

As a lieutenant in the Halle Fusilier Regiment 36, Koch moved into the field with the 1st Army and took part in the advance through Belgium and France. His regiment belonged to the IV. Army Corps , which was only converted to French on August 22, 1914 at Mons and on 25/26. Bumped into British troops at Solenes on August 25, 1914. From August 28 to 30, 1914, the regiment fought on the Somme in the Péronne area ; on September 3, 1914, Lizy-sur-Ourcq was reached. In the First Battle of the Marne, the IV. AK moved south over the Aubetin when it was recalled on September 6, 1914 to help the IV. RAK on the Ourcq . There Koch was given shrapnel in his hip and thigh. Badly wounded in the field hospital admitted Le Plessis Placy he arrived in France on September 9, 1914 captivity . He was initially transferred to Lizy-sur-Ourcq , but remained without food or medical care for a week. The next route led to Paris , Vitré (Ille-et-Vilaine) in Brittany and in February to Fougères . In April 1915 he was sent to the officers' camp at Châteauneuf near Saint-Malo . With seven other corps students he founded an old-man-senior-convent there . In December 1916 he was transferred to the Servière-Corrèze officers' camp. This burned down in February 1917, so that he came to Auch in the Pyrenees. Eventually he was exchanged as a prisoner of war and housed in Switzerland. He stayed there until August 12, 1919. He subsequently received the Iron Cross 1st Class.

Between the wars

Koch resumed his law studies in Königsberg and passed the legal trainee examination on July 7, 1921 with "good". To the Dr. iur. he received his doctorate summa cum laude . In May 1922 he got engaged to Annemarie Kahle , the daughter of a fallen corps brother. He began his training in the higher judicial district . For a short time he was an official in the Ministry of Commerce of the Free State of Prussia . As a member of the government , he resigned from the civil service in 1927 and settled in Berlin as a lawyer and notary .

time of the nationalsocialism

After the takeover of the Nazi Hans Koch was a member of the Confessing Church . When he bravely and “too well” defended a Jewish industrial family in an expropriation process in the autumn of 1935, he was arrested and remained in custody until the end of 1935 without trial. In 1937 he was one of the defenders of Pastor Martin Niemöller and Hermann Ehlers .

Immediately after the outbreak of World War II , he was called up as a reserve officer , ie "withdrawn from circulation". Because of his earlier wounding, he did not come to the front, but was retired as captain . D. deployed in the Armaments Office of the Wehrmacht High Command .

Koch continued to work as a lawyer and was able to establish and cultivate his connections to the civil and military resistance. He was privy to the overthrow plans of Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and the Stauffenberg brothers . Unlike some of the conspirators of July 20, 1944, Koch had never been blinded by Hitler's initial successes . In the event that the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 was successful, he was appointed President of the Reich Court in the Beck / Goerdeler shadow cabinet .

Koch's exact position in the resistance is not known. Koch left no record, which helped it almost to be forgotten. After the unsuccessful assassination attempt, Koch, his wife and four children were imprisoned for a short time. The composed conspirators did not betray him.

In January 1945 he was denounced and arrested. When the Soviet troops had already reached the city limits of Berlin, he was shot dead by a special command from the Reich Main Security Office on the night of April 23rd to 24th, 1945, without trial or judgment .

tomb

He is buried in the Evangelical Churchyard Nikolassee .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Hans Koch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Esther Widmann, Markus C. Schulte von Drach, Oliver Das Gupta: Bonhoeffer, Canaris and other Nazi opponents: Hans Koch. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 9, 2015.
  2. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 84/287
  3. ↑ Fusilier Regiment General-Feldmarschall Graf Blumenthal (Magdeburgisches) No. 36
  4. ^ Message from the Deutsche Corpszeitung
personal data
SURNAME Koch, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Bartenstein
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1945
Place of death Berlin