Hans Muthesius

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Hans Muthesius (born October 2, 1885 in Weimar , † February 1, 1977 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German lawyer and pioneer of social work .

Life

The son of a teacher and nephew of the architect Hermann Muthesius graduated from high school in Weimar and studied in Berlin , Jena and Grenoble jurisprudence . After receiving his doctorate in 1909 as Dr. jur. and the assessor exam in 1913, Muthesius was appointed magistrate in the city of Schöneberg, which was later incorporated into Berlin . During the First World War he took over the management of the office for voluntary war aid. On October 9, 1917 Muthesius was elected to the salaried Schöneberg city councilor. After incorporation in Berlin, he was deputy district mayor of Schöneberg and, as district councilor, was responsible for public welfare, social security , youth court assistance and legal information. From 1919 Muthesius was a lecturer at the Berlin Social Women's School and in the German Association for Public and Private Welfare . In 1925 he was one of the few men on the board of the German Academy for Social and Educational Women's Work. Muthesius wrote the standard work for welfare law in 1928 .

Work in National Socialism

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, Muthesius, who belonged to the German Democratic Party (DDP) , was dismissed on March 20, 1933. He found employment as a consultant under Wilhelm Polligkeit at the German Association for Public and Private Welfare and from 1935 worked as an appraiser for communal social affairs at the Reich Audit Office . The NSDAP stepped Muthesius at the 1939th In 1940 he became head of department in the welfare department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior and in this function was responsible for questions relating to youth welfare . In 1941 he became deputy head of the department under Fritz Ruppert . In 1943 Muthesius was responsible as a consultant for welfare associations in the field of health care, war aid and resettlement welfare , measures against “ community strangers ”, the adoption system, official guardianship and day-care centers.

Muthesius was responsible for the central administration of the youth concentration camps in Moringen , the Uckermark and Litzmannstadt (Lodz) in the Generalgouvernement . Admissions were made in Lodz from December 1942; Polish children died massively as a result of ill-treatment or malnutrition. Muthesius worked on questions relating to foster care together with Herbert Linden . During this time, Linden, as Reich Commissioner for the sanatoriums and nursing homes, was one of the central people responsible for the second phase of the National Socialist murders, the Brandt campaign .

post war period

After the end of the war, Muthesius worked briefly for the Brandenburg State Health Office from May 1945 and from 1948 built up the social department of the German Association of Cities . From 1947 Muthesius worked again for the German Association for Public and Private Welfare and was a member of the board there from 1948 to 1977. From 1950 to 1964 he was chairman of the German Association for Public and Private Welfare. Subsequently, Muthesius was honorary chairman of the association. At that time, the association was an amalgamation of all public and private providers of social work in the Federal Republic. The Ministry of Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia awarded Muthesius the title of professor in 1950; from 1956 he was honorary professor for welfare law at the University of Frankfurt .

Honors

The numerous awards included the award of the Great Federal Cross of Merit in 1953 and the Star for the Great Federal Cross of Merit in 1960.

Aftermath

The German Association for Public and Private Welfare named its association headquarters "Hans-Muthesius-Haus" and from 1980 awarded the Hans Muthesius plaque for services to welfare. At the commemoration of Muthesius's 100th birthday in 1985, the then chairman of the association quoted a contemporary witness, according to whose information one could get advice and effective help from Muthesius at any time during the Nazi era against the party's intervention in welfare work.

At the same commemoration, a leaflet campaign pointed out Muthesius' responsibility for the admission of children and young people to the youth concentration camps. After a lengthy decision-making process, the association decided in autumn 1990 to no longer award the plaque named after Muthesius and to rename its headquarters. Prior to this, in 1989 Christian Schrapper was commissioned by the Institute for Social Pedagogy at the University of Münster to provide an expert opinion on Muthesius and his predecessor, Wilhelm Polligkeit, as chairman of the association. The investigation later concentrated on the work of Muthesius in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lerner, Franz, "Muthesius, Hans" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 18 (1997), p. 653 f. Online version
  2. ↑ Engelke / Borrmann / Spatscheck, Theories of Social Work, 7th edition 2018, p. 306, Lambertus-Verlag
  3. ↑ See on this Wolfgang Ayaß (edit.): "Community foreigners". Sources on the persecution of "anti-social" 1933-1945 , Koblenz 1998, pp. 104, 271, 288, 330, 380.
  4. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 426 (there on Litzmannstadt).
  5. ^ German Association for Public and Private Welfare - Exhibition: The "Ära Muthesius" (PDF; 470 kB)
  6. ^ Ayass, Akten , p. 55.
personal data
SURNAME Muthesius, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and pioneer of social work
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar
DATE OF DEATH 1st February 1977
Place of death Frankfurt am Main