Hermann Muhs

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Hermann Muhs (born May 16, 1894 in Barlissen , † April 13, 1962 in Göttingen ) was a German lawyer and politician ( NSDAP ), State Secretary and Acting Reich Minister for Church Affairs .

Life

After participating in the First World War studied Muhs Law and received his doctorate in 1922 on "The emergency powers by country State Law" at the University of Göttingen for Doctor of Law . He was admitted to the bar , opened a law firm and was later also a notary. In 1929 he became a member of the NSDAP (membership number 152.594). From 1932 to 1933 he sat in the Prussian state parliament . In 1932 he was briefly Gauleiter of the NSDAP. As leader of the NSDAP parliamentary group in the Göttingen Citizens' Board (in which Muhs had been since 1929), Muhs was still involved in the NSDAP's election campaign for the Reichstag election on March 5, 1933 . The historian Cordula Tollmien judged that Muhs was "undoubtedly the leading head of the Göttingen National Socialists" at this time. In March 1933, Muhs started a campaign against the Göttingen city administration and organized a NSDAP mass rally in which 8,000 people from Göttingen took part. After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Muhs became regional president in Hildesheim on March 26, 1933 . In addition, he worked in the Association of National Socialist German Lawyers (BNSDJ) . In 1933 he was also a member of the Provincial Parliament of the Province of Hanover .

From 1935, Muhs was State Secretary in the Reich Ministry for Church Affairs . His efforts to harmonize on the one hand and his theological incompetence on the other hand repeatedly met with resistance in church circles.

After Muhs attended the funeral of the Cologne Cardinal Karl Joseph Schulte in uniform against the order of Himmler , who wanted to mark the distance between the SS and the church, in 1941 he was promoted from the SS with the rank of SS Oberführer (comparable between Colonel and Major General) dismiss. Nevertheless, after the death of the Minister of Churches Hanns Kerrl , Muhs continued the ministry until 1945.

Muhs was again admitted to the bar in Göttingen in the post-war period.

Muhs' role in spatial planning

Muhs was also Kerrl's representative as head of the Reich Office for Regional Planning (RfR). There, Muhs also headed the "central department". Due to the early death of Hanns Kerrl in December 1941, Muhs became managing director of the RfR. In 1942, Muhs was a member of the “Führerring” of the Society for European Economic Planning and Large-Scale Economics .

Even as RfR department head in 1938, Hermann Muhs - like many other spatial planning experts - not only recognized a "space shortage" in the German Reich, he also pleaded for a "total spatial plan", a "Reich spatial planning plan".

“The tasks that Muhs and his predecessor Walter Blöcker, who had already died in 1936, assigned to spatial planning tied in with the basic ideas of Weimar regional planning in numerous points, while at the same time the focus shifted against the background of the four-year plan , self-sufficiency and racial objectives. (...) The conurbations , according to Muhs, must be relieved, the people reconnected to the ground and the transport network expanded; Furthermore, he named the establishment of horticultural zones (protection from development and urban expansion) and the protection of the forest as tasks of spatial planning, but also the protection of the hereditary farm areas as the most racially valuable blood carriers of the people. "

However, such ideas were often only declarations of intent or were planned for the period after the end of the war. The RfR had an overview of numerous planning projects, but was a relatively weak authority in the polycratic structure of the regime. In 1943, with the active help of Hermann Muhs, it was possible to prevent the threatened dissolution of the Reich Office for Regional Planning. Even if spatial and regional planning (no less than church politics) was a completely new and unknown field of work for the completely unfamiliar Muhs, he nevertheless showed an interest in specialist literature. In December 1942, the regional economist August Lösch also noted an incident with Hermann Muhs in his diary. Lösch referred to his internationally renowned study “ The spatial order of the economy. A study of the location, economic areas and international trade ", first published in Jena in 1940:

“On November 27th with State Secretary Muhs, the head of the Reich Office for Spatial Planning. A satisfaction and a success in every way. They read my book (and Isenberg assured him that he always took it home with him in the evening). He would like me to expand it for practice, namely - according to Thünen's isolating method ! It is important to him that the specifically economic (not the extra-economic!) Viewpoints are worked out. I shouldn't describe what is , but show what should be . How it would be reasonable. I thanked you for his interest ... "

Lösch also referred to Muhs in his “Foreword to the second edition” of the above-mentioned study. In this excerpt, which was written in autumn 1943, Lösch also went into a little more detail on the employees of the Reich Office, which is why it is quoted here. After August Lösch had emphasized the interdisciplinary benefits of his study, he also referred to its possible practical suitability for spatial planning :

“In addition, of course, a lot would need to be evaluated, especially for the practical planning work. I owe the assignment to prepare this to the kind interest of the head of the Reich Office for Spatial Planning, State Secretary Dr. Muhs. I would like to remember the discussion with his staff, Ministerialdirigent Dr. Teubert , 1st building officer Köster , Dr. Puttkammer , graduate economist Wiesener. Above all, however, I am grateful to my compatriot, Upper Government Councilor Dr. Isenberg, a pioneer in spatial research , this time committed to many things. "

Fonts

  • Emergency ordinance law according to state law, o. O., 1923 (Göttingen, R.- and staatswiss. Diss., 1923)
  • (together with Konrad Meyer ): People, State and Space, two lectures given at the spring meeting of the Reich Working Group for Spatial Research in May 1937. Reprint from the journal Raumforschung und Raumordnung. Heidelberg, Berlin: Kurt Vowinckel Verlag 1937
  • Spatial planning in the National Socialist state policy. In: Raumforschung und Raumordnung, 1st year (1937), pp. 517-523.
  • Spatial planning before new tasks. In: Raumforschung und Raumordnung, 2nd year (1938), pp. 473-480.
  • Through spatial planning for spatial planning, without date, without location, in: Bundesarchiv R113 / 2264 (after Herzberg 1997: 22)

literature

  • Klaus Arndt: Dr. Hermann Muhs (1894–1962). A biographical sketch in two parts . Part 1: From Göttingen law student to National Socialist district president in Hildesheim. Part 2: From Hildesheim via Hanover to Berlin. In: Hildesheim yearbook for the city and monastery of Hildesheim. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg; Vol. 81 (2009), pp. 75-116; Vol. 82 (2010), pp. 71-125.
  • Hansjörg Buss: The Reich Ministry of Churches under Hanns Kerrl and Hermann Muhs . In: Manfred Gailus (Ed.): Perpetrators and accomplices in theology and church 1933–1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1649-2 , pp. 140–170.
  • Ernst Kienast (Ed.): Handbook for the Prussian Landtag , edition for the 5th electoral period, Berlin 1933, p. 365.
  • Beatrix Herlemann , Helga Schatz: Biographical Lexicon of Lower Saxony Parliamentarians, 1919–1945 , Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hanover 2004, pp. 255/256.
  • Heike Kreutzer: The Reich Ministry of Churches in the framework of National Socialist rule . Droste, Düsseldorf 2000 (= writings of the Federal Archives, 56), ISBN 3-7700-1610-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cordula Tollmien: National Socialism in Göttingen, (1933–1945), p. 74. In: Diss. At the Philosophical Faculty of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. November 1998, Retrieved September 26, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Cordula Tollmien: National Socialism in Göttingen, (1933–1945), pp. 78–81. In: Dissertation at the Philosophical Faculty of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. November 1998, Retrieved September 26, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 425.
  4. ^ Andreas Kübler: Chronicle of construction and space. History and prehistory of the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning . Ed .: Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning. Wasmuth, Tübingen 2007, p. 300 .
  5. ↑ Ariane Leendertz: Creating order. German spatial planning in the 20th century. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2008, p. 113 .
  6. ↑ Ariane Leendertz: Creating order. German spatial planning in the 20th century. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2008, p. 114 .
  7. ↑ Ariane Leendertz: Creating order. German spatial planning in the 20th century . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2008, p. 192-194 .
  8. ↑ August Lösch. From diaries and letters 1925–1945, compiled by Marga Künkele-Lösch, with comments by Volker Riegger, in: Roland Riegger (Ed.): August Lösch in memoriam. Heidenheim: Meuer 1971, p. 109.
  9. ↑ August Lösch: The spatial order of the economy. Second, newly worked through edition. Verlag von Gustav Fischer, Jena 1944, p. V and VI .
personal data
SURNAME Muhs, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and politician (NSDAP), MdL, State Secretary in the Reich Church Ministry
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Barlissen
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1962
Place of death Goettingen