Hermann Voss (Lawyer)

Hermann Friedrich Maria Voss (born September 30, 1878 in Witten ; † January 25, 1957 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German lawyer and association official.

Live and act

Education and early career

Voss was a son of the doctor Hermann Voss (born November 4, 1851) and his wife Rosa, geb. Thomm (born April 20, 1854 in Pfaffendorf; † May 8, 1936).

He attended elementary school and a humanistic grammar school in Koblenz. After graduating from high school, Voss studied law at the universities of Giessen and Bonn . During his studies in Giessen he was a member of the Germania fraternity . In between he served from April 1, 1897 to March 31, 1898 as a one-year volunteer with the 2nd company of an infantry regiment.

After passing the first state examination in law, Voss completed four years of legal preparatory service as a trainee lawyer in Ehrenbreitstein , Neuwied , Koblenz and Kiel . In 1901 he received his doctorate in Freiburg with a dissertation on the claim for damages under Section 823, Paragraph 2 of the Civil Code for Dr. jur. After passing the assessor exam in 1904, Voss set up as a lawyer in Itzehoe . There he belonged to a Masonic lodge from 1907 to 1908. This was followed by a stopover in Swakopmund in Namibia - at that time a German colony, before Voss opened a law firm in Berlin .

First World War and Weimar Republic

From 1914 to 1918 Voss took part in the First World War as a major in the Landwehr . During the war he was first used as a company commander (August 1914 to August 1915) and later as a battalion commander: After a brief assignment as adjutant of the 47th Infantry Regiment from August 2 to September 10, 1914, he led a company in this until August 1, 1915 Regiment. He then commanded battalions in the 47th Infantry Regiment (August 1, 1915 to September 20, 1917), 46th Infantry Regiment (September 20, 1917 to November 10, 1917) and 58th Infantry Regiment (November 10, 1917 to September 13, 1918). At this time he was taken prisoner of war, where he remained until December 1919.

Voss was wounded four times during the war and was decorated with various war awards: the Iron Cross II Class (September 1914), the Iron Cross I Class (August 1915), the Hessian Medal of Bravery (August 2, 1915), the Austrian Military Merit Cross ( Spring 1915) and the Order of the Hohenzollern House with Swords (March 7, 1918) and the Silver Badge for Wounded (July 2, 1918).

After his release from captivity, Voss returned to his profession as a lawyer and notary. Together with others he ran the successful law firm "Voss, Suren und Sozien", whose clients included the actor Gustaf Gründgens .

Politically, Voss had been a member of the German People's Party (DVP) since 1920, for which he sat for several years in the Berlin-Tiergarten district council. From 1925 to 1931 he led the Kyffhäuser youth in Berlin on a voluntary basis. Since 1929 Voss has also been a member of the exclusive German Men's Club .

Nazi era

In the Berlin city council elections on March 12, 1933, Voss ran as the top candidate of the German People's Party (DVP) in the Tiergarten district. Soon afterwards, starting April 1, 1933, he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) (membership number 1,773,575), allegedly because the party chairman of the DVP, Johannes Dingeldey , had refused to convert his party into the NSDAP . With admission on July 8, 1933, Voss also became a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the street combat organization of the NSDAP. In this he took over on September 23, 1933 the function of a legal advisor to the SA Brigade 28 with the rank of Obertruppführer, before he received the rank of SA assault leader on April 20, 1934.

In March 1933, Voss became the department head of the Lawyers' Association in the Association of National Socialist German Lawyers (BNSDJ). As a steward of the BNSDJ, Voss was placed at the side of the President of the German Lawyers' Association (DAV), Rudolf Dix , in mid-April 1933 . These and similar measures served to gradually undermine the foundation of the DAV, as the largest legal professional organization in the German Reich, and to bring it into the waters of the Nazi lawyers' association. Almost three weeks later, on May 7, 1933, the leader of the National Socialist lawyers appointed Hans Frank as the "Representative of the Reich Justice Commissioner for the transfer of the German Lawyers' Association to the BNSDJ", which is also the assignment that he carried out for the National Socialists in the traditional lawyer organization should, was circumscribed. At an extraordinary general meeting of the DAV, which took place on May 18, 1933, Frank demanded with barely concealed threats from the board of the DAV to either "voluntarily" adapt to the demands of the new rulers and to adapt to the new state or by force in line to be brought or dissolved. So he led u. a. from: "[...] the German lawyers have it in their own hands whether you want to be the leader, co-leader in this struggle [ie the transformation of German society carried out by the National Socialists in 1933] or whether you have to get under the wheels of revolutionary events [...] you are completely free to make your decision. The development either goes as it is possible for you today. If it doesn't work that way, then I would regret having to use the same method as with the Marxist trade unions. ” The assembled members of the board then decided on the same day to join the NS-Juristenbund corporatively or the DAV corporately Convict BNSDJ. As a result, the DAV was initially allowed to continue to exist. However, on May 18, 1933, Voss was appointed as the successor to Dix as the new President of the Board of Directors of the DAV. With this appointment, the board hoped to avoid a complete dissolution of the association.

Also in May 1933, Voss was briefly editor of the legal weekly before Hans Frank took over this post.

In the course of his work as president of the DAV, Voss brought it quickly and decisively on the National Socialist line, whereby he intensified the anti-Semitic orientation of the DAV in particular. Specifically, he was significantly involved in the exclusion and expulsion of Jewish lawyers from the legal professional organizations. At the end of May, in line with these efforts, he demonstratively published an appeal on the first page of the lawyers' journal, in which he stated:

"I recommend all members who are not of purely Aryan descent to immediately withdraw from the German Bar Association and its affiliated associations (district groups, etc.)."

In the summer of 1933 Voss became legal advisor and legal representative of the Dirksen Foundation founded by Viktoria von Dirksen and the Herrenklub, whose board of trustees included Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Röhm .

At the end of 1933, Voss was replaced as President of the DAV by Walter Raeke . This change took place in the course of the dissolution of all remaining lawyers' associations ordered by Hans Frank and the integration of their relatives into the BNSDJ as individual members.

As a result of the shooting of his son in the context of the Röhm affair, Voss was subjected to a lengthy internal SA investigation, which was intended to determine whether he was still a member of the SA. After he was on leave of absence from the SA service from July 1, 1934 to April 26, 1936, the proceedings were discontinued by a resolution of the SA leadership on April 5, 1935. He then worked in the SA as legal advisor to Storm 6 / R 109 (October 1, 1935 to December 31, 1935), as z. b. V.-Führer and Kulturwart im Sturm 30 / R 109 (January 1, 1936 to March 31, 1937) and as deputy legal advisor to SA Brigade 30 (April 1, 1937 to?). In the SA he was promoted to Obersturmführer (November 9, 1937) and Hauptsturmführer (November 9, 1938).

family

Hermann Voss' death certificate

Voss was married twice. From his first marriage, which ended in divorce in 1911, he had two sons and two daughters:

The older son, Hans Voss (born October 30, 1906) was a doctor. The younger son, the lawyer Gerd Voss , was from 1933 to 1934 student council leader at the law faculty of the Berlin University and legal advisor to the SA group Berlin-Brandenburg. On July 1, 1934, as a close employee of the SA chief Karl Ernst, he was shot dead by the SS in the barracks of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler in Berlin-Lichterfelde in the course of the Röhm affair.

There were also daughters Vera (* March 8, 1904) and Hilde (* August 1, 1905).

In his second marriage, Voss was married to Eleonore Trümmern (born January 7, 1887 in Munich) since December 29, 1919.

In the 1930s Voss lived at Genthinerstraße 7.

Lore

Various personnel documents on Voss have been preserved in the Federal Archives: In particular, personnel files in the holdings of the former BerliN Document Center, including an SA court file (SA-P microfilm D 280, images 2087-229).

Fonts

• The claim for damages from Section 823, Paragraph 2 of the Civil Code. 1901. (dissertation)

literature

• Angelika Königseder: Law and National Socialist Rule. Berlin lawyers 1933–1945. A research project of the Berliner Anwaltverein eV 2001.
• Simone Rücker: Legal advice. Legal advice from 1919–1945 and the emergence of the Legal Advice Abuse Act of 1935. 2006.
• Publishing house for press, economy and politics: The German Reich from 1918 to today. 1932.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Standesamt Frankfurt iv: death register for the year 1957: death certificate 1957/180.
2. ↑ Gustaf Gründgens: Partly. 1967, p. 52.
3. ↑ Michael Löffelsender: Kölner Rechtsanwälte im National Socialism A professional group between "Gleichschaltung" and war deployment , 2015, p. 11.
4. ↑ Michael Löffelsender: Kölner Rechtsanwälte im National Socialismus A professional group between "Gleichschaltung" and war deployment , 2015, p. 11f.
5. ↑ Spoonful transmitter: Kölner Rechtsanwälte, p. 12.
6. ↑ Königseder: Law and National Socialist Rule. 2001, p. 83.
7. ^ Berlin address book for 1933 .