Hugo Kalweit

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Hugo Kalweit

Hugo Kalweit (born April 27, 1882 in Darkehmen , East Prussia , † July 25, 1970 in Destedt , Lower Saxony ) was a German judge . From May 18, 1942 to mid-December 1943, he was chairman of the Braunschweig Special Court .

Life

Kalweit came from an East Prussian family. His father was a court secretary. He first attended the municipal school, then a private school and passed the Abitur on March 12, 1902 at the Kgl. Lyck high school in Masurian Lyck . From the summer semester of 1902 he studied law at the Albertus University in Königsberg . He graduated from both state exams with "sufficient". Like many of his schoolmates, he became a member of the Corps Masovia . When the fight was still going on without goggles , he suffered an injury to his right eye while being inactive while wearing a saber , which led to loss of vision. Kalweit was deeply connected to his corps throughout his life. In Königsberg, for example, he gave him a Danzig Baroque cupboard , and in Kiel a copy of an East Prussian landscape. In 1960 he was also awarded the ribbon of his friends Palaiomarchia .

After he had passed the assessor examination in 1910 , he settled in Lyck as a lawyer in 1911 and married the daughter of his corps brother Karl Rimek (1868-1933), a doctor in Mohrungen. Due to his eye injury, he did not take part in the First World War; but from 1917 to 1918 he worked as a military assistant judge at the brigade court in Lyck, Lötzen and Deutsch Eylau . In 1924 he became a notary . After the end of the war, Kalweit belonged to the German People's Party (DVP), the German National People's Party (DNVP) and finally to the German People's Freedom Movement (DVFB). On June 1, 1930 he became a member of the NSDAP , for which he entered the city parliament of Lyck in 1933.

In 1933 he joined the judiciary. On October 1, 1933, Kalweit was appointed President of the Tilsit Regional Court and on November 1, 1934, he moved to Lyck in this office. At the same time, Kalweit was since October 1, 1934 a member of the criminal senate at the Berlin Superior Court and from 1937 held the same office at the Reichsgericht . In the same year there were serious disputes with Erich Koch , the Gauleiter of East Prussia, because Kalweit saw the independence of the judiciary endangered by NSDAP party offices. When he faced a judgment against a district leader of the NSDAP, on the advice of the Reich Ministry of Justice in Berlin on March 1, 1938, he was transferred “at his own request” (again as President) to the Lüneburg district court . and again “at my own request” on October 1, 1939, to the Braunschweig Regional Court as its president.

His superiors from this time always attested Kalweit “high idealism”, “absolute reliability” and “decisiveness”. In addition, he was considered "politically absolutely reliable", his "loyalty to the leader, people and state [...] beyond any doubt."

In spring 1942 there was a lawsuit against Eugen Hubing, operations director of the Braunschweiger Büssing-Werke . He was accused of having embezzled "meat and butter from communal catering for personal consumption" . Even before the trial began, Hartmann Lauterbacher , NSDAP Gauleiter of South Hanover-Braunschweig , publicly demanded the death penalty for Hubing. Kalweit then asked the Braunschweig Special Court to make him the chairman of the proceedings in order to prevent the NSDAP from influencing the verdict in their favor. However, this request was not granted in order to avoid the Special Court being accused of having specially compiled it for the trial against Hubing (Hubing was sentenced to death in April 1942). As in East Prussia in 1937, Kalweit protested after this decision against the public influencing of the judiciary by representatives of the Nazi regime.

Chairman of the Braunschweig Special Court

On May 18, 1942, Kalweit took over the chairmanship of the Braunschweig Special Court from Karl Höse , who - possibly at Kalweit's instigation - was accused of being responsible for the judgments of the Special Court, which the Nazi regime regarded as too mild. Kalweit, however, was known for his tough judgments.

In his first trial as the new chairman of the Braunschweig Special Court, Kalweit imposed a double death sentence on the Jew Moritz Klein , who, according to his own admission , had repeatedly immorally touched two little girls . The disproportionately harsh judgment constitutes a perversion of the law . In the same summer Kalweit imposed four further death sentences: against a Polish slave laborer and against three "dangerous habitual criminals ". Until the change in chairmanship in December 1943, he was only involved in a few proceedings and none of the numerous death sentences imposed by the Braunschweig Special Court. He was probably only formally chairman. Kalweit's successor in the office of chairman of the Braunschweig Special Court was Walter Lerche from December 15, 1943 until the end of the war (April 12, 1945 in Braunschweig) .

After Braunschweig had been occupied by the 30th Infantry Division (US Army) on April 12, 1945 , Kalweit was suspended from duty on May 7 and released as president of the district court on September 1, 1945 without a pension.

denazification

As in many other OLG districts, a special committee was set up in Braunschweig for the denazification of the judiciary. It consisted of three people: attorney (and later president of the OLG Braunschweig) Friedrich-Wilhelm Holland , higher regional judge Wolf and attorney Friedrich Lampe. None of the three had been a member of the NSDAP. The committee was named "Holland Committee" after its chairman. Kalweit justified his early entry into the NSDAP by stating that the party campaigned early on to protect East Prussia and to improve the economic and social living conditions for workers and peasants. In 1947 the "Holland Committee" ruled: "The committee members are aware that Kalweit, as president of the regional court in Braunschweig, also acted as a staunch National Socialist in accordance with National Socialist principles ". Kalweit was then classified in "Category III" ("less burdened") and his discharge was confirmed at the same time. An appeal committee , however, praised Kalweit's "social attitude" and his "conflicts with the party" and finally granted a reduced pension. Due to a change in the legal situation, there was another procedure in 1949 in which he was classified in “Category IV” (“ fellow travelers ”) and retired with 75% of his pension.

Legal aftermath

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On August 21, 1950, Hugo Kalweit was charged with his work at the Braunschweig Special Court. However, the indictment was not admitted by the competent criminal chamber. He has been a widower since 1952. The last years of his life were "overshadowed by an almost limitless [arteriosclerotic] ​​stubbornness, which also caused him to take actions that would have been alien to him earlier" .

literature

  • Edgar Isermann, Michael Schlüter (ed.): Justice and Lawyers in Braunschweig 1879–2004. 125 years of the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court and Bar Association. Joh. Heinrich Meyer Verlag, Braunschweig 2004, ISBN 3-926701-62-5 .
  • Helmut Kramer (ed.): Braunschweig under the swastika. Bourgeoisie, Justice and Church - A series of lectures and their echo. Magni-Buchladen, Braunschweig 1981, ISBN 3-922571-03-4 .
  • Hans-Ulrich Ludewig , Dietrich Kuessner : "So everyone should be warned" - The Braunschweig Special Court 1933–1945. In: Sources and research on the Braunschweig national history. Volume 36, self-published by the Braunschweigisches Geschichtsverein, Langenhagen 2000, ISBN 3-928009-17-6 .
  • Klaus Erich Pollmann (ed.): The difficult way into the post-war period. The Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church in Braunschweig 1945–1950. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1994, ISBN 3-525-55239-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 87/930
  2. ↑ a b Hans-Heinrich Müller-Dieckert: Hugo Kalweit. Corpszeitung der Altmärker-Masuren, No. 48, Kiel 1971, p. 1012 f.
  3. ↑ Kalweit quote: "My whole attitude towards the corps arises from a debt of gratitude to Masovia, to whom I owe what I have become."
  4. ↑ a b List of all members of the Corps Masovia 1823 to 2005. Potsdam 2006.
  5. ↑ Ludewig, Kuessner: "So everyone should be warned" - The Braunschweig Special Court 1933–1945. P. 266.
  6. ↑ a b c Stefan Puhle: Hugo Kalweit. In: Edgar Isermann, Michael Schlüter (ed.): Justice and Lawyers in Braunschweig 1879-2004. 125 years of the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court and Bar Association. P. 161.
  7. ↑ a b Ludewig, Kuessner: "So everyone should be warned" - The Braunschweig Special Court 1933–1945. P. 267.
  8. ^ Chronicle of the city of Braunschweig for 1942 on braunschweig.de
  9. ↑ s. FN 40 in: Ludewig, Kuessner: "So everyone should be warned" - The Braunschweig Special Court 1933–1945. P. 268.
  10. ↑ Klaus Erich Pollmann (ed.): The difficult way into the post-war period. The Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church in Braunschweig 1945–1950. P. 278.
  11. ↑ Ludewig, Kuessner: "So everyone should be warned" - The Braunschweig Special Court 1933–1945. P. 84.
  12. ↑ Helmut Kramer: Judge in front of court: The legal processing of the special jurisdiction , In: Ministry of Justice of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Ed.): National Socialist Special Courts. A conference proceedings. P. 125.
  13. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Ludewig, Dietrich Kuessner: "So everyone should be warned" - The Braunschweig Special Court 1933–1945. In: Sources and research on the Braunschweig national history. P. 23.
  14. ↑ a b Hans-Ulrich Ludewig, Dietrich Kuessner: "So everyone should be warned" - The Braunschweig Special Court 1933–1945. In: Sources and research on the Braunschweig national history. P. 268.
  15. ↑ Ludewig, Kuessner: "So everyone should be warned" - The Braunschweig Special Court 1933–1945. P. 238.
  16. ^ Stefan Puhle: Hugo Kalweit. In: Edgar Isermann, Michael Schlüter (ed.): Justice and Lawyers in Braunschweig 1879-2004. 125 years of the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court and Bar Association. P. 162.
  17. ^ Edgar Isermann, Michael Schlüter (ed.): Justice and Lawyers in Braunschweig 1879-2004. 125 years of the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court and Bar Association. Pp. 161-162. Joh. Heinr. Meyer, Braunschweig 2004, ISBN 3-926701-62-5 .
  18. ^ Helmut Kramer: Judge in front of the court. The legal processing of the special jurisdiction. (PDF file; 811 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Kalweit, Hugo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kalweit, Hugo Paul Walther (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German judge, district court president, chairman of the NS special court in Braunschweig
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Darkehmen , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1970
Place of death Destedt , Lower Saxony