Jens Jessen

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Jens Peter Jessen (around 1930)

Jens Peter Jessen (born December 11, 1895 in Stoltelund near Tingleff ( Tondern district ); † November 30, 1944 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was an economist ( political economist ) who initially made a career as a committed National Socialist during the Nazi era , and later but joined the resistance against the Hitler regime . After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , he was sentenced to death by the People's Court and hanged in Plötzensee .

Life

education

Jens Peter Jessen was born as the fifth of ten children to the landowner Jens Ratenburg Jessen and his wife Maria. From 1906 he attended the old grammar school in Flensburg . After graduating from high school, he volunteered for the First World War in 1914 and returned seriously wounded as a lieutenant in the reserve. In 1917 Jessen began studying political science at Kiel University under Bernhard Harms , but also studied at the Colonial Institute of Hamburg University and at Heidelberg University . In July 1920 he did his doctorate with Richard Passow in political science with the topic The origin and development of the estate economy in Schleswig-Holstein up to the beginning of the agricultural reforms . In August 1920 the first state examination in law followed at the Higher Regional Court in Kiel and finally in October 1920 the doctoral thesis The Commercial Purchase under Nordic Law . After stays abroad in Copenhagen as a bank clerk and in Buenos Aires as director of a foreign trade company, he embarked on a scientific career in 1927.

Career in National Socialism

At the beginning of 1928 Jessen completed his habilitation at the University of Göttingen with a thesis on agricultural problems in Argentina . In the following years he taught as a private lecturer in the law and political science faculty of Göttingen University. Due to his sympathy for National Socialism, he came into contact with party members during this time, including the Gauleiter of South Hanover-Braunschweig and later Reich Minister for Science, Education and National Education Bernhard Rust . He joined the NSDAP in 1930. From 1931 Jessen worked on the Reich leadership of the NSDAP in Munich in the economic policy department of the NSDAP , which had been founded by Otto Wagener in 1930. In 1932 he was appointed associate professor in Göttingen.

In Kiel, from the spring of 1933, in the wake of the National Socialist “ Gleichschaltung ”, many professors were forced to leave their posts. Their posts were held, mostly by young, National Socialist-minded scientists. In the summer semester of 1933, Jens Jessen took on a substitute professorship in Kiel, and in September he was finally appointed full professor of finance , a position that Julius Landmann had held until his death in 1931. At the same time, Jessen was appointed as the successor to Bernhard Harms, head of the Institute for World Economy and Maritime Transport , who had been "brutally removed from his offices" by the Nazis . Jessen had previously brought himself to mind with a letter to the Reich Minister of Education, Rust. In addition, Jessen von Harms, who feared his deposition by the new rulers and worried about the future of his institute, was brought into play as his successor in an exchange of letters with the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz . Jessen soon got to know Popitz personally and was friends with him from then on. Jessen's career in Kiel came to an end in February 1934. The assistant director of the institute Otto Ohlendorf , a party member since 1925, had written a negative report on statements made by the Berlin ministerial council in the Prussian Ministry of Culture and party comrade Joachim Haupt , which Jessen had forwarded unchecked to the authorities of the NSDAP. In lectures in a training camp, Haupt is said to have spoken disparagingly about the rector of Kiel University and about the Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick . As an old fighter, Haupt was very influential in the NSDAP and in the ministry and took sharp action against this denunciation. A police investigation was initiated against Jessen and Ohlendorf for defamation of a member of the Reich government, during which several house searches took place and Jessen was also briefly arrested. At the end of February 1934, Jessen had to take a semester leave of absence. A new head of the Institute for the World Economy was appointed in July. On August 4th, Jessen was transferred to the University of Marburg as a professor of political science.

In 1933, Jessen was one of the founding members of the National Socialist Academy for German Law Hans Frank .

In April 1935, Jessen was appointed full professor of political science and economics at the Berlin School of Economics .

The work of Jessen

In Berlin in 1935 he helped to shape the National Socialist changes to the study of economics and published, among other things, the National Socialist-minded textbook People and Economy . The book was heavily criticized by Ottokar Lorenz in the Völkischer Beobachter . Jessen had namely in the section "The national economy in the all-encompassing movement of National Socialism", in which he also described the development of National Socialism up to the Third Reich and the Röhmrevolte , some serious mistakes from the point of view of the NSDAP leadership made. From their point of view, the “ Führer principle ” had been misrepresented. The Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt withdrew the book and published a second edition, modified by Jessen, in early 1936. In this new edition, the Röhm promotion was no longer mentioned. In return, Jessen described the skills and merits of Adolf Hitler all the more, and also the views of the chief thinker of the NSDAP, Alfred Rosenberg . In the summer of 1936 Jens Jessen was transferred to the Berlin University , where he was to become the managing director of the Political Science and Statistics seminar, supported by Johannes Popitz. For this purpose, however, a review of membership in the NSDAP was carried out. This allegedly revealed that Jessen had never joined the party despite statements to the contrary. Only after positive statements, including by Otto Wagener, and interventions by Popitz and Otto Ohlendorf, meanwhile a consultant in the main office of the SD , did Jessen become head of the seminar in February 1939. In 1939 he became editor of the specialist journal Schmoller's yearbook for legislation, administration and economics . In the same year he worked, among other things, within the Academy for German Law with a statement on the renewed reform of the study of economics. In 1940 he took over the management of class IV at the academy, which was supposed to answer questions of the day's economic policy and to think about reorganization plans for the post-war period. In March 1943, the department was closed because it was not considered to be of any importance to the war effort. Some members continued to meet in the Erwin von Beckerath working group .

Jessen in the resistance against National Socialism

On November 29, 1939, Johannes Popitz invited Jessen to the Wednesday Society as the successor to the late Harms and thus came into contact with the resistance group around Ludwig Beck and Ulrich von Hassell and the Kreisau Circle . Jessen developed into an active member of the resistance movement.

From 1941 the captain of the reserve was appointed as a department head in the staff of the Army Quartermaster Eduard Wagner . He was in charge of the main passport office in the passport office, which was an independent office (Qu 6) in the Bendlerblock in Berlin from 1942 . Among other things, Jessen was Werner von Haeften’s superior until autumn 1943 . He organized travel opportunities for the resistance and was the contact between the conspirators. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg met Jessen in the summer of 1942 and was often visited by him at home.

In Jessen's office also found through the mediation of his adjutant, Lieutenant Reinhard Limbach a meeting with, Dec 22 1942 at about 12 o'clock Falk Harnack instead, considered in the Jessen, a stay of execution of the resistance fighter of the " Red Orchestra ", Arvid Harnack , as future negotiating partner with the Soviets by influencing Reich Minister of Economics Walther Funk . Then Jessen and General Hans Oster immediately went to Funk, but Funk did nothing to save Arvid Harnack.

Jessen's actual role in the resistance movement has been undervalued or not shown in many depictions of July 20, 1944. That he was a pioneer of the assassination can be seen in the diary of co-conspirator Ulrich von Hassell : There is an entry by Ilse von Hassell for April 20, 1943: “That evening, Jessen said desperately: 'In theory it would be like that easy to get rid of this criminal (Hitler): the officer who is presenting brings in a folder containing explosives, puts the folder on Hitler's desk, can be taken out for an agreed telephone call, and Hitler is eliminated! '” The editor Wolf Ulrich von Hassell writes in his diary: “… Professor Peter Jens Jessen was brought in by the Gestapo as the last of this group . He was still severely weakened from his car accident and could not walk alone. Before he was arrested, I was with him several times. Basically he felt the urge to be brought to his comrades. On the eve of July 20, Count Stauffenberg and the main actors were with him to go over the plans again. The Gestapo probably never found out, as it did not really understand the history of this coup attempt. She worked with terror, with criminal technology, but without real insight and cleverness. "

The Jens-Jessen-Haus in Flensburg with the old grammar school in the background (picture 2014)
The memorial plaque to Jens Jessen in Flensburg

Arrested and executed in 1944

After the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , an arrest warrant was issued against Jessen on October 11. On November 7, 1944, he was sentenced to death by the People's Court under the chairmanship of Roland Freisler for "failing to report a treasonous company" and hanged on November 30 in Plötzensee .

Family and afterlife

Jens Peter Jessen was buried in Tingleff.

Jessen had been married to Käthe Scheffer since 1921 and had four sons with her. His son Eike Jessen became a professor of computer science and was head of the German Research Network (DFN) for many years ; his grandson Jens Jessen (* 1955) became a journalist and for many years was the head of the Zeit feuilleton.

The old grammar school in Flensburg gave the school's own villa in the neighborhood the name Jens-Jessen-Haus , in honor of the former student. At the same time, the building was given a memorial plaque to Jens Jessen. The house was sold around 2010. The memorial was temporarily no longer maintained. The memorial plaque was temporarily removed. But in 2013 the villa, which kept its name Jens-Jessen-Haus, was finally restored.

See also

Self-help or doom

Publications

  • with Bruno Jung : self-help or downfall. A question of fate for the German nation. Stalling, Oldenburg 1931.
  • People and economy. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1935.
  • German finance. Including an overview of the history of the German financial sector. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1937.
  • Basics of economic policy. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1937.
  • Trade as an economic task. A contribution to the doctrine of domestic trade. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1940.

literature

Non-scientific literature:

Web links

Commons : Jens Jessen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of the Chair of Public Finance at the CAU ( Memento from October 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Frank Lubowitz, lecture January 27, 2010 in the Ladelund Nordfriesland Tageblatt , February 3, 2010. Accessed December 19, 2017
  3. ^ Regina Schlueter-Ahrens: The economist Jens Jessen: Life and work. Metropolis, Marburg 2001, ISBN 3-89518-335-0 , p. 38ff.
  4. ^ Regina Schlueter-Ahrens, The economist Jens Jessen . (see literature list) p. 49ff.
  5. ^ Yearbook of the Academy for German Law, 1st year 1933/34. Edited by Hans Frank. (Munich, Berlin, Leipzig: Schweitzer Verlag), p. 254
  6. ↑ The son's story
  7. ↑ a b c Heinrich Scheel : The “ Red Chapel ” and July 20, 1944. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft Edition 33, Nos. 1-6, p. 330; published by Rütten & Loening, 1985, limited preview in the Google book search
  8. ↑ Thun-Hohenstein, Romedio Galeazzo: The Conspirator: General Oster and the military opposition. Berlin 1982, p. 221.
  9. ↑ Ulrich von Hassell: Vom other Deutschland. Zurich 1946.
  10. ^ Nils Goldschmidt: Economy, Politics and Freedom. Mohr Siebeck, 2005, ISBN 978-3-16-148520-6 , p. 102. Restricted preview in the Google book search
  11. ↑ Der Nordschleswiger : 75 years after the attack. Commemoration of the North Schleswig-Holstein who wanted to kill Hitler on: July 20, 2019; accessed on: October 11, 2019
  12. ↑ Eiko Wenzel, Henrik Gram: Zeitzeichen, Architektur in Flensburg, 2015, page 98
personal data
SURNAME Jessen, Jens
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jessen, Jens Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Resistance fighters
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Stoltelund, Tondern district
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1944
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee