Johannes Popitz

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Johannes Popitz (1934)

Hermann Eduard Johannes Popitz (born December 2, 1884 in Leipzig , † February 2, 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German politician and conservative resistance fighter against National Socialism . He was the father of the sociologist Heinrich Popitz .

Life

His parents were the pharmacist Heinrich Popitz (1845-1892) and his wife Anna Rudolph (1862-1945), a daughter of the district court president in Dessau Moritz Rudolph (1830-1929).

He studied law and political science in Lausanne , Leipzig , Berlin and Halle . Popitz began his political career between 1914 and 1919 as a consultant in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. It was during this time that his first efforts to introduce a sales tax in Germany were made . The so-called intellectual father of taxes actually succeeded in doing this in 1919 when he took up his work in the Reich Ministry of Finance . There he worked as State Secretary from 1925 until his resignation in 1929 . In addition, from 1922 Popitz was honorary professor for tax law and finance at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin . He published numerous financial commentaries.

From 1929 to 1944 Popitz was president of the Society for Ancient Culture , whose cultural policy program was the Third Humanism , which sought to bring the ideas of antiquity to mind. Popitz also published in their magazine Die Antike , edited by the prominent philologist Werner Jaeger . He was a member of the "German Society 1914" and was co-opted into the exclusive Wednesday Society in 1932 , whose only 16 members met regularly to give lectures on their subject (Popitz's friend, the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch , was also a member of the group). Here, too, he was soon elected chairman. On November 1, 1932, Popitz became Reich Minister without Portfolio and acting head of the Prussian Ministry of Finance. On April 21, 1933 Popitz was appointed Prussian minister. Qua office he was a member of the Prussian State Council . Popitz was a patron of music and theater, he was long-time president of the "Society for Theater History" in Berlin and close friends with the then General Director of the Prussian State Theater and head of the Berlin State Opera (1926–1945), State Councilor Heinz Tietjen . Popitz had been friends with the constitutional lawyer Carl Schmitt since 1930 .

Berlin memorial plaque on the house at Am Festungsgraben 1, at that time the Prussian Ministry of Finance, in Berlin-Mitte

On January 30, 1937, Popitz and almost all the other ministers personally accepted Hitler's golden party badge of the NSDAP . That meant membership in the NSDAP ( membership number 3,805,233). Only the Transport Minister Paul von Eltz-Rübenach refused to accept the golden badge and to join the NSDAP. Popitz was also a member of the presidium of the National Socialist Academy for German Law founded by Hans Frank and took over the chairmanship of the committee for young people in law and economics. His rebellion against the Nazi regime began in 1937/1938 when he saw the Jews being persecuted and deported . Popitz therefore submitted a resignation in 1938, which was rejected. As a result , Popitz , who was influenced by the monarchist and national conservatives , began to get involved in resistance circles , including with individual members of the Wednesday Society , a conservative- opposition group of high officials and scientists. The writer Paul Fechter , who met Popitz in the Wednesday company, later wrote about him: “Popitz was a bitter opponent of the National Socialist state and its men. It was he who slowly and carefully turned the Wednesday company into a cell of resistance; at every opportunity he tried to help people who were in danger as opponents of the system, to use his connections to withdraw them from the network in which they were entangled. ”For Carl Goerdeler , one of the leading conspirators against Hitler , Popitz drew up a “Provisional State Law” that was to come into force in Germany after the putsch against Hitler.

In order to achieve the change of power legally and without bloodshed, Popitz came into contact with Heinrich Himmler through Carl Langbehn in the summer of 1943 , whom he tried to persuade to enter into peace negotiations with the Western powers. At this point, however, Himmler refused to comply with this suggestion. Popitz was soon designated by the conspirators around Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg as finance and education minister if the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 was successful. When Himmler completely withdrew from the talks with Popitz in September 1943 because of an intercepted radio message and Goebbels also noted in his diary that Hitler viewed Popitz as an enemy, this plan had failed. Popitz moved out of the center of the movement because of an aversion from the circle of younger officers around Stauffenberg and the union wing of the opposition. Popitz's name was missing from the last opposition ministerial lists. After the attempt was unsuccessful, Popitz was arrested a day later and sentenced to death on October 3, 1944 by the People's Court under Roland Freisler . On February 2, 1945, he was hanged in Plötzensee .

memory

In 1957, near the Plötzensee execution site , Popitzweg was named after him.

At the former Prussian Ministry of Finance, the Palais am Festungsgraben , Am Festungsgraben 1 in Berlin-Mitte , a Berlin plaque has been commemorating him since 1994 . The historic ballroom in this palace also bears his name, which Popitz had built in 1934 to save it on the ground floor from a demolished Berlin townhouse and which was designed by Schinkel .

By resolution of the Leipzig city ​​council, a street in the Gohlis- Mitte district has been named Popitzweg since 2011 . There has also been a Popitzweg in Göttingen since the 1960s and a Johannes-Popitz-Strasse since 1956. in Leverkusen. There is also a Johannes-Popitz-Straße in Koblenz's Pfaffendorfer Höhe district.

Quote

"You cannot lead out of an unusual catastrophe by ordinary means."

Fonts (selection)

  • Commentary on the Sales Tax Act of July 26, 1918. In addition to the Security Ordinance, the implementing provisions of the Federal Council , Liebmann, Berlin 1918.
  • Commentary on the Sales Tax Act of December 24, 1919 , Liebmann, Berlin 1925.
  • Current tasks in finance and tax policy , Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1927.
  • The future financial equalization between empire, states and municipalities. Expert opinion, submitted to the Studiengesellschaft für den Finanzausgleich , Liebmann, Berlin 1932.
  • To integrate the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck into Prussia. Speech in front of the industrial u. Lübeck Chamber of Commerce on February 25, 1937 , Lübeck 1937.
  • To the memory of Karl Friedrich Schinkel . In: Die Antike , Volume 18, 1942, pp. 1–9.

literature

  • Lutz-Arwed Bentin: Johannes Popitz and Carl Schmitt. On the economic theory of the total state in Germany (= Munich studies on politics. Vol. 19). Beck, Munich 1972, ISBN 3-406-02799-7 .
  • Hildemarie Dieckmann: Johannes Popitz. Development and effectiveness in the time of the Weimar Republic (= studies on European history from the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin. Vol. 4). Colloqium Verlag Otto H. Hess, Berlin-Dahlem 1960.
  • Johann Heinrich Kumpf: Office and Responsibility. Exhibition in memory of Johannes Popitz (1884–1945). Federal Ministry of Finance. Organized by the Federal Finance Academy, Siegburg 1984.
  • Siegfried Mielke (Ed.) With the collaboration of Marion Goers, Stefan Heinz , Matthias Oden, Sebastian Bödecker: Unique - Lecturers, students and representatives of the German University of Politics (1920-1933) in the resistance against National Socialism. Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86732-032-0 , pp. 139, 324-327. (Short biography).
  • Anne Christine Nagel : Johannes Popitz (1884–1945). Goering's finance minister and conspirator against Hitler. A biography. Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2015, ISBN 3-412-22456-1 .
  • Alfons Pausch: Johannes Popitz, and what remains . In: Deutsche Steuer-Zeitung 72 (1984), pp. 475-477.
  • Gerhard Schulz :  Popitz, Johannes. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 620-622 ( digitized version ).
  • Gerhard Schulz: Johannes Popitz . In: Rudolf Lill , Heinrich Oberreuter (Ed.): July 20 - Portraits of the Resistance . Econ, Düsseldorf 1984, pp. 237-251.
  • Reimer Voß: Johannes Popitz (1884–1945). Lawyer, politician, state thinker among three kingdoms - man of resistance. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2006, ISBN 3-631-55099-5 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Johannes Popitz: Address by the President of the Society for Ancient Culture, State Secretary Johannes Popitz, at the opening of their first public conference. In: The ancient world. Journal of the Art and Culture of Classical Antiquity. Vol. 5, 1929, pp. 161-166.
  2. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff : That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; cited: Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, pp. 395–397 and 420.
  3. ↑ Klaus Scholder (Ed.): The Wednesday Society. Protocols from intellectual Germany 1932–1944. Severin und Siedler publishing house, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-88680-030-X .
  4. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Second updated edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 469.
  5. ↑ Paul Fechter: People and Times. Encounters from five decades. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1949, p. 387.
  6. ^ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels. Edited by Elke Fröhlich , Part II, Vol. 9, Munich 1993, p. 577.
  7. ↑ Klaus Scholder (Ed.): The Wednesday Society. Protocols from intellectual Germany 1932–1944. Severin und Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1982, pp. 40 f., ISBN 3-88680-030-X .
  8. ↑ Popitzweg. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert ).
  9. ↑ Council meeting of May 18, 2011 (resolution no. RBV-822/11), official announcement: Leipzig Official Journal , no. 11 of June 4, 2011, in force since July 5, 2011 and August 5, 2011. Cf. Leipzig Official Gazette , No. 16 of September 10, 2011.
  10. ↑ Leverkusen street directory .
  11. ↑ Search for Popitz in: Zeit Online , January 2018: What is the name of my street?
  12. ^ Klaus Scholder: The Wednesday Society . Severin and Siedler, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-88680-030-X , p. 20 .
personal data
SURNAME Popitz, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Popitz, Hermann Eduard Johannes (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politicians and resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH February 2, 1945
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee