Johannes Werthauer

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Johannes Werthauer , also Johann , Josef (born January 20, 1866 in Kassel ; died January 29, 1938 in Paris ) was a German lawyer and criminal law reformer .

Life

Johannes Werthauer: Moral offenses in the big city , from the series Big City Documents , Volume 40

Werthauer came from a Jewish merchant family and studied law and economics . After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a lawyer and notary in Berlin . He became honorary consul for Yugoslavia .

Werthauer was in close contact with the Institute for Sexology , which the sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld headed in Berlin from 1919 to 1933, and advocated a change in sexual criminal law (e.g. termination of pregnancy or Section 175 ) and a marriage reform . He published legal literature and acted as a criminal defense lawyer during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic . Werthauer advocated the principle of "education instead of punishment" in highly regarded publications.

In 1919 Werthauer defended Kurt Tucholsky , who had been reported by Reichswehr Minister Gustav Noske for the poem "Our Military" published in the Weltbühne . In 1921, together with Adolf von Gordon and Niemeyer, he had the mandate of the Armenian assassin Soghomon Tehlirian , who was acquitted. In 1925 he was involved in the Barmat scandal through the defense of Iwan Kutisker and was imprisoned for one day by the Berlin public prosecutor Erich Kussmann. In 1921/1925 Werthauer represented the Free State of Braunschweig in the property dispute with the Guelph ducal house in the so-called duke trial.

Werthauer was married three times, and in the meantime engaged to Bella Fromm in 1920 , and had the son Heinrich (* 1894) with Elise Flügge, whom he later took into his office, and the daughter Ingeborg (* 1924) with Stephanie Lindheimer. Charlie Chaplin appeared as a guest at the engagement party with Stephanie in 1923 . Werthauer lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg and had his law firm on Unter den Linden since 1927 . After the seizure of power of Hitler , he emigrated in 1933 to Paris . He was appointed professor at the Sorbonne , but no longer appeared in public.

The Nazi lawyer Oswald Freisler took over his Berlin office . Werthauer was placed on the first expatriation list of the German Reich by the National Socialist regime in August 1933 and thus expatriated and sentenced by the German courts to prison and a heavy fine by the German courts for alleged tax evasion in absentia. His wife and children were also expatriated in 1937.

Werthauer was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / historify.de
  2. ↑ Burkhard Schmidt The Duke Trial: a report on the trial of the Guelph ducal house against the Free State of Braunschweig for the chamber property (1921/25) . Wolfenbüttel: Braunschweigischer Geschichtsverein, 1996, ISBN 3-928009-10-9 , pp. 81 f., 97 ff., 110 f.
personal data
SURNAME Werthauer, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Werthauer, Johann; Werthauer, Josef (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and criminal law reformer
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1938
Place of death Paris , France