Karl Magen

The grave of Karl Magen and his wife Hanna in the family grave at the old cemetery in Bonn.

Karl stomach (* 16th November 1890 in Klein-Zabrze ; † 11. November 1959 in Bonn ) was a German politician of the CDU , Member of the Thuringian state parliament and after his escape from the GDR Mayor of Bonn.

Life

Youth until the end of the war in 1945

After graduating from high school, Magen studied law at the universities in Jena and Breslau between 1909 and 1912. He completed his studies with the first state examination on June 24, 1912. His legal clerkship was interrupted by military service, which he participated in between 1914 and 1918 as a reserve lieutenant. On December 20, 1919, Magen was finally able to take his second state law examination. He then worked initially as an assessor and later as a district judge in Silesia. On July 1, 1922, Magen received a position at the Opole District Court, and from June 1, 1924, he was also active as a District Court Counselor at the Opole District Court. On October 1, 1928, Magen was appointed assistant judge at the Breslau Higher Regional Court. On July 1, 1929, he was transferred to the district court district of Breslau, where Magen was now a district and district court councilor. At the same time, on January 1, 1930, Magens was appointed deputy chairman of the Wroclaw Labor Court. In the phase of the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, the imminent appointment of Magens to the Higher Regional Court was prevented and some time later his retirement on December 31, 1935 was enforced with the help of the Reich Citizenship Act . As a result, Magen was subjected to severe harassment, forced labor, and persecution. He escaped a stay in a concentration camp by going into hiding until the end of the war.

Thuringian years

In September 1945, Magen was relocated to Thuringia, where he settled in Erfurt and lived there until the beginning of October 1945. As part of the re-establishment of the Thuringian Higher Regional Court in Gera, Magen was appointed Higher Regional Court Councilor on October 1, 1945. From December 17, 1945, Magen was also Vice President of the Higher Regional Court of Gera. As a result, Magen made a name for himself politically in Gera, but also nationwide. On May 24, 1946 he joined the Thuringian CDU and represented it a little later as a city councilor in Gera. Magen became a member of the executive CDU state board of Thuringia and, whether his professional activity, chaired the legal committee of his CDU state association. In the state elections on October 20, 1946 , Magen entered parliament with the CDU mandate and later also chaired the CDU parliamentary group for some time. Because of the relatively balanced seating situation between the SED parliamentary group with 50 seats and the two bourgeois parties LDP and CDU with a total of 47 seats, there were repeated exchanges and legislative approvals in the Thuringian state parliament, which were in line with the ideas of the SED party executive in Berlin and, in part, of the Ran counter to SMAD . In Thuringia, for example, a very constitutional administrative jurisdiction developed, the jurisdiction of which was viewed as exemplary across all zones by the Jena Administrative Court. As the parliamentary group chairman of the bourgeois CDU, Magen was particularly in the focus of the SED leadership and the SMAD, which in May 1948 also initiated the removal of Gastens from his position as OLG vice-president because of his aggressive and reactionary stance in the state parliament. State Justice Minister Helmut R. Külz ( LDP ), the son of Wilhelm Külz , protested in vain against the dismissal of Magen by the SMAD and resigned himself on April 9, 1948. On June 4, 1948, the gastrointestinal event culminated in the 42nd session of the Thuringian state parliament. The reason was the motion of the SED parliamentary group concerning the law on administrative jurisdiction. This meant that the Jena OVG, which existed up to that point, was to be effectively dissolved and important constitutional cornerstones such as B. the judicial independence can be undermined. In his speech, Magen denied, among other things, that the SED policy had a majority in the population.

»In this context, I don't want to fail to raise the question of whether the majority in the state parliament really represents the majority of the population. Yes, I would even like to take the liberty of asking whether the majority in the Landtag really represents the inner conviction of the members of this House. I just want to mention the terms compulsory faction and party discipline «

In the further course of the speech, Magen articulated a clear no from his parliamentary group to this draft law, did not fail to mention his dismissal as OLG vice-president as “injustice of a judiciary controlled by state power” and ultimately warned the SED group against “the administration of justice to an instrument humiliate that only has to enforce the will of a parliamentary majority ”. When, after Magens speech, LDP MP Mehnert submitted a motion to move on to the agenda without further discussion of the draft law, the affront was perfect. In order not to have to vote on this motion, the SED group left the room closed and the meeting was ultimately closed. The draft law was only passed in the state parliament a few months later. After this session of the Landtag, Magen was warned that he should flee quickly, otherwise he could be arrested. He then went to West Berlin, from where he applied for release from the Thuringian judiciary on June 28, 1948. This request was granted on July 30, 1948 with a formal dismissal.

Rise in the Federal Republic

Not long afterwards, Magen was able to gain a foothold in Hesse, where on August 16, 1948, he was employed as a legal advisor with the rank of Ministerial Councilor at the Finance Administration of the United Economic Area in Frankfurt am Main. In the same function he worked from May 1949 in Bonn in the Federal Ministry of Finance . In December 1949, Magen was one of the founding members of the Königsteiner Kreis , on whose board he sat for many years. In the fall of 1952, Magen moved back to Berlin, where he was now, as ministerial director, head of Department II of the Federal Ministry for Pan-German Issues, also known as the Berlin Department, and at the same time deputy federal agent. After retiring on November 30, 1955, Magen moved back to Bonn. He reassumed political responsibility by being elected to the Bonn city council for the CDU in 1956. This elected him 2nd mayor. Magen held this office until his death on November 11, 1959.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jochen Lengemann . Thuringian state parliaments 1919-1952. Boehlau Verlag 2014 ISBN 9783412221799
2. ^ Petra Weber: Justice and dictatorship, 2000, ISBN 3486564633 , page 138
3. ↑ CDU parliamentary group Thuringia  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.