Kurt Cohn

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Kurt Ernst Cohn (* 19th July 1899 in Glogau , † 21st February 1987 in Berlin ) was a German judge of Jewish origin and functionary of the GDR - Block Party LDPD and Cultural Union of the GDR .

Life

Kurt Cohn was the son of the businessman Adolph Cohn. He studied law at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig from 1918 to 1922 and completed his legal clerkship after completing his studies. While still a student, he joined the newly founded German Democratic Party (DDP) in 1918 and was a co-founder of the Democratic Student Union . After receiving his doctorate in 1925, he entered the judicial service and initially worked at the local courts in Plauen and Leipzig, and from 1929 as a regional judge in Chemnitz . He was a member of the Republican Judges' Association . He was a member of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV) and was on the main board there from 1928.

In May 1932, Cohn was rejected as a member of the 3rd Criminal Chamber on account of bias because, in addition to his democratic stance, he was "moreover" a Jew, as the minutes of the Saxon state parliament said .

In March 1933 he was dismissed from the public service for political reasons and as a Jew under the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. From 1934 to 1938 he was executive chairman of the regional association of Central Germany. He was arrested in the course of the November pogroms in 1938 and deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp , but after his release in February 1939 he was able to flee to Great Britain in August of the same year , from where he was interned in Australia in 1940 as an " enemy alien " .

From 1949 to 1971 he was Chief Justice at the Supreme Court of the GDR .

In early April 1949, Cohn joined the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD) and from September 1949 sat on the party's legal committee. From 1964 he was a member of the central executive committee of the LDPD. He was a member of the committee of the anti-fascist resistance fighters , temporarily functionary in the cultural association for democratic renewal (member of the Berlin district management and Berlin-Treptow district management ) as well as a city district councilor in Berlin-Treptow. From 1972 Cohn volunteered as legal advisor to the Jewish community in East Berlin .

Honors in the GDR

Fonts

  • The legal structures of the Coal Industry Act and its implementing provisions , Roßbergsche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1926 (Zugl .: Leipzig, legal dissertation)
  • The Central Association of the Future: A memorandum for the 1928 General Meeting of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith. V. , manuscript 1928 (together with Friedrich Brodnitz and Ludwig Tietz)
  • Floor plan of English commercial law , Chamber for Foreign Trade d. German Democrat. Republic, Department of Legal Service, Berlin 1978

literature

  • Institute for Contemporary History Munich and Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration Inc. New York (Ed.): Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Emigration after 1933. KG Saur, Munich, New York, London and Paris 1980 (overall direction Werner Röder and Herbert A. Strauss , volume I: Politics, Economy, Public Life ), ISBN 3-598-10087-6
  • Hermann Wentker : Justice in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945–1953. Transformation and role of their central institutions. (= Sources and representations on contemporary history. Volume 51). Oldenbourg, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-56544-3
  • Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 60
  • Cohn, Kurt , in: Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Hrsg.): Biographical handbook of German-speaking emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Politics, economy, public life . Munich: Saur, 1980, p. 115

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to Franziska Specht: Between ghetto and self-assertion: musical life of the Jews in Saxony 1933-1941. P. 163
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Emigration after 1933 , Volume 1: Politics, Economy, Public Life , Munich 1980, p. 115
  3. ^ Hermann Wentker: Justice in the Soviet Occupation Zone / GDR 1945–1953. Transformation and role of their central institutions , Munich 2001, pp. 442f.
  4. ↑ a b c Hermann Wentker: Justice in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945–1953. Transformation and role of their central institutions , Munich 2001, p. 442
  5. ↑ Ralf Oberndörfer: "... are to be retired". On the persecution of Jewish judges and public prosecutors in Saxony during National Socialism , Dresden o. J. (2008), p. 12, see: [1] .
  6. ^ Cohn, Kurt (1899-1987) , Federal Archives
  7. ↑ Neues Deutschland, May 2, 1984, see: [2] .
personal data
SURNAME Cohn, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cohn, Kurt Ernst (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German judge and LDPD functionary
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Glogau
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1987
Place of death Berlin