Kurt Frieders

Kurt Frieders , actually: Ernst Friedländer (born April 30, 1882 in Berlin ; † 1979 in Sweden ) was a German lawyer who became a senior public prosecutor in the Weimar Republic for Frieder's case .

Life and effect

His father Georg Friedländer came from a wealthy upper-class family of Jewish faith and was a member of the Corps Lusatia Leipzig . In order to make a career in higher civil service in Prussia , he converted to the Christian faith. As a judicial advisor and lieutenant in the reserve , he left the judicial service and took a director post at the Norddeutsche Grundkreditbank Weimar-Berlin, which involved a move to Weimar in Thuringia in 1897 . Ernst Friedländer (Kurt Frieders) attended grammar school there until he graduated from high school. In 1899 he was baptized as a Protestant .

Studies and World War I

As a lawyer , corps student and reserve officer , Friedländer followed his father's example. As a law student , he became a member of the Corps Isaria and Lusatia Leipzig in 1901 . After graduating, he embarked on a career in public prosecution. When the First World War broke out in August 1914, he volunteered at the front . In the same month he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class for probation on a patrol , which was later followed by the award of the EK 1st class. The world war ended for him in the rank of captain with the authorization to wear the uniform.

Public prosecutor in Thuringia

Appointed public prosecutor in Trier in 1919 , he joined the SPD in the same year . In 1921 he married the daughter of a respected district administrator . At the beginning of 1922 he successfully applied for a position in Weimar. Before he could take this position in April 1922, he was attacked in the right-wing press with anti-Semitic allusions, his name being alienated to "Freudenthal" and it was claimed that he had received this position because of his party affiliation. After about six months, he was promoted to the senior public prosecutor and transferred to Altenburg .

But here, too, his career was referred to in the press as "manger policy". In 1923 he changed his name from "Ernst Friedländer" to "Kurt Frieders". On April 1, 1924 he was again appointed senior public prosecutor. On February 10, 1924, a right-wing Ordnungsbund from the Thuringian Landbund , DVP and DNVP won 35 out of 72 seats in the Thuringian Landtag in an election and was thus able to significantly influence the political direction.

Litigation

After this right-wing coalition had forced the President of the Thuringian State Bank , Walter Loeb , to resign in September 1924, criminal proceedings against him for perjury were initiated in 1925. In a dispute with the prosecutor Otto Flöl , Frieders threatened to resign if the charges against Loeb were continued. When Flöl did this, Frieders laid down his indictment, which aroused considerable public attention. After Loeb's acquittal on October 31, 1925, Frieders was given leave of absence on November 6 by the Thuringian government. On November 10th, disciplinary proceedings were opened against him with the aim of defeat in office because he wanted to force the Minister Leutheusser to be promoted. On December 10, 1925, the SPD then applied for a committee of inquiry which, among other things, dealt with his name change.

On February 4, 1926, Frieders had to testify as a witness in a trial against the editor Deerberg of the newspaper Das Volk before the jury in Weimar. During this process there were tumultuous disputes about internal processes in the Loeb process. After Frieders had made an oral statement to clarify the events, examining magistrate Schlegel issued a summons for the relevant interrogation on April 3, 1926, Holy Saturday . On July 15, 1926, an indictment was served on Frieders , according to which he had made false statements under oath about the prosecution Flöl's indictment and the motion for the prosecution against Loeb. From October 11th to 13th, 1926 Frieders was incriminated by testimony in a jury trial in evidence. Eventually he was acquitted of perjury charges but charged with negligent false oath and sentenced to five months' imprisonment and to pay the costs.

Frieders then turned to the Reichsgericht in an appeal for appeal . This application was rejected with the judgment of January 11, 1927. He then had to resign from his corps. On February 18, 1927, the disciplinary proceedings against Frieders began. Frieders tried unsuccessfully to retrial at the Weimar Regional Court and the Jena Higher Regional Court . His last hope remained in a petition for clemency from the state parliament, which was negotiated on July 14, 1928. Although it was approved by the state parliament, it was submitted to the Thuringia government for decision due to procedural reasons. She refused on August 1, 1928. Since Frieders himself had announced his resignation in the meantime, he was now facing jail time. When he was asked by the public prosecutor to begin detention, he evaded execution by fleeing to Austria . His family followed him. Frieder was then to wanted, union advertised persecution.

Aftermath

On December 18, 1928, Thomas Mann stated in a letter to the Viennese lawyer Richard Preßburger that Frieder's case was an example of the fact that the law in Germany is being degraded to a political mean. The next day, on December 19, 1928, this letter was published in the Berliner Tageblatt under the title “Der gedrehte Strick”. On January 30, 1929, a letter to the editor from Thomas Mann was published in the same newspaper under the title “Zum Fall Frieders” , in which he withdrew his allegations and wrote that the verdict had been “made to the best of the judge's discretion”.

The final criminal conviction also led to the final discharge from both corps. He is no longer listed in the Kösener corps lists in 1930.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Archives Corps Lusatia Leipzig
2. ↑ According to the Kösener Corps lists 1910 ( 173 , 811 and 149 , 728) Friedländer / Frieders had the first name Ernst

literature

• Ignaz Jastrow: The accused prosecutor . Rothschild, Berlin-Grunewald 1930 ( Ignaz Jastrow, professor of political science at the University of Berlin, extensively examines the accusation against Frieders on 230 pages of the publication and comes to the judgment that Frieder's misconduct cannot be proven)
• Richard Preßburger: The case of the senior public prosecutor i. W. Dr. Frieders from Weimar . Perles, Vienna 1928
• Forward 1925/1926

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt Frieders in the catalog of the German National Library
• Thomas Mann Chronicle
• Jews and German labor movement until 1933