Kurt Reuthe

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Kurt Gottfried Reuthe (born October 25, 1881 in Güsten ; † March 22, 1968 in Celle ) was a German National Socialist and lawyer in the Third Reich , most recently President of the Higher Regional Court in Oldenburg .

Life

Early career

Reuthe was the son of a customs director, attended high schools in Zerbst and Dessau and, after graduating from high school, studied law in Göttingen and Halle / Saale from 1900 .

In 1903 he passed the first state examination in law before the examination office of the Naumburg Higher Regional Court . After he had done military service until 1904 , he completed his legal preparatory service in the higher regional court district of Naumburg , which he finished in 1909 with the Great State Examination . In 1907 he received his doctorate at the University of Rostock with a thesis on "The inheritance waiver contract according to civil law". In 1909 he was accepted into the Prussian civil service as a court assessor and one year later he was given a post as a district judge in Liegnitz . After a temporary secondment to the Prussian Ministry of Justice , he was promoted to Higher Regional Court Councilor in 1920 and to Senate President at the Higher Regional Court of Celle in 1928 .

In National Socialism

On May 1, 1933, Reuthe joined the NSDAP and became a member of several of its sub-organizations. According to his superiors, he was a staunch National Socialist. In 1935 he was appointed Vice President of the Higher Regional Court of Celle and at the same time took over the chairmanship of the legal examination office attached to the Higher Regional Court. As chairman of the criminal chamber at the Higher Regional Court of Celle, Reuthe discredited himself in 1938 in disciplinary proceedings against the commander of the Emsland camps with an extraordinarily mild verdict. Under his chairmanship, the chamber judged the accused of prisoner abuse, with hardly tenable justification, as not in breach of duty.

Probably as a candidate for the Reich Ministry of Justice , Reuthe was appointed President of the Oldenburg Higher Regional Court on October 1, 1939 and held this office until the collapse of the Third Reich. During his tenure, the influence of the National Socialist rulers on the judiciary increased through illegal directives and regulations, and since 1942 through so-called judges' letters , in which judgments were criticized and guidelines for the politically desirable jurisprudence were issued. As President of the Higher Regional Court, Reuthe headed the meetings that have been held regularly since 1942 on pending and already decided criminal cases, which served to control and guide the case law. He contributed to putting National Socialist legal concepts into practice. It may, however, presumably have protected members of the judiciary in individual cases and had a moderating effect. On April 23 and 24, 1941, Reuthe was a participant in the conference of the highest lawyers of the Third Reich in Berlin on the information about the "destruction of life unworthy of life" by means of gas , which was organized by the State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice Franz Schlegelberger and in which the euthanasia murders the action T4 experienced an apparent legalization.

After the end of the war

After the Second World War , he was initially interned . After the denazification process was carried out, he was retired on January 1, 1947 with the approval of the British Military Government . He lived as a pensioner in Celle.

In October 1967, the Limburg Regional Court opened the preliminary judicial investigation against former lawyers of the Third Reich for the euthanasia murders on suspicion of complicity in murder . Reuthe died in 1968 before a main judicial proceeding could be opened against him.

family

Reuthe was married to Lonny Hartmann († 1968) on April 18, 1911. Both sons out of the marriage died in World War II.

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ JUSTICE / NS-LAWYERS: Small Instance . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1967 ( online - March 6, 1967 ).
personal data
SURNAME Reuthe, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reuthe, Kurt Gottfried (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, judge and National Socialist
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Güsten
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1968
Place of death Celle