Ludwig Malzbender

Ludwig Malzbender (born November 5, 1900 in Langenberg , now Velbert , † November 26, 1966 in Witten ) was a German politician of the NSDAP . In 1933, he was shortly district administrator of the district of Lippstadt and mayor of the city of Dortmund .

Live and act

Ludwig Malzbender was born on November 5, 1900 in Langenberg, the second of eleven children of a Catholic rector's family. He attended high school and volunteered for military service in the summer of 1917. He was used as an interpreter in the Bazeilles stage command . He graduated from high school in 1918 and was discharged from military service after the German surrender in December of the same year. He immediately began studying law in Freiburg , later moving to Heidelberg , Munich and Bonn . In July 1922 he passed the first state examination in law, in December 1925 the second.

During his three-year legal traineeship, Malzbender worked at the Bad Ems district court, the public prosecutor's office and the Limburg district court , with a lawyer, the Wiesbaden district court and the Frankfurt am Main Higher Regional Court . After his legal clerkship, he first worked in the internal administration of the province of Upper Silesia , later at the Rennerod district court, then at the public prosecutor's office and at the Altona district court and finally at the Tilsit, Insterburg and Königsberg regional courts. On February 1, 1930 he became the Judicial Council to the office - and Dortmund Regional Court appointed, where he also chairs the Labor Court took over.

Soon after his arrival in Dortmund, Malzbender made secret contacts with the Association of National Socialist German Lawyers , which in Dortmund was under the leadership of the lawyer Wilhelm Stockheck. In 1930 he married. In August 1932 he was an assessor in the Schwanenwall trial, in which eight police officers who had acted against NSDAP members were sentenced to prison terms. After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, he sought a career change and was appointed provisional district administrator in the Lippstadt district on the recommendation of Stockheck . He was released from his judicial office on May 4th and took up his office in Lippstadt the next day.

After the long-standing Dortmund mayor Ernst Eichhoff had himself put into early retirement under pressure, Hermann Göring, as Prussian Minister of the Interior , appointed Malzbender as acting Lord Mayor of Dortmund on July 20th. The city council meeting, which was brought into line, caught up with the electoral act eleven days later, and on August 7th he was officially introduced to the office after he had given up his post the day before.

In November 1933 the first rumors surfaced that Malzbender was a member of the SPD . He had not stated any previous party membership in the questionnaire on the Professional Civil Servants Act and continued to deny SPD membership to the district leader. A day later, however, he admitted it to Mayor Bruno Schüler . At the same time, a membership card for the center became public. Thereupon Malzbender was asked to comment on his false information. However, he let the deadline pass and fled to Freiberg in Moravia (Czechoslovakia) on November 28 , later to Eindhoven (Netherlands).

After the escape, the District President Malzbender relieved of his mayor's office on November 29, 1933, officially returning to the judicial service. As a result, the President of the Higher Regional Court von Hamm proposed criminal proceedings with the Public Prosecutor's Office. On January 28, 1934, the criminal senate decided on dismissal. Malzbender appealed on March 26 and was arrested on April 20 while crossing the border. He was first taken to the Düsseldorf prison and then imprisoned by the Gestapo . During the detention period, the court upheld the release decision. After his release from prison, Malzbender worked as a business advisor.

In 1951 and 1966 he asserted claims for members of the public service under the Law on the Reparation of National Socialist Injustices. On November 24, 1966, he applied for the official criminal proceedings from 1934 to be resumed. Two days later, Ludwig Malzbender had a fatal accident at the age of 66. The proceedings were continued by his widow and the dismissal on August 23, 1968 was lifted by the Hamm Higher Regional Court.

literature

• Dieter Knippschild: Malzbender, Ludwig . In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographies of important Dortmunders. People in, from and for Dortmund . tape 2 . Klartext, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-677-4 , p. 79 ff .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dieter Knippschild: Malzbender, Ludwig . In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographies of important Dortmunders. People in, from and for Dortmund . tape 2 . Klartext, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-677-4 , p. 79 ff .