Magdeburg judicial scandal
The Magdeburg judicial scandal , also Haas affair or Kölling-Haas affair , is the name given to the spectacular jury trial of 1925/26 in the Helling-Haas robbery and murder case in Magdeburg , which became the central judicial debate of the Weimar period . The DEFA feature film Affaire Blum , shot in 1948, is based on the Magdeburg judicial scandal.
Process and environment
After the robbery of the accountant Hermann Helling in Rottmersleben in 1925 , the Jewish factory owner Rudolf Haas, who was close to the Social Democrats and former employer of Helling, was suspected of the crime. The right-wing conservative press heated up the mood in the population with unilateral prejudice and polemics. The responsible examining magistrate, Magdeburg judge Johannes Kölling, fought completely biased for a conviction of Haas. Even when the right-wing commercial student Richard Schröder from Rottmersleben confessed and the victim's body was found in Schröder's house, Kölling and the district court director Richard Hoffmann held fast to Haas' perpetration. They protested against the provision of detective commissioner Otto Busdorf from Berlin, who was considered particularly qualified , which the Social Democratic provincial president Otto Hörsing had ordered. The controversy escalated into a nationwide debate and led to a three-day discussion in the Prussian state parliament .
After the " seizure of power ", Haas and his wife took their own lives. District judge Kölling was promoted first to district court director in Magdeburg, later to district court president in Aurich, district court director Hoffmann to president of the regional court in Greater Berlin.
Andreas August Karl Koeppe, pastor at the Rottmersleben church since 1901, had numerous conversations with Richard Schröder after his act. He had known the later robbery since he was baptized.
swell
- Forum of Justice History
- Church book and archive of the Rottmersleben community
- Josef Bornstein, The Helling-Haas murder case in the journal Das Tagebuch 7 (1926), pp. 1061-1071
- Heinz Braun, Past Judicial Murder - The Kölling-Haas Case , Verlag Pfannkuch & Co, Magdeburg 1928
Individual evidence
- ^ The inspector from Köpenick - Otto Busdorf. A career as a police officer from the German Empire to the GDR. Radio feature of the Südwestrundfunk, first broadcast on February 8, 2015 (MP3 audio file) ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
