Martin Gauger

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Memorial plaque next to the Landgericht suspension railway stop on the bridge over the Wupper

Gotthard Martin Gauger (born August 4, 1905 in Elberfeld ; † July 14, 1941 in the Nazi killing center Sonnenstein , Pirna ) was a German lawyer and pacifist .

Life

Origin and education

Gauger's father, Joseph Gauger, was a pietist pastor; his mother came from a wealthy Wuppertal family. He grew up as the fifth of a total of eight children. He studied law and economics in Tübingen, Kiel, London, Berlin and Breslau from 1924 to 1930 .

After graduating as Dr. iur. he began in 1933 as a legal assessor for the public prosecutor's office at the Wuppertal district court .

time of the nationalsocialism

After the death of the Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , Hitler took over the office of Reich President in addition to the office of Reich Chancellor. a referendum on August 19, 1934 should legitimize this. Martin's father, director of the Evangelical Society in Wuppertal-Elberfeld, pleaded for the offices of Chancellor and President to exist separately. He sent a manuscript to the magazine Licht und Leben ; but this was intercepted by the postal control, he himself was taken into “ protective custody ” and the magazine was temporarily banned.

For Martin Gauger this was the immediate reason not to take the oath of allegiance to Hitler , which was legally introduced on August 20 . He was dismissed immediately - the only lawyer known by name.

Gauger wrote to his brother that it would have been unbearable for him

"If I had taken that unconditional oath of loyalty and obedience to someone who, in turn, is not bound by any right or law."

Gauger wrote many unsuccessful applications and a legal dissertation on "Confession and Church Regiment in Their Relationship to Each Other". When it appeared in 1936, it was immediately confiscated as "harmful and undesirable literature". In his dissertation he demonstrated that a church leadership that spreads heresy is also not legally lawful. With this justification, the Confessing Church (BK) set up its own church leadership at the Second Confessional Synod in Berlin-Dahlem (October 1934) in place of the German Christians loyal to the regime .

In January 1935 he got a job with the First Provisional Church Administration of the Confessing Church in Berlin in their legal department. When this broke up in February 1936 during the 4th Synod of Confessions of the German Evangelical Church, he became senior lawyer of the Lutheran wing, the “Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany” (Lutherrat). When he submitted to the National Socialist racial idea , Gauger had to give up his job.

In 1939 he opposed his draft for military service :

"I cannot promote this war, I cannot help the sea of ​​blood and tears to flood other countries."

When, in April 1940, he could no longer refuse the upcoming draft, he fled and swam through the Rhine to the Netherlands on May 17th , from where he wanted to flee to Great Britain. On May 18, 1940, the Netherlands surrendered (the Wehrmacht had invaded there from May 10, see Western campaign ). Gauger was wounded and arrested at Wyler's .

From May 22, 1940 to June 1941, Gauger was imprisoned in Düsseldorf-Derendorf ( "Ulmer Höh" ). There he spoke about the relationship between self-defense and defense:

"In my opinion, a war can only be justified as a defensive war, ie in real self-defense ... I reject the extension of the strict concept of self-defense to include international disputes."

Gauger was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp on June 12, 1941 . The bishops Hans Meiser and Theophil Wurm refused to stand up for Gauger. He managed to write a farewell letter to his brother Siegfried:

"Once the fog in which we live has broken up, one will wonder why only some, why not all, behaved like this."

On July 14, 1941, Gauger was assigned to a so-called “ invalid transport ” of prisoners as part of Operation 14f13 . In his case it was about the deliberate "elimination" of an unpopular person who did not even match the officially announced criteria of the action and who also affected other prisoners, especially Jewish prisoners. The transport brought Gauger to the Pirna-Sonnenstein killing center , where he was murdered. His death was officially recorded a week later, on July 23, 1941, with a "heartbeat" in the registry office Weimar II (i.e. KL Buchenwald). The deliberate wrong dating as well as the concealment of the actual place of death served the secrecy of this "invalid action".

Commemoration

Stumbling block for Martin Gauger

In memory of Martin Gauger, the Association of Judges and Public Prosecutors in North Rhine-Westphalia awards the Martin Gauger Prize every two years. The prize is awarded as part of a nationwide school competition and is committed to the concept of human rights. The award ceremony will therefore take place around International Human Rights Day on December 10th.

In memory of Gauger, at his last address in Wuppertal, Hopfenstr. 6, a stumbling block laid. (Location of the stumbling block)

In September 2017, a memorial plaque was placed next to the Landgericht suspension railway station on the bridge over the Wupper in Wuppertal-Elberfeld and the bridge to the island of Justice was named after him.

literature

  • Werner Oehme: Martyrs of Protestant Christianity. 1933-1945. Twenty-nine life pictures. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1979, DNB 800224825 , pp. 72–79.
  • “Nobody could make the decision for me”. Documents on the resistance and persecution of the Protestant church lawyer Martin Gauger (=  testimonies of life - ways of suffering. Volume 5). Edited and introduced by Boris Böhm. Saxon Memorials Foundation in memory of the victims of political tyranny, Dresden 1997, ISBN 978-3-9805527-4-5 .
  • Hartmut Ludwig: Straightforward and indomitable. A public prosecutor and church lawyer refused to join the Nazi regime. In: News from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. No. 10, October 2007, pp. 322-325.
  • Klaus Schmidt: Martin Gauger. Lawyer, conscientious objector, victim of National Socialism (1905–1941) . In: Portal Rhenish History.
  • “Right must remain right”. The persecution of the lawyer Martin Gauger (1905–1941) under National Socialism (=  testimonies - ways of suffering. Volume 26). Edited and introduced by Boris Böhm. Saxon Memorials Foundation in memory of the victims of political tyranny, Dresden 2018, ISBN 978-3-934382-54-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Klaus Schmidt: Martin Gauger (1905–1941), lawyer, conscientious objector, victim of National Socialism . Rhenish history portal of the Rhineland Regional Association , July 1, 2015, accessed on November 20, 2016.
  2. ↑ Law on the swearing in of civil servants and soldiers of the Wehrmacht (full text)
  3. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945, Verlagsgruppe Weltbild GmbH, licensed licensed edition, Augsburg, 2008, p. 147
  4. ↑ Wuppertaler Rundschau: Martin Gauger Bridge officially inaugurated . September 22, 2017. Retrieved August 26, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Gauger, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer who refused the oath of allegiance to Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1941
Place of death Nazi killing center Sonnenstein , Pirna