Martin Hirsch (politician, 1913)

Martin Hirsch (born January 6, 1913 in Breslau , Province of Silesia , † April 12, 1992 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer and politician of the SPD . He was a member of the Bavarian State Parliament and the German Bundestag . From 1966 to 1971 he was deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group . He then moved to the Federal Constitutional Court , of which he was a member of the Second Senate until 1981.

Life

Childhood and study time

Hirsch was born in 1913 as the eldest son of Bernhard Hirsch and his wife Margarete Hirsch, née Wüllenweber, in Breslau. His father, whose ancestors came from Danzig and Berlin , worked as an architect and lecturer at the local state building school. The mother, whose family was of Rhineland and Westphalian origin, was one of the first German teachers to teach at a school. In his hometown, Hirsch attended three humanistic grammar schools: first the Friedrichs, then the Elisabeth - and finally the Johannesgymnasium , where he graduated from high school in 1932. Even during his school days he was politically active in the Socialist Schools Association .

In his spare time he was enthusiastic about the game of tennis . With the team of the Wroclaw Tennis and Hockey Club, he won the Silesian Junior Championship in 1931 . He felt deep affection for his twin partner Marianne Gutmann, daughter of a professor of economics who had been baptized Jewish, but she did not reciprocate his love. When in 1931 he became aware of anti-Semitic statements by the youth supervisor of his tennis club that concerned Marianne Gutmann, he formulated a letter of complaint to the club and at the same time declared that he was leaving because he did not want anything in common with anti-Semites. This prompted the club to file a complaint with the Silesian Tennis Association, which initiated investigative proceedings against Hirsch because of the letter, which was considered improper, and which ultimately disqualified him for a year. His complaints to the DTB were unsuccessful.

He originally wanted to become a historian , but then decided to study law , which he completed in Breslau , Innsbruck and Berlin . As a student he joined the Socialist University Association . In preparation for the exam, he attended legal courses in Berlin in 1935 and 1936 with the later Federal Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger . Hirsch claimed that he was a substitute for the university and that he had taught him law. After passing the first state examination in 1936, he completed his legal clerkship at the Muskau District Court in the Wroclaw Higher Regional Court district. In 1939 he passed the second state examination at the Reich Justice Examination Office with "good".

First employment and military service

Otto Palandt , then President of the Judicial Examination Office, wanted to win him over to the judicial service, which Hirsch refused because of his experience in the National Socialist trainee camp in Jüterbog . After completing his legal training, he instead worked for a few months as a lawyer in Görlitz . In April 1940 he found a job as a legal advisor at the control body of soda paper and paper sacks, a cartel in the paper industry . In February 1941 he was called up for military service. He served in a tank artillery regiment on the Eastern Front until 1945. He rejected a career as an officer because of his opposition to National Socialism . However, he was promoted to sergeant because his unit needed a "clerk" and he was the only one who was capable of typing.

Shortly before the end of the war, his friendship with Alfons Malkowski, a staunch communist, almost became his undoing. The two of them had met in the office when Malkowski, who had been targeted by the Gestapo because of his defense activities for public enemies in Berlin , showed up there with a letter ordering his use on the front line. After a one-to-one conversation in which Malkowski told Hirsch about the background, the latter destroyed the letter. From this a friendly relationship developed, which led to Hirsch visiting Malkowski's wife Hilde von Stolz more often when on vacation . When he deserted, however, Hirsch was suspected of having let him in on his plans and was arrested. He was released, however, and Malkowski finally came to Berlin, where he practiced as a lawyer and became legal advisor at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . Hirsch himself was in Hungary at the time of the surrender and then became an American prisoner of war.

Lawyer and SPD local politician in the post-war years

He was released from captivity on May 20, 1945 and two days later he reached Wunsiedel , where his family had ended up. His wife Annemarie, née Müller, died on April 4, 1945. In the same year he married Katharina Pikart. He and his two wives had five children.

Also in 1945 he joined the Bavarian SPD and from July 1st worked as a legal advisor at the city administration of Marktredwitz . Here he was responsible for looking after refugees, reorganizing the police, taking care of the former concentration camp prisoners, as well as for culture and housing. In November he was appointed a lawyer by the US military government because of the need for defense attorneys in the military court hearings. He set up his practice at Alexanderplatz . As a result, he ended his work for the city of Marktredwitz at the end of the year. From 1946 to 1950 he also worked as a lead plaintiff appeal to the Appeals Chamber courtyard under the denazification . A completely different professional opportunity was also offered to him in East Germany: in order to return the favor, Malkowski visited the GDR's deputy minister of culture with him when Hirsch was in Berlin, who offered him the post of curator at the Humboldt University in Berlin . After careful consideration, Hirsch refused. From 1948 to 1954 he sat for the SPD in the city council of Marktredwitz.

As a lawyer, he defended several spectacular trials, including those against the innkeeper and police sergeant Hiller in the synagogue desecration case and against Hans Burkert, who was accused of murder. In the latter case he reached a retrial in which the initially convicted of 12 years in prison was acquitted. Subsequently, he was confronted with a court of honor proceedings at the Bamberg Bar Association , since in a letter to the Frankenpost Hof he had accused the judges of bias towards displaced persons , to whom Bunkert belonged. However, the judge in question denied the remarks made in a private conversation with Hirsch in court, whereupon Hirsch was sentenced to a high court sentence. On the other hand, he lodged a constitutional complaint with the Bavarian Constitutional Court because he considered the relevant provisions of the Bar Code of the Free State of Bavaria to be unconstitutional. He was able to achieve partial success, as the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional at least that provision according to which members of the bar association were also allowed to be members of the courts of honor.

Member of the Bavarian State Parliament

In 1954, Hirsch was elected to the Bavarian state parliament for the first time . Thanks to the strong support of Arno Behrisch , he was placed as a direct candidate. In his constituency, which included Wunsiedel , Marktredwitz, Rehau and Selb , he was able to win the direct mandate. The SPD then formed a four-party coalition with the Bavarian Party , the FDP and the GB / BHE for the second time . In the state parliament he sat in the committee for constitutional and legal questions and at times in the committee for borderland questions. He was also appointed chairman of the committee of inquiry into the casino affair. In the following legislative period, in which the SPD had to go into opposition, he was a member of the committee for cultural policy issues.

Member of the Bundestag and leading legal politician

After Arno Behrisch, member of the Bundestag, left the SPD, Hirsch switched to federal politics in 1961. As a directly elected member of the constituency 226 (Hof) , he entered the Bundestag in the Bundestag election . He was able to defend this direct mandate in the federal elections in 1965 and 1969 . During his time in the Bundestag he was a member of the Legal Committee and chaired the Reparation Committee. From 1966 he was the deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group. In 1968 he headed the committee of inquiry into the situation of the German intelligence services. This ended with the so-called Hirsch report. He was also the chairman of the interparliamentary working group.

Hirsch was a member of numerous bodies within the SPD. He sat in the legal policy committee, in the legal policy committee of the party executive committee and in the legal working group of the parliamentary group. From 1968 to 1970 he was a member of the party executive. He also chaired the Working Group of Social Democratic Lawyers in Bavaria and was deputy chairman of the Hof sub-district of the SPD.

During his time in federal politics, Hirsch gained the reputation of a pragmatic social democrat and was considered one of the leading right-wing politicians in his party. He worked on criminal law reform , emergency laws and the liberalization of the right to demonstrate . In 1968 he was one of the co-authors of the plans to introduce preventive detention. It should be possible to detain urgent suspects if there was a fear of repetition of the crime between the offense and the trial. However, this proposal was not pursued further under the social-liberal coalition . Hirsch is said to have gambled away his chance at the office of Justice Minister in the Brandt cabinet . Until he left the Bundestag, he took part in discussions on the reform of divorce law in the Federal Ministry of Justice's marriage law commission .

In addition to questions of legal policy, he was primarily concerned with reparations . Even as an opposition politician, he was able to improve the right of reparation against the will of the federal government. After a personal conversation with Konrad Adenauer , who had just resigned , he stood up for Hirsch's concerns. In the period that followed, there were amendments to the Federal Restitution Act, the Act on Reparation in the Public Service and the Federal Compensation Act .

His parliamentary work did not prevent him from practicing the legal profession. In August 1963 he moved his law firm from Marktredwitz to Berlin. He also represented the Bundestag in a matter before the Federal Constitutional Court .

Judge of the Federal Constitutional Court

Together with his parliamentary colleague Ernst Benda , Hirsch was elected judge at the Federal Constitutional Court on November 11, 1971 by the Bundestag electoral committee. On December 8, he succeeded Gerhard Leibholz in the Second Senate. As a rapporteur, he was responsible in particular for parliamentary, social, penal law and redress law. The judgment on the requirement of a penal law bears his signature, which some consider his greatest merit and which he himself considered his most important act.

While still a member of parliament, Martin Hirsch had the option of submitting separate opinions at the Constitutional Court. After taking over the office of judge himself, he became the most diligent writer of dissenting opinions. In a total of 22 proceedings, he published a special vote. These include the judgments on expressing opinions in the Bundeswehr , on conscientious objection by postcard , on citizenship after expatriation during the Nazi era and on checking letters while in custody . As he got older, he turned more and more to the left, while the Second Senate moved to the right after a replacement in 1975. Hirsch therefore soon felt isolated, sixteen of his special votes were given on the bench after the major revision.

He was originally intended to be the successor to Vice President Walter Seuffert , and for years it was assumed in Karlsruhe that he would take over this post after he left in 1975. Ultimately, however, the Social Democrats chose the President of the Federal Administrative Court, Wolfgang Zeidler , who was a student and post-war SDS friend of Helmut Schmidt. In contrast, Chancellor Hirsch could not stand, because there had been differences of opinion between the two since the debate on preventive detention. His lack of judicial restraint is also suspected as a reason for the change in the SPD.

For his own successor, Hirsch favored the Hamburg Senate Director Claus Arndt , while others stood up for Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde . The internal party disputes in the SPD delayed the election, and in May 1981 the Federal Constitutional Court was finally asked, two months late, to submit a three-party proposal under Section 7a of the BVerfGG . Neither of the two previously traded candidates appeared on the list. The SPD, which had actually already agreed on Arndt, had the election postponed and ultimately decided on Ernst Gottfried Mahrenholz , third on the list of proposals. Hirsch, who had already reached retirement age on January 31, 1981, resigned from the Federal Constitutional Court on July 6, 1981, more than five months late. With regard to his succession plan, he remarked that it was "not a sheet of fame for the German Bundestag".

In addition to his work as a judge, he held a teaching position for constitutional law at the Siegen University from the 1977/78 winter semester to the 1979/80 winter semester . In 1980 he also took over the federal chairmanship of the Working Group of Social Democratic Lawyers , which brought him the accusation on the part of the Union that, as a constitutional judge, he was inappropriately involved in party politics. He held this position until 1986.

Public disputes

Even as a judge, Hirsch did not shy away from public controversy. Three months after the ruling on the radical decree , to which he had not added a dissenting opinion, he commented on it in an interview with Der Spiegel and submitted his interpretation of the judgment. Because of this behavior, his opponents accused him of bad style. Some time later he was even exposed to a bias motion . The Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs of Baden-Württemberg rejected Hirsch in the proceedings in the Fritz Güde case because this was legally stipulated in his appraisal of the radical decree in general and the radical decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in particular, as he had already been too pointed and committed before Expressed my opinion. In its decision, the Senate recognized “unusual, personally colored, repeated interventions in the public discussion about the so-called radical decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, which are difficult to tolerate with the necessary restraint”, but denied a concern of bias , as Hirsch was still responsible for the specific legal issue to be decided could be viewed as sufficiently “open”.

Shortly before the end of his term in office, he came into the spotlight again. In a newspaper interview, Hirsch strongly criticized the Nuremberg mass arrest , which he considered disproportionate. He recognized a connection between state violence and youth disaffection with the state. Because of these statements, the Bavarian Justice Minister Karl Hillermeier complained to the President of the Federal Constitutional Court Ernst Benda and demanded an opinion from him, "whether such behavior is compatible with the position and official duties of a member of the Federal Constitutional Court". There was no corresponding reaction from Benda, as the judges are not subject to any official supervision by the President.

Hardly three weeks later, it was a decision by the Superior Court that brought Hirsch to the scene. This had overturned a decision by the Berlin Regional Court in which Marinus van der Lubbe , who had been convicted in the Reichstag arson trial in 1933 , had been acquitted. Hirsch publicly expressed his indignation and called it a "great shame of the German post-war judiciary that it failed to bring one of the murderers in the judge's robe to account".

In another interview in May 1981 he criticized the actions of the German state authorities against squatters, demonstrators and slogan sprayers as disproportionate and exaggerated and justified the state actions with the fact that “some people seem to lose their nerve”. Once again he announced his disapproval of the mass arrests in Nuremberg. He also attacked Horst Kuhn , the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice , for his harsh interpretation of the anti-terrorist laws . He accused him of speaking the language of the Völkischer Beobachter in the arrest warrants he had issued in connection with the hunger strikes of terrorist prisoners, citing Section 129a of the Criminal Code . This statement was later withdrawn by him. The interview caused a lot of excitement, with energetic criticism from Federal Attorney General Kurt Rebmann and Federal Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann .

In many magazines he was accused of portraying himself more as a politician than a judge. Ernst Benda said in his farewell speech that it could be that Hirsch understood "the activity as constitutional judge as the continuation of politics by other means".

Retired critical observer

Gravestone in the St.-Annen-Kirchhof in Berlin-Dahlem

Even in retirement, Hirsch remained a radical democratic critic of politics and was therefore a sought-after interviewee. He was a member of the investigative commission that was set up in 1981 after the death of the squatters Klaus-Jürgen Rattay . He castigated the sit-down decision of the Federal Court of Justice on May 5, 1988 as “legally catastrophic bad” and “blatant violation of the constitution”. In order to start an avalanche of lawsuits, he and other celebrities signed an appeal for a seated demonstration in front of the US poison gas camp in Fischbach . On the other hand, he defended the judges of the Frankfurt Regional Court , who in 1989 acquitted a doctor who had been accused of using the quotation “ soldiers are murderers ” and thus caused outrage among parts of the public. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , he vehemently advocated a fair trial and the right to a constitutional defense of the former GDR rulers. Ten days before his death, he offered himself in public to defend Honecker because he found the campaign against him outrageous. He also expressed his rejection of the leniency program .

The University of Bremen appointed him honorary professor in 1983 . From 1987 he lived again in Berlin, where he practiced as a lawyer until 1991 . In 1987 he suffered two heart attacks. Sick of cancer, Hirsch died in 1992 at the age of 79. He found his final resting place in the St. Anne's Kirchhof in Berlin-Dahlem . Rosa Luxemburg is quoted on his tombstone : Freedom is always only the freedom of those who think differently .

Works

Hirsch was co-author of the handbook for reparation and the reader Law, Administration and Justice under National Socialism (together with Diemut Majer and Jürgen Meinck, Bund, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7663-0541-7 ). He wrote a number of articles for the Social Democratic Press Service and the evening paper and published in legal journals such as the Zeitschrift für Rechtsspektiven .

editor

Politics as a crime: 40 years of the “Nuremberg Trials”. VSA, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-87975-375-X .

Honors

• Bavarian Order of Merit (1965)
• Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class (June 18, 1968)
• Large Federal Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon (July 6, 1981)
• Bavarian Constitutional Medal (1991)
• Wilhelm Hoegner Prize (1991)

literature

• 25 years of the Federal Constitutional Court 1951–1976: Ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the Federal Constitutional Court on November 18, 1976. Müller, Heidelberg and Karlsruhe 1976, ISBN 3-8114-4976-1 , p. 52.
• Hans-Jochen Vogel , Helmut Simon , Adalbert Podlech (eds.): The freedom of the other. Festschrift for Martin Hirsch. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1981, ISBN 3-7890-0699-8 .
• Hanno Kühnert: Freedom before order. Martin Hirsch often advocated a dissenting opinion. In: DIE ZEIT No. 29 of July 10, 1981, p. 49. (online)
• Hans-Ernst Böttcher: For Martin Hirsch (1913–1992). In: Critical Justice. 1992, pp. 241-245. (on-line)
• International Biographical Archive. 23/1992 of May 25, 1992.
• Richard Ley: Martin Hirsch †. In: New legal weekly. 1992, p. 2008f.
• Hans Lisken : Martin Hirsch (1913-1992). In: Communications of the Humanist Union. 1992, No. 138, p. 35. (online)
• Press release of the Federal Constitutional Court No. 16/92 of April 11, 1992.
• Theo Rasehorn : Martin Hirsch is dead. In: About justice. 1992, p. 300.
• Diemut Majer: Freedom is always the freedom of the other (Rosa Luxemburg): Martin Hirsch in memory. In: Democracy and Law . 1993, pp. 111-117.

Web links

Commons : Martin Hirsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biographical information on the Internet portal on the history of the Bavarian Parliament is from 1891 of the House of Bavarian History

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Festschrift, pp. 15 and 22.
2. ↑ Festschrift, p. 19.
3. ↑ Festschrift, p. 19.
4. ↑ Ley, S. 2008; International Biographical Archive.
5. ↑ Festschrift, p. 22.
6. ↑ Kühnert, p. 49.
7. ↑ Kühnert, p. 49; Majer, p. 112.
8. ↑ Festschrift, p. 109.
9. ↑ Festschrift, p. 109.
10. ↑ Festschrift, p. 17. According to the International Biographical Archive, his wife's name was Lotte Pikart.
11. ↑ Festschrift, p. 143.
12. ↑ Festschrift, S: 143.
13. ↑ Festschrift, p. 143.
14. ↑ Festschrift, p. 109.
15. ↑ Festschrift, p. 143.
16. ↑ Festschrift, p. 185.
17. ↑ Festschrift, p. 17.
18. ↑ Ley, p. 2008.
19. ↑ Press release of the BVerfG; Majer, p. 115.
20. ↑ Anne Rohstock: From the “Ordinary University ” to the “Revolutionary Headquarters ”? University reform and revolt in Bavaria and Hesse 1957–1976. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-59399-0 , p. 220f.
21. ↑ Hans Schueler: Punishment on suspicion? In: DIE ZEIT of July 17, 1971, p. 4.
22. ↑ Festschrift, p. 207.
23. ↑ BVerfG, decision of March 14, 1972, Az. 2 BvR 41/71, BVerfGE 33, 1 - prisoners.
24. ↑ Majer, p. 114.
25. ↑ Kühnert, p. 49.
26. ↑ Ley, S. 2008; Festschrift, p. 421.
27. ↑ Ley, p. 2008. A complete overview can be found in the Festschrift, p. 599. As far as can be seen from the following collections of decisions by the Federal Constitutional Court, nothing has changed in his top position to this day.
28. ↑ BVerfG, decision of March 2, 1977, Az. 2 BvR 1319/76, BVerfGE 44, 197 - Solidarity address
29. ↑ BVerfG, judgment of April 13, 1978, Az. 2 BvF 1,2,4,5 / 77, BVerfGE 48, 127 - draft amendment
30. ↑ BVerfG, decision of April 15, 1980, Az. 2 BvR 842/77, BVerfGE 54, 53 - Expatriation II
31. ↑ BVerfG, decision of February 5, 1981, Az. 2 BvR 646/80, BVerfGE 57, 170 , guiding principle .
32. ↑ Rasehorn, p. 300.
33. ↑ Kühnert, p. 49.
34. ^ Rolf Lamprecht: Judges versus judges. Differing opinions and their significance for the legal culture. Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden 1992, ISBN 3-7890-2599-2 , p. 188; International Biographical Archive.
35. ↑ Böttcher, p. 243.
36. ^ Lamprecht, p. 188.
37. ↑ Kühnert, p. 49.
38. ↑ International Biographical Archive.
39. ^ Henning Frank: The participation of the Federal Constitutional Court in the judges' elections. In: Wolfgang Zeidler / Theodor Maunz / Gerd Roellecke (eds.): Festschrift Hans Joachim Faller. Beck Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-406-09597-6 , pp. 37-52 [46f].
40. ↑ Oliver Lembcke : Guardian of the constitution. An institutional theoretical study on the authority of the Federal Constitutional Court. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-16-149157-3 , p. 244.
41. ↑ Lembcke, p. 243; International Biographical Archive.
42. ↑ BVerfG, decision of May 22, 1975, Az. 2 BvL 13/73, BVerfGE 39, 334 - extremist decision
43. ^ Lamprecht, pp. 175 and 180.
44. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Wipfelder: What can a judge say? Thoughts on the relationship of the judge to the public using the example of the former federal constitutional judge Martin Hirsch. In: Journal for Legal Policy. 1982, pp. 121-123 [p. 122f]
45. ↑ BVerfG, decision of October 4, 1977, Az. 2 BvR 80/77, BVerfGE 46, 14 .
46. ↑ Lembcke, p. 243.
47. ↑ Lembcke, p. 243, Majer, p. 115.
48. ↑ Lembcke, p. 244.
49. ↑ Lembcke, p. 244.
50. ↑ Wipfelder, p. 121.
51. ↑ Lembcke, p. 244.
52. ↑ Wipfelder, p. 121.
53. ^ Lamprecht, p. 187.
54. ↑ International Biographical Archive; Kühnert, p. 49.
55. ↑ Commission wants to clarify death upon eviction in Berlin. In: Frankfurter Rundschau of October 13, 1981.
56. ↑ BGH, decision of May 5, 1988, Az. 1 StR 5/88, full text .
57. ^ Hansjörg Reichert-Hammer: Political long-term goals and injustice. A contribution to the doctrine of criminal unlawfulness with special consideration of the reprehensibility clause of § 240 Abs. 2 StGB. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-428-07166-2 , p. 48.
58. ↑ Communications No. 128 (Issue 4/1989) . Humanist Union. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
59. ↑ Lisken, p. 35.
60. ↑ Rasehorn, p. 300.
61. ↑ Lisken, p. 35.
62. ↑ BVerfG, press release; In contrast, according to Majer, p. 113, he was appointed as early as 1978.
63. ↑ Majer, p. 114.
64. ↑ Festschrift, pp. 595-598.
65. ↑ ^{a b} Federal President's Office