Max Draeger (lawyer)

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Friedrich Ernst Max Draeger (born January 18, 1885 in Marienburg , West Prussia , † April 20, 1945 in Brandenburg an der Havel ) was a German judge . He was the last president of the Königsberg Higher Regional Court .

Life

Draeger's parents were the mill owner Draeger and his wife Maria geb. Senger. He studied law at the Albertus University and was active in the Corps Hansea Königsberg in 1904 . In 1909 he was at the Royal University of Greifswald to Dr. iur. PhD . Draeger was a passionate mountaineer .

Danzig and Duisburg

On May 20, 1920 he became a district judge in Gdansk , and on July 1, 1920 district judge in Gdansk. On January 1, 1922, he came to the judiciary department of the Senate of the Free City of Danzig as a senior government councilor . Since January 1, 1925 District Court Director in Gdansk, he was appointed District Court President in Guben on November 1, 1932 and on July 7, 1933 as State Councilor and Head of Economy in Gdansk. From October 1, 1935, he was President of the District Court of Duisburg for almost two years , before becoming President of the West Prussian Higher Regional Court of Marienwerder for three months on August 21, 1937 .

Koenigsberg

On December 1, 1937, Draeger came to Königsberg as President of the East Prussian Higher Regional Court . After various magistrates and court-appointed guardians investigated the 1558 patients in East Prussian psychiatric clinics who were murdered in the course of "Aktion Lange" in May 1940, Draeger instructed the competent courts to "dispose of useless inquiries". He had previously told the Reich Minister of Justice that "the matter would soon be settled by sending the death certificates of the persons in question".

A transfer request to the OLG Kiel was prevented in 1943 by Hinrich Lohse , Gauleiter in Schleswig-Holstein and Reichskommissar Ostland , through intervention at the Reich Ministry of Justice .

When the Red Army approached, Draeger dissolved his authority. Apparently, this happened without consulting the ministry in Berlin. Draeger left the city with Attorney General Szelinski in the direction of Pillau, where they boarded west. When they arrived in Swinoujscie (or Stettin ), Draeger and Szelinski reported to Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack . He had already been alerted by a radio message from Gauleiter and “Reich Defense Commissioner” (RVK) Erich Koch , “that the Chief President and the Public Prosecutor General Szelinski, without having contacted the RVK and without having ensured that their official business was properly transferred, were crossing Königsberg in their official car Pillau left for Danzig. The population is very upset about this behavior of the board officials. The Ministry of the Interior had arranged in Gdansk that the two officers be detained there. He expresses the request that our authorities also take the necessary steps against the two board officials. "

With Thierack's consent, Gauleiter Franz Schwede had both arrested as deserters and transferred to Berlin. Szelinski committed suicide while in custody. Draeger was sentenced to death by the People's Court on March 29, 1945 for degrading military strength and desertion . Harry Haffner was involved in the verdict against Draeger . Admitted to the Brandenburg prison on April 4, 1945 , Draeger was shot "honorably" on April 20, 1945.

In 1974, Walter Wagner assessed Draeger's escape to the west in a very service-related manner and attributed it to the fact that orderly work in the besieged Königsberg had simply become impossible. Wagner did not consider personal motives or the erroneous assumption that Berlin would meet with approval. In retrospect, he assessed the death penalty for a top representative of the Nazi judicial system as a "martyr's death".

Draeger's daughter Lore Helbich reported in 2007 that the relatives only found out about the execution in December 1945. The urn was buried in the cemetery in Berlin-Friedenau .

review

During the Weimar Republic , Draeger belonged to the DNVP from 1921 to 1932 , and from 1933 to the NSDAP after the start of National Socialism . He was involved in the Reich Association of German Officials and in the National Socialist Legal Guards Association . At the end of the war he was assigned to the Kreisau District : The Königsberg pastor Hugo Linck noted him as a member of the Königsberg Brother Council of the Confessing Church . Draeger's conviction could be due to the fact that he was accused of relations with the resistance. In the holdings of the former Berlin Document Center (BDC) there is an SA personnel file from Draeger; it did not contain any records of the disciplinary proceedings or the trial before the People's Court.

literature

  • Rüdiger Döhler : The Max Draeger case - a murder out of revenge? In: Sebastian Sigler : Corps students in the resistance against Hitler . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2014. ISBN 978-3-428-14319-1 , pp. 431-435.
  • Hugo Linck : The church struggle in East Prussia. 1933 to 1945. History and documentation . Gräfe and Unzer, Munich 1968, p. 220.
  • Emil Luckat: Draeger . In: Old Prussian Biography , Vol. 3. Elwert, Marburg 1975, ISBN 3-7708-0504-6 .
  • Hubert Schorn: Judge in the Third Reich. History and documents . Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1959.
  • Christian Tilitzki : Everyday Life in East Prussia 1940-1945. The secret situation reports of the Königsberg judiciary . Special edition. Flechsig, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-88189-481-0 .
  • Walter Wagner: The People's Court in the National Socialist State (The German Justice and National Socialism 3, Sources and Representations on Contemporary History 16), exp. New edition, Munich 2011.
  • Moritz von Köckritz: The German Higher Regional Court Presidents in National Socialism (1933-1945) (= Legal History Series 413), Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-61791-5 , p. 100ff. (not evaluated)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 85/189
  2. ↑ Dissertation: In the case of life insurance in favor of a third party, do the creditors of the estate have access to the sum insured?
  3. ^ Sascha Topp, Petra Fuchs, Gerrit Hohendorf, Paul Richter, Maike Rotzoll: The Province of East Prussia and the National Socialist "euthanasia": SS - "Aktion Lange" and "Aktion T4" . In: Medical History Journal . tape 43 , 2008, p. 35 ff .
  4. ↑ Personnel file (R 3001/54515) in the Federal Archives .
  5. ^ Walter Wagner: The People's Court in the National Socialist State , adult new edition, Munich 2011, p. 392.
  6. ↑ Two notes in the files of the Reich Ministry of Justice from January 28 and 31, 1945 [where are they archived?]
  7. ^ Christian Tilitzki: Everyday Life in East Prussia 1940-1945. The secret situation reports of the Königsberg judiciary . Flechsig, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-88189-481-0 , p.
  8. ↑ Schorn, Der Richter im Third Reich , p. 232; Walter Wagner, p. 392.
  9. ↑ Walter Wagner, p. 392.
  10. ^ Lothar Gruchmann : Justice in the Third Reich. 1933-1940. Adaptation and submission in the Gürtner era (= sources and representations on contemporary history. Vol. 28). 3rd, improved edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-53833-0 , p. 275
personal data
SURNAME Draeger, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Draeger, Friedrich Ernst Max (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German judge; Nazi victims
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Marienburg , West Prussia
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1945
Place of death Brandenburg on the Havel