Oskar Schmoll

Oskar Schmoll (born May 3, 1894 in Karlsruhe , † 1969 ) was a German lawyer.

His career began in the Weimar Republic and culminated in the dictatorship of National Socialism ; from June 1942 to April 1945 he was president of the regional court and the special court in Waldshut . As a feared criminal judge, he imposed draconian prison sentences and death sentences . Due to his malice and aggressiveness , Schmoll, like Roland Freisler , is a personified example of the perversion of justice in the service of National Socialism . In 1950 judicial circles in Baden he was considered "the most notorious blood judge in Baden, a fanatical supporter of the NSDAP, a dangerous informer and the worst figure in the Baden judiciary."

Live and act

Youth, training and early career

Oskar Schmoll was a later son of the Baden tax officer Anton Schmoll, who died at the beginning of 1900 at the age of 53. The Tengen farmer Rupert Lauber, a relative of Oskar's mother Albertine, took over the guardianship of the six-year-old child. Oskar attended the Heinrich-Suso-Gymnasium Konstanz and passed the Abitur in July 1914 . His grades show that he was a hardworking student with very good demeanor and mostly good results. Oskar Schmoll did not take part in the First World War because he was unfit for military service due to the stiffening of his left knee, which was caused by a tuberculous bone disease in his early youth. Schmoll studied law in Heidelberg from 1914 and passed the first state examination in 1918 and the second state examination in 1921 . With his achievements, he took fifteenth place among 19 candidates in 1921. In 1921 Schmoll joined the Baden judicial service as a court assessor and wrote a doctoral thesis at the University of Heidelberg on the "discharge of the board of directors and the supervisory board in the stock corporation ." The doctorate ended in 1923 with the grade "3 = cum laude". In 1923 he married Maria Anna, who was 1½ years his junior and a daughter of the Baden-Baden-based tax officer Wilhelm Strasser. In December 1926 Schmoll took over the post of public prosecutor in Constance , where he remained until the end of 1930.

NSDAP activist from 1931

In 1923 Schmoll joined the German National People's Party , which was hostile to democracy and republic . two years later, although he had never been a soldier, he became a member of their armed arm, the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten . After Schmoll was transferred to Donaueschingen as a district judge at the beginning of 1931 , he joined the NSDAP on March 1, 1931 under membership number 473.096. Here he made a name for himself as an agitator at party events, which earned him the fame of a “pioneer of the Baar for National Socialism” in the district leadership . The SS attested him to have been "one of the most feared opponents of the center " who had "always stood up for the movement in the front ranks". Since Schmoll exceeded the limits of civil service law , he received several disciplinary sentences before 1933 . After the seizure of power , he participated in the planning of a violent attack against the center member Anton Hilbert , which the Donaueschingen district leader Eberhard Sedelmeyer had carried out with the help of SA thugs in April 1933. Belonging to the innermost circle of power within the district leadership, Schmoll played a key role in the personal cleansing in the town halls of the Donaueschingen district as a party official for local politics from February 1933.

1933–1938 First public prosecutor in Freiburg

In December 1933 Schmoll was promoted to First Public Prosecutor in Freiburg im Breisgau ; at the same time he took up the post of head of the legal office in the local NSDAP district leadership. Afterwards, reported the Baden Ministry of Justice in 1947, Schmoll was happy to intervene in pending proceedings and summon plaintiffs who had asserted their legal claims against party comrades and threatened them with arrest if they did not withdraw their complaints. Theodor Hönl (1872–1955), district court director in Freiburg until 1936 , testified in 1950: “Those sections of the population who were compelled to appear before him when he was summoned [could] never be certain [...] whether they had appeared before him in his capacity as public prosecutor or in the function of a party . " Schmoll treated the lawyers of those affected" very unfriendly, not to say brutally. "Hönl later described Schmoll as" the gravedigger of official discipline and destroyer of justice in ours. " District."

1938–1942 Regional Court Director and Deputy Chairman of the Mannheim Special Court

Schmoll did not have a good reputation within the Nazi judiciary. Emil Brettle , Attorney General at the Higher Regional Court in Karlsruhe from 1933 to 1937 , ruled in 1937 that Schmoll's character urged caution and that his need for recognition led him to take actions that were detrimental to his reputation. Although Schmoll is aiming for the office of senior public prosecutor , Brettle admitted that he was “hardly ever in a position to propose Schmoll. A promotion to regional or district court director will […] be more likely. ”At the beginning of 1938, Schmoll applied for a position as regional court director in Mannheim. Brettle's successor Ernst Lautz suddenly attested to Schmoll that he was "a competent, knowledgeable and experienced civil servant who purposefully and energetically promotes the criminal cases entrusted to him and who impressively represents the subject in court". Accordingly, Schmoll was transferred to Mannheim as regional court director in September 1938 , where he took over the chairmanship of a criminal chamber and the deputy chairmanship of the Mannheim Special Court . In 1940 the local district leadership praised him for making his “decisions, especially as a criminal judge at the special court, in accordance with National Socialism”.

1942–1945 Regional Court President and Chairman of the Waldshut Special Court

After the occupation of France in mid-1940, Schmoll applied for a job in Alsace , where the German occupiers set up a new judicial administration. However, the head of civil administration in Alsace, Gauleiter Robert Wagner , rejected Heinrich Reinle , President of the Mannheim Higher Regional Court, “because he believes stronger personalities are necessary in Alsace. As president of the regional court in Baden, Dr. Schmoll should be proposed. ”Reinle informed the Reich Ministry of Justice (RJM) about Wagner's request, admitting that Schmoll's personality was“ a bit controversial ”, but that he had done a good job in Mannheim: He (Reinle)“ considered the appointment of Dr. Schmolls as President of the Regional Court is quite justifiable, in view of his political merits, desirable. ”In a meeting that took place at the end of 1940 between Robert Wagner and the State Secretary at the RJM, Dr. Franz Schlegelberger took place in Strasbourg, Schmoll's promotion was regulated. On June 1, 1942, the Reich Justice Administration appointed him President of the District Court in Waldshut . Associated with this was the chairmanship of the Waldshut Special Court, a branch of the Freiburg Special Court.

Schmoll's litigation at the Waldshut Special Court

Between 1942 and 1945 Schmoll chaired numerous criminal proceedings in which he and his assessors sentenced the defendants to draconian penal sentences, mostly for making statements hostile to the state or for listening to foreign broadcasters . The bourgeois existence of many innocent citizens was severely damaged or even destroyed in this way. In his reasons for the verdict , Schmoll not only assessed the “criminal offenses” of the convicted, but also subjected their personality to a devastating assessment. In Waldshut, Schmoll was involved in the imposition of at least four death sentences . The proceedings against the master butcher Eugen Mülhaupt, who was executed on July 25, 1944, formed his most spectacular case: In April 1944, Mülhaupt was sentenced to death because he had withdrawn 700 quintals of meat from the German war economy by specifying incorrect weights and selling it unbranded . The process drew wide circles because it uncovered a corruption swamp in which the local Nazi nomenclature was deeply entangled. In his reasoning for the judgment, Schmoll also executed Mülhaupt morally: “Uncollegial towards his professional colleagues, bossy and brutal towards his subordinates, presumptuous in his demeanor and flattering and greasy towards people who seem to be of advantage to him, that is Mülhaupt. A man who goes over corpses in order to achieve his goals. ”The death sentence caused great indignation in Waldshut, whose population found“ a prison sentence of several years ”to be perfectly adequate. According to the testimony of his employees, Schmoll was known in the Waldshut office “as a Schikanör” and “as a sadist . [...] He could plague the female employees until they cried. That was what he enjoyed most. ”After 1945, those around him were of the opinion that“ the torture caused by Schmoll was less due to political reasons than a character disposition ”and that Schmoll's motives“ should not be assessed as typically National Socialist. Being able to pass a death sentence once [...] was the result of his character, which was certainly the same before 1933. "

Internment after the end of the war

Shortly before the arrival of French associations on April 25, 1945, Schmoll urged his staff to hold out and set himself off to the east. On May 7, 1945 he was detained in internment . At the end of 1945 he wrote a letter of justification to the French commandant's office , in which he denied any guilt, placed the Nazi special courts established in 1933 in the legal tradition of the Weimar Republic and denied their jurisdiction over political matters. Schmoll complained that in view of his services he would have expected that his “work as a judge would also be appreciated and recognized by the occupying army ”, because “I loved justice and hated injustice. [...] It is terrible for me today to be deprived of freedom, because I never had any other thought than to walk the path of truth and justice. "At the end of his petition, Schmoll complained that he was a sick man and appealed" Your humanity, which has always been one of the most noble virtues of the French, and ask you to let me go! It goes without saying that I will be loyal and grateful. ”Schmoll was by no means released, but spent the following 36 months in the Freiburg internment camp , whose ruling chamber dealt with its denazification at the end of 1948 . The process dragged on for over two years and turned out to be a power struggle between those forces in the purge apparatus who show leniency and those who, at least in this case of serious political stress in the Baden judicial apparatus, wanted to ensure justice.

The arbitration chamber proceedings from 1948–1950

The first instance judgment of December 1948

The Freiburg Internees Arbitration Chamber I met on December 13, 1948. On the basis of the exoneration certificates submitted by Schmoll, it came to the judgment that Schmoll had “also behaved correctly towards opponents of the party and showed himself helpful to them.” He was also not a beneficiary of the Nazi system because he was promoted not only because of his party membership, but also because of his qualifications . However, none of this can eradicate the fact that Schmoll had significantly promoted National Socialism and should therefore be regarded as the culprit . The French military government approved the verdict. The verdict and the reasoning stood in a striking contrast, which Schmoll explained as follows: The chairman of the committee of inquiry and his deputy had told him, “Based on previous experience, it would have to be expected that the responsible French body would raise objections if it was wanted a milder assessment of the panel would take place. I was therefore advised, in the interests of my release, to accept that the Arbitration Chamber should find me formally guilty. At the same time it was explained to me that I should then appeal the decision or, if this should lead to difficulties, the State Commissioner [for the political cleansing in Baden, Walther Nunier] would of course make use of his right and order a new hearing . "

The first revision judgment from February 1950

In early 1950, the Baden State Commissariat for Political Cleansing granted Schmoll's appeal. The Spruchkammer Freiburg I met on February 28, 1950. Its verdict was mild. She accused Schmoll of “having campaigned for the 'movement' with blind fanaticism ” and “without criticism of nat.soz. [To have] fallen victim to an epidemic whose poison got into the bloodstream of the German national body through Hitler ”. Schmoll could, however, “be allowed to believe that this attitude would have a weakening influence on extreme measures of fanatical parties .” The Chamber did not want to see Schmoll benefiting from National Socialism . As a result, she classified him as a “minor offender” . As a "atonement", Schmoll was to be retired with the pension of a district court councilor. The verdict caused great indignation in the legal committee of the Baden state parliament. Its members were "very harsh against the cleansing order [and] stated that if Schmoll was only slightly burdened, hardly anyone else would be guilty." The Baden Ministry of Justice also assessed the reason why Schmoll did not benefit from the Nazi system considered to be "absurd" and urged the State Commissioner for Political Cleansing to go into revision from mid-1950. In preparation for this, the authorities began to search systematically for the first time in the second half of 1950 for written witnesses and testimonies for Schmoll's political activities.

The second revision judgment from December 1950

The second revision hearing took place on December 19, 1950, chaired by Dr. Manfred Pfister . His chamber classified Schmoll as the culprit . She affirmed both Schmoll's beneficiaries of the Nazi system and his role as an activist and participant in the attack on Anton Hilbert. The reasoning for the judgment rejected the arguments of the previous instances and stated that the moderately talented lawyer Schmoll could only make a career on “party backs”. As far as the certificates of discharge presented by him are concerned, many exhibitors are “probably not clear about how much they devalue their other statements by such statements that are in stark contrast to the truth and force them to be cautious about all certificates of convenience”. The reasoning for the judgment shows that the chamber believed that Schmoll was an outlier in the Baden judicial system. In the judgment it says: “While the majority of the judges and judicial officials have shown reluctance to the demands of the party and have preserved the dignity and reputation of the German judiciary, which has secured the good reputation of the German judiciary, Schmoll has these characteristics injured in an irresponsible way shamefully and proved to be an outright pest of his profession and the name of the bathroom. Justice violated. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Schmoll case has caused a sensation not only in the legal professional world, but also in public. "

End of life

With the verdict of December 1950, Schmoll lost all pension entitlements and hopes of remaining in the Baden judicial service. Further information about him is sparse: in 1953 his files were stamped “Sympathizer” . In the Karlsruhe birth register, Schmoll's death in 1969 is recorded under "1894 No. 812". However, the Karlsruhe City Archives pointed out that there might be an error, because the death certificate listed there could not be found. In the building of the Waldshut-Tiengen Regional Court, Schmoll's likeness is missing from the portraits of his chairmen that are otherwise fully exhibited there.

Schmoll's aftermath

Due to a restrictive interpretation of the Federal Compensation Act after the end of the “Third Reich”, Schmoll's victims were often denied adequate compensation. The reason given was the character image of the accused drafted by the Nazi judiciary, mostly distorted to the point of caricature: The widow of a man who died in prison in 1945 and who had been imprisoned for two and a half years in 1943 for statements hostile to the state was paid a widow's pension refused. Schmoll had attested the critic a "particularly high level of rebellion against the government and the movement" and described him as an "insensitive, excitable psychopath with a poor intellectual situation". In 1951, the Baden Ministry of Finance justified the refusal to pay pensions with the knowledge: “Such persons become delinquent in any system. You can not be found worthy of being recognized as a bearer of a respectable political stance . "The Badische Amtsgericht (district court), which the widow called on , approved the Ministry in 1952 with the argument that the plaintiff's husband, who had several previous convictions, was and already was anti-social before the takeover of power could not fit into the state order. ”The judgment made explicit reference to the character assessment of the deceased by Judge Schmoll.

literature

• Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . In: perpetrators, helpers, free riders. Nazi victims from southern Baden . Kugelberg Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-945893-06-7 , pp. 327-342 .
• Michael P. Hensle: The death sentences of the special court Freiburg 1940-1945: An investigation from the point of view of persecution and resistance . Belleville, 1996, ISBN 978-3-923646-16-6 , pp. 115-128 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ministerial Director i. RJ Holler to State Commissioner for Political Cleansing in Baden, September 23, 1950. Freiburg State Archives, D 180 / 3-1307.
2. ↑ Top grade A of the Heinrich-Suso-Gymnasium, Konstanz. Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . In: perpetrators, helpers, free riders. Nazi victims from southern Baden . Kugelberg Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-945893-06-7 , pp. 327–342, here: p. 328 .
3. ↑ Personnel file of the Reich Ministry of Justice, Federal Archives Berlin R 3001/74799. Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 328 .
4. ↑ Student and doctoral files Oskar Schmoll University archive Heidelberg H-II-852/25. Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 328 .
5. ^ Reports of the Security Police, Freiburg State Archives B 695 / 10-32. Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 329 .
6. ↑ Questionnaire on the political assessment of Schmoll from July 31, 1938, Freiburg State Archive D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 329 .
7. ^ Security service of the SS, Karlsruhe to Gauleitung Baden from August 10, 1938, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 329 .
8. ↑ bathroom. Ministry of Justice to the Statistical Office of the City of Freiburg from July 7, 1947, Main State Archives Stuttgart EA 4 / 153-534. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 330 .
9. ^ Hönl to Ministerialdir. a. D. Holler dated September 28, 1950, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 3-1307. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 330 .
10. ↑ Ministerialdir. a. D. Holler at Bad. State Commissariat for Political Cleansing v. September 23, 1950, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 3-1307. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 331 .
11. ↑ District Court Director a. D. Theodor Hönl to Ministerialdirektor ret. D. Holler dated September 28, 1950, Freiburg State Archives, D 180 / 3-1307. Quoted from Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 327 .
12. ^ Brettle judgment on Schmoll's personal sheet from 1937, Bundesarchiv Berlin R 3001/74799. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 331 .
13. ^ Lautz judgment on Schmoll's personal sheet from 1938, Bundesarchiv Berlin R 3001/74799. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 332 .
14. ^ Assessment of Schmoll by the Mannheim district management on March 29, 1940, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 332 .
15. ↑ Higher Regional Court -President Karlsruhe to Reich Minister of Justice of November 20, 1940, Federal Archives Berlin R 3001/74799. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S.  332 .
16. ↑ Reinles justification for the promotion proposal in favor of Schmoll, Bundesarchiv Berlin R 3001/74799. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 332 .
17. ↑ The case is described in: Michael P. Hensle: The death sentences of the special court Freiburg 1940-1945: An investigation from the point of view of persecution and resistance . Belleville, 1996, ISBN 978-3-923646-16-6 , pp. 115-128 .
18. ↑ verdict in the case Eugen Mülhaupt, State Archives Friborg A 47 / 1-1909. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 335 . “One cannot help wondering whether the author should not have recognized himself in his own lines,” says Seidelmann.
19. ^ So the Waldshut judicial officer Karl Helmle in his letter to the Spruchkammer Freiburg dated December 1, 1950, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 332 .
20. ^ So the Waldshut judicial officer Karl Helmle in his letter to the Spruchkammer Freiburg dated December 1, 1950, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 335 .
21. ^ Letter from Adolf Gros dated December 15, 1950 to Spruchkammer Freiburg, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 335 .
22. ^ Letter from notary H. Zimmermann dated December 13, 1950 to Spruchkammer Freiburg, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 335 .
23. ^ Schmoll to the French command office Waldshut dated December 2, 1945, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 337 .
24. ↑ verdict of the internees saying Freiburg Chamber of 13 December 1948 State Archive Freiburg D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 338-339 .
25. ^ Pout to State Commissioner for pol. Purge of December 29, 1949, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 339 .
26. ↑ verdict of Spruchkammer Friborg I of 13 December 1948 State Archive Freiburg D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 340 .
27. ↑ bathroom. Ministry of Justice to State Commissioner for the Political Cleansing of September 23, 1950, Freiburg State Archives D 180 / 3-1307. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 327 .
28. ↑ verdict of Spruchkammer Freiburg of 19 December 1950 State Archive Freiburg D 180 / 2-189138. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 341 .
29. ↑ bathroom. Ministry of Finance to widow A. dated June 5, 1951, Freiburg State Archives F 196 / 1-1202. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 342 .
30. ^ Reasons for the Bad judgment. District Court of February 28, 1952 in the case of Josef A., Freiburg State Archives F 196 / 1-1202. Passages in italics from the draft were deleted from the letter sent to the widow. Quoted from: Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Oskar Schmoll: "Gravedigger of civil servants' discipline and destroyer of justice" . S. 342 .