Otto Küster

Otto Küster (born January 4, 1907 in Stuttgart ; † March 7, 1989 there ) was a German lawyer, anti-fascist and committed Christian who after 1945 made amends in particular to German reparations .

The state of Baden-Württemberg removed him from civil service in 1954 because he had become too uncomfortable. His 1955 before the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt held a plea in the case against the IG Farben is, under the title The minimum of humanity received in legal history.

Career

The son of the chemist William Küster studied law at the Universities of Tübingen , Munich and Berlin . In 1933 Küster was awarded a Dr. jur. PhD .

After he was dismissed as a judge in autumn 1933 for "political unreliability", he initially worked as a lawyer from 1935 onwards. From 1945 to 1954 he served as state commissioner for reparations in the Ministry of Justice of the state of Baden-Württemberg, where he was also, without official status, head of the department for public law. In 1952 he was also appointed by the federal government as deputy head of the German delegation at the German-Israeli reparation negotiations in Wassenaar near The Hague . An attempt was made to injure him as well as Chancellor Adenauer and Franz Böhm with a letter bomb.

At the end of 1954, Baden-Württemberg resigned Küster's mandate. He had protested against planned interference by the Treasury. However, on August 5th he was dismissed without notice due to a private letter that had been passed into the hands of the government. This discipline provoked numerous protests.

As a result, Küster worked again as a lawyer. In 1955 he was one of Norbert Wollheim's lawyers , who had brought a lawsuit against IG Farben because of his forced labor in Auschwitz . Küster made a sensational plea. Against the usual attitude of blaming rough masters and foremen responsible for the atrocities committed on the forced laborers, Küster underlined the guilt share of the owners and executives of the defendant company and stated, among other things:

“The defendant thinks it is right to ask on what legal grounds she was supposed to have been obliged to the prisoners to improve their fate. The district court has already given her the answer: Because the right that would not make it mandatory for her does not deserve this name. "

Here Küster touches on the fundamental problem of a right that takes the formulations of facts or omissions more important than the object of the right, people. As a result, the efforts of Wollheim and his lawyers also led to certain compensation from numerous other forced laborers.

The son-in-law of the prelate Max Mayer-List (1871–1949) shared the positions of the Christian-conservative Kronberger Kreis on the question of Germany (“ties to the West”) and other global political issues . Otto Küster had eight children with his wife Irmgard.

Publications

The legal position of the supervisory board under the new German company law . Dissertation, Berlin 1933
Compensation obligation without own liability . 1943
with Wilhelm Grewe : Nuremberg as a legal issue . Klett, Stuttgart 1947
About the guilt of King Oedipus . In: Contributions to the spiritual tradition , Godesberg, 1947, pages 167-183
Jean d'Arc and Schiller , 1947
Federal problems of a German constitution . In: Süddeutsche Juristenteitung , issue 3, 1948
with Dolf Sternberger : The legal responsibility of the journalist . Schneider, Heidelberg 1949
The problem of violence in the modern state , essay from 1949
with Gerhard Leibfried and Otto Greiner: The justice of the peace in Württemberg-Baden . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1949
Concrete belief . Article from 1952
Reparation as a fundamental legal task . Schulte-Bulmke, Frankfurt / Main 1953
The minimum of humanity . Plea before the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt / Main, March 1, 1955, a. a. printed in: Dachauer Hefte , number 2, 1986, pages 156–174
Israel Diary March 1956 . Self-published, Cologne 1958
Protection of privacy and freedom of the press . Lecture, CF Müller, Karlsruhe 1960
Have to believe . Theological essays, Klett, Stuttgart 1963
Performance management problems . Lecture, Berlin 1965
Experience in German reparations . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1967
Christian determined . Lecture, self-published (Stuttgart) 1969
with Ernst Klett : The Dramatic Structure of Truth . Selected writings, the author on his 60th birthday (with bibliography), Klett, Stuttgart 1971
with Annemarie Möller and Gottfried Raiser: Rolf Raiser in memory . Klett, Stuttgart 1977
Good and bad . Texts 1972–1977. Stuttgart 1978

literature

Degeners who is who? , 12th edition 1955
Constantin Goschler : reparation. West Germany and the Persecuted by National Socialism 1945-1954 , Munich 1992, pages 165–167
Christian Pross: Reparation: the guerrilla war against the victims . Frankfurt am Main: Athenaeum 1988 ISBN 3-610-08502-9
Ludolf Herbst, Constantin Goschler (Ed.): Reparation in the Federal Republic of Germany . Series of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Munich: Oldenbourg. 1989

Individual evidence

↑ Günther Schwarberg: Yours is my whole heart. The story of Fritz Löhner-Beda, who wrote the most beautiful songs in the world, and why Hitler had him murdered , Göttingen 2000, page 198
↑ On Küster's commitment in this area see Gerhard Gronauer: The State of Israel in West German Protestantism. Perceptions in church and journalism from 1948 to 1972 (AKIZ.B57). Göttingen 2013. pp. 115–119 as well as Freiburg circular October 1956 (PDF file; 2.93 MB), accessed on May 18, 2012
^ Die Zeit, August 12, 1954 , accessed May 18, 2012
^ Freiburger Rundbrief VII. Episode, 1954/55, number 25/28, pages 3–10, accessed on May 18, 2012 (detailed documentation)
↑ Freiburger Rundbrief , Volume VIII 1955/1956 No. 29/32 pp. 15–23, accessed on May 18, 2012
↑ More people have fallen victim to believing in the Bible and letters than to the fury of German and Italian fighter pilots in the Spanish war, writes Henner Reitmeier in a consideration of this problem in his “Relaxicon” Der Große Strockraus , Berlin 2009, pages 195-97.
↑ Kronberger Kreis (PDF file; 128 kB), accessed on May 18, 2012
↑ Readable online here , accessed on May 18, 2012. Goschler deals with the 1954 “officially staged Kesselttrieb” (page 167) against Küster, although he admittedly also scratches his “nimbus of generosity”.

personal data
SURNAME	Sexton, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German lawyer and anti-fascist
DATE OF BIRTH	4th January 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH	Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH	March 7, 1989
Place of death	Stuttgart

[1] Günther Schwarberg: Yours is my whole heart. The story of Fritz Löhner-Beda, who wrote the most beautiful songs in the world, and why Hitler had him murdered , Göttingen 2000, page 198

[2] On Küster's commitment in this area see Gerhard Gronauer: The State of Israel in West German Protestantism. Perceptions in church and journalism from 1948 to 1972 (AKIZ.B57). Göttingen 2013. pp. 115–119 as well as Freiburg circular October 1956 (PDF file; 2.93 MB), accessed on May 18, 2012

[3] Die Zeit, August 12, 1954 , accessed May 18, 2012

[4] Freiburger Rundbrief VII. Episode, 1954/55, number 25/28, pages 3–10, accessed on May 18, 2012 (detailed documentation)

[5] Freiburger Rundbrief , Volume VIII 1955/1956 No. 29/32 pp. 15–23, accessed on May 18, 2012

[6] More people have fallen victim to believing in the Bible and letters than to the fury of German and Italian fighter pilots in the Spanish war, writes Henner Reitmeier in a consideration of this problem in his “Relaxicon” Der Große Strockraus , Berlin 2009, pages 195-97.

[7] Kronberger Kreis (PDF file; 128 kB), accessed on May 18, 2012

[8] Readable online here , accessed on May 18, 2012. Goschler deals with the 1954 “officially staged Kesselttrieb” (page 167) against Küster, although he admittedly also scratches his “nimbus of generosity”.