Otto Woehrmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Otto Wöhrmann (born January 24, 1897 in Leveste , † December 2, 1970 in Celle ) was a German judge.

Life

After graduating from Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Hanover , he studied law at the University of Göttingen from Easter 1915 and became a member of the Lunaburgia Association . From September 22, 1916 he was a participant in the First World War . After his release on February 20, 1919, he resumed his studies in Göttingen. After a total of six semesters, he passed the legal traineeship in Celle on June 26, 1920 and was then awarded a Dr. jur. PhD . Three weeks after the exam, he passed the Rigorosum in Göttingen and submitted his dissertation in October 1921 : “The Shareholder's Claim to the Dividend” . On August 27, 1923, he passed the assessor exam in Berlin. In July 1926 he was appointed district court advisor in Fürstenau and in November 1929 he was transferred to the district court in Celle .

Judge in the Nazi era

On May 1, 1934, he was appointed higher regional judge at the higher regional court in Celle and hereditary court judge at the state hereditary court. His comment on the Reichserbhofgesetz was well known. Due to the extensive individual case law, the comment doubled in scope from the second edition in 1934 to the third edition in 1939. At the same time, the commentary switched to the loose-leaf edition .

High Court Judge

From August 1939 to September 1945 he took part in the Second World War. With the Infantry Replacement Battalion 487 Wöhrmann was promoted to lieutenant and captain of the reserve. After almost two years he became an army judge . First he was briefly a field war judge at the court of the 3rd Division z. b. V. 411 in Hanover . Then he came to Paris to the court of the commandant of Greater Paris and became department head of the special department B “Espionage and Enemy Favor” in which he “ excelled particularly as a negotiator in large treason and espionage matters” . The official assessment of December 3, 1941 for promotion to the High Court Judge said: “Doctor Wöhrmann is a party member and his political stance guarantees that he will stand up for the Führer and the National Socialist state at all times. After his achievements, I consider him qualified to be used at any time in a position in which active judges-martial is employed. ” On July 24, 1943, he was transferred to the special district court of the Reich court martial . On October 10, 1943, he came to the court of the Wehrmacht Command in Berlin. With the establishment of the Central Court of the Army in Berlin-Charlottenburg , he was transferred there. There he was in charge of political criminal matters in cases of the Treachery Act and the War Special Criminal Law Ordinance .

Death sentences

Joachim Hertslet and Anton Hamm
Blood judge brochure from February 1959

On October 30, 1943, Wöhrmann sentenced Corporal Joachim Hertslet and NCO Anton Hamm to death. In the Eberswalde barracks, while being heavily drunk, they tore a picture of Hitler from the wall and destroyed it. Since procedural files and judgment were destroyed in a bomb attack on the Army Archives in Potsdam , the procedure was repeated. Court judge Klein also sentenced according to Section 5 of the Special War Criminal Law Ordinance for degradation of military strength, but the sentence was one year in prison for both of them, as being completely drunk was counted as a mitigating circumstance.

Werner Kleffel

Rittmeister Werner Kleffel was denounced by two young lieutenants in Russia because of defeatist statements . At that time the Rittmeister was working for the command staff of the Higher Commander of the Army Group Center 's supply troops and had used the well-known mocking name “house painter ” in front of subordinates : Nobody can be a painter, painter, architect, general and statesman at the same time. He is also said to have referred to Adolf Hitler in conversation as a syphilitic and paranoid figure. On December 11, 1943, judge Klein sentenced Kleffel to five years in prison. Field Marshal Keitel ordered a new hearing. After a short trial, Wöhrmann sentenced Kleffel to death on August 30, 1944. With the help of the chief judge at the Central Court of the Army, General Judge Helmuth Rosencrantz, and Chief Justice Baecker, the execution of Kleffel's death sentence was suspended. The two knew that Kleffel was a cousin of Carl Goerdeler , but did not inform Wöhrmann. Kleffel came on parole with the small combat units of the Kriegsmarine , which were considered a suicide mission. These combat units were subordinate to his cousin Vice Admiral Hellmuth Heye , so that he was not used. Kleffel survived and later worked as a senior public prosecutor in Hildesheim .

Willi Mader

Sergeant Willi Mader was sentenced to death by Wöhrmann on November 3, 1944. On July 24, 1944, Mader was talking to a woman he did not know. During the conversation he gave her a leaflet with the "Manifesto of the National Committee Free Germany to the Wehrmacht and the German People" . Mader was denounced by the woman.

Judge in the Federal Republic

Agricultural law

On June 1, 1947, he was again active as a higher regional judge in Celle and was appointed to the Agriculture Senate. From May 1, 1952 until his retirement on October 1, 1962, he was Senate President of the Agriculture Senate. His Senate enjoyed an excellent position among the agricultural courts in the Federal Republic. He is considered the "father of the (new) court law" and saved the principles of the Reichserbhofrecht in the court order (HöfeO). The British military government adopted Regulation No on 24 April 1947. 84 containing the HöfeO for the countries of the British zone of occupation in the appendix. Wöhrmann was involved in the negotiations between the German representatives and the military government. From 1957 Wöhrmann worked for several years at the Institute for International Comparative Agricultural Law in Florence. In his commentary on agricultural law, there was still talk of “weeding out owners who are unable to manage or unwilling to perform” or the “most natural and effective selection principle” . From May 1949 until his death in 1970 he was the editor of the then only agricultural law journal Law of Agriculture .

Processing of the death sentences

Sergeant Mader's wife and her two children applied for special aid under the Lower Saxony law for those persecuted by the National Socialist tyranny of September 22, 1948. Retroactive to October 1, 1948, she received a survivor's pension and orphan's pension on May 23, 1949 . On February 11, 1950, she was awarded Mader's indemnity . The district president in Stade tried to contest the rulings in 1952: “Even after checking again, I have to hold on to my position that in Mader's case there is no political conviction.” Mader has “and that is the decisive factor - not surrendered to deliberately anti-Nazi To carry out propaganda. Incomprehensibly, he left it to Hildegard S., who was completely unknown to him, without giving any thought to the consequences that could have for him. "

Private Hertslet, convicted by Wöhrmann, reported Wöhrmann on December 1, 1957 for bending to the right and attempting manslaughter . Joachim Hertslet was a colorful figure of the early Federal Republic. Before the outbreak of World War II , he worked for the German government in Mexico. The economist procured Mexican oil and played a role in the intrigues of the German defense against President Roosevelt's re-election . After the war he established the first contacts between the Federal Republic and South America. In 1952 he fell out of favor with Konrad Adenauer because Hertslet criticized the reparation policy with Israel . In 1959 the Berlin Public Prosecutor General at the Court of Appeal decided : " With regard to the Wöhrmann and Cramer you accused ... I closed the case because the accused could not be determined ... " With the 1958 Handbook of Justice , Hertslet found out himself that Wöhrmann worked in Celle. The advertisement was made public through a Spiegel article in 1959. The film “ Roses for the Public Prosecutor ” was advertised because of its similarity to the Wöhrmann case: “No sooner had the filming started ... than a well-known German news magazine published a parallel case.” The proceedings were initiated in August 1960 by the Public Prosecutor General District Court of Berlin and finally closed in July 1961 by the Attorney General at the Chamber Court. In 1979, the playwright Rolf Hochhuth took up the Hertslet case in his Filbinger play “Juristen”: “ Younger readers who might doubt this because they find it unbelievable must be shown that in fact many years after the war, for example in Celle a former chief judge was serving as President of the Senate ”. "The President of the Senate who wanted to kill these two German soldiers today receives many thousands of marks a month in pension, infinitely more than the widow of an executed soldier ever received." With reference to Klein and Wöhrmann: " Which in turn proves that even under Hitler judges had the choice to remain human or become beasts. "

Rittmeister Kleffel, rescued by Rosencrantz and Baecker, became chief public prosecutor in Hildesheim after the war and Rosencrantz was subordinate public prosecutor there. Rosencrantz was of the opinion that the court of the Wehrmacht commandantur as well as the central court of the army were not political courts. It was war and so "in the interests of discipline in such cases" they took sharp action. Kleffel himself had no objection to Woehrmann's appointment as Senate President in 1952.

family

His father was Superintendent Karl Wöhrmann. His mother Madeleine, née Beauvais, came from a Huguenot family.

literature

  • Committee for German Unity (Ed.): We indict: 800 Nazi blood judges. Supporting the militaristic Adenauer regime , Berlin (East) 1959, p. 155.
  • " Unreservedly in action ", Der Spiegel from July 8, 1959.
  • Walter Oehme : "Ehrlos Forever" , Berlin (East) 1962, p. 171.
  • Karl Kroeschell : Otto Wöhrmann and his scientific work , AgrarR 3 (1973) pp. 33–35.
  • Ulrich Vultejus : Combat suit under the robe: Martial law of the Second and Third World War , Hamburg, 1984, p. 103.
  • Otto Woehrmann. A typical career , Celler Zündel. Municipal monthly newspaper, (alternative magazine ( [1] )), 6th year (1986), issue 9, p. 5.
  • Bärbel Holtz (Ed.): The minutes of the Prussian State Ministry 1925-1938 / 38. Vol. 12 / II. (1925-1938) , Hildesheim 2004, ( Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences [Hrsg.]: Acta Borussica . New series ), p. 721.

Web links

  • Celle under National Socialism - A historical city tour: “ Otto Wöhrmann. A typical career . " Website of the Association for the Promotion of Political Literature eV:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Quart catalog of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Card no. 50661153 ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / quart_ifk.bsb-muenchen.de
  2. ^ Association of Old Lüneburgers and Saxony: Directory of addresses , 1969, p. 11
  3. ↑ Otto Wöhrmann: Vom Reichserbhofgesetz zur Höfeordnung , in: Atti del primo Convegno internazionale di diritto agrario: Firenze, 28 March - 2 April 1954 , Volume II, Milan 1954, p. 574.
  4. ↑ See Peter Lindemann: Blood and Soil - Hereditary Courts in the Third Reich - The State Court Court in Celle , in: Peter Lindemann / Käthe Poppinga: Celler Jurisdictions in the Third Reich and after 1945 , Kiel 2011, p. 47 Rn. 93 .
  5. ↑ Cf. Peter Lindemann: The importance of the ducal city should be raised "all over the world" ( memento of the original from 23 September 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cellesche-zeitung.de archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Cellesche Zeitung of June 14, 2013.
  6. ↑ a b c Claudia Bade: A Hamburg military judge, communications from the Hamburg Judges Association, No. 3/2009 of September 15, 2009, p. 15 .
  7. ↑ Judge. Unreservedly in use. In: Der Spiegel 28/1959, July 8, 1959, pp. 26–28 .
  8. ^ A b Klaus Volland: Willi Mader - a victim of Nazi military justice , lecture in Bremervörde, Bachmann Museum on November 16, 2011.
  9. ^ Theophil Gerber: Personalities from agriculture and forestry, horticulture and veterinary medicine: biographical lexicon , Volume 2, 2004, p. 850.
  10. ↑ Ignacio Czeguhn : Hereditary farms and farm regulations after 1945, in: Martin Löhnig (Hrsg.): Zwischenzeit - Rechtsgeschichte der Besatzjahre , Regensburg 2011, p. 211 ( PDF ).
  11. ↑ Roland Norer: Lebendiges Agrarrecht: Development Lines and Perspectives of Law in Rural Areas , Vienna 2005, p. 209
  12. ↑ Klaus Volland: A treasure chest in bad hands , The time of March 1, 1974; Klaus Volland: The Third Reich and Mexico - Studies on the Development of German-Mexican Relations 1933–1942 with Special Consideration of Oil Policy , Frankfurt am Main 1976, pp. 151–154, 165–172; WJ Cash : The Charlotte News, October 4, 1941 ; Nazi Link with Appeasers alleged in US , The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), January 2, 1941.
  13. ^ Rein again , Der Spiegel, March 4, 1968; Hertslet decision of the BGH: LM No. 17 to § 839 (Ca) BGB.
  14. ^ "Not to be determined" , Der Spiegel of February 11, 1959.
  15. ↑ Eva Orbanz: Wolfgang Staudte. Spiess , Berlin 1977, p. 152.
  16. ↑ The Murderers Are Above Us , Der Spiegel, September 2, 1959.
  17. ^ Rolf Hochhuth: Lawyers. Three acts for seven players . Reinbek near Hamburg 1979, p. 117.
personal data
SURNAME Woehrmann, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Leveste
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 1970
Place of death Celle