Otto Weiß (lawyer)

Stumbling stone in front of the house at Sandstrasse 64 in Mülheim

Otto Weiß (born April 28, 1902 in Mülheim an der Ruhr , † March 20, 1944 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German administrative lawyer and opponent of the Nazi regime .

Live and act

Otto Weiß was born the son of a businessman in Mülheim an der Ruhr . He and his three sisters grew up in a Catholic home. After attending elementary school, he switched to the humanistic grammar school in his hometown and passed his Abitur there in 1921.

After graduating from high school, he began studying law and political science, which he completed at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and Münster. In Freiburg he joined the Falkenstein student association in the Cartell Association of German Catholic student associations . After the first state examination and the legal clerkship, he passed the second state examination before the Hamm Higher Regional Court in 1924 . This was followed in 1928 by the state examination for higher administrative service in Prussia and in 1929 by a doctorate at the University of Münster .

In 1933 the young government councilor was appointed head of cultural affairs in the Aachen district government . In order to reduce resentment and to promote international understanding, he began to organize trips to neighboring Belgium and the Netherlands. When Catholic pilgrimages were added to these trips, his superiors ordered a punitive transfer to Wroclaw . There, white was assigned to police headquarters.

At the beginning of the Second World War , Otto Weiß was initially released from military service. This UK position was lifted in March 1943. Weiss received the draft order and was transferred as a soldier to a Wehrmacht unit in Romania. Convinced that the war had to be ended as soon as possible, he anonymously sent a letter to Adolf Hitler asking him to resign. With the memorandum "Order to save Germany" he drew the attention of the resistance group around Carl Friedrich Goerdeler to himself. During an unauthorized extended home leave in August 1943, Otto Weiß was arrested while attempting to enter Switzerland, where he wanted to make contact with those who had emigrated to the regime.

On February 14, 1944, before the People's Court under its President Roland Freisler, charges were brought against Otto Weiss for desertion and high treason. His sister Elisabeth was accused of complicity. While Elisabeth Weiß was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and survived there, Otto Weiß was sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on March 20, 1944 in Berlin-Plötzensee prison .

The remains of Otto Weiß were transferred to Mülheim by family members and buried there in the main cemetery.

A stumbling block was laid in front of his residence on Sandstrasse in Mülheim .

Honors

The Catholic Church has Dr. Otto Weiß was accepted into the German martyrology of the 20th century as a witness of faith .

Works

• The independent economic activity of the city of Mülheim ad Ruhr in the prewar period and today. A contribution to the problem of the communal economy, Bernkastel 1930.

literature

• Peter Stitz: The CV 1919–1938. The university policy path of the Cartell Association of the cath. German student associations (CV) from the end of World War I to the destruction by National Socialism , Munich 1970.
• Resistance and persecution in the CV. The CVers who fell in World War II. A documentation , Munich 1983, pp. 190–191.
• Siegfried Schieweck-Mauk: Lexicon of CV and ÖCV connections , Cologne 1997, pp. 265–271.
• Ernst Schmidt: Dr. Otto Weiß - hanged on March 20 as an opponent of Hitler in: Mülheimer Jahrbuch 1998, pp. 247-255.
• Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. Das deutsche Martyrologium des 20. Jahrhundert , Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 235-239.

Other sources

• Ruhrland Museum Essen, Ernst Schmidt Archive, holdings 19 - 537
• City archive Mülheim an der Ruhr, holdings 1550

Web links

• Biography of Otto Weiß in the portal Rheinische Geschichte
• "Stolperstein" in Mülheim an der Ruhr for Otto Weiß