Otto von Schweinichen

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Otto von Schweinichen (born January 3, 1911 in Pawelwitz, Trebnitz district near Breslau , † August 28, 1938 ) was a German lawyer.

Life and activity

Otto von Schweinichen was the son of a manor owner and major a. D. He grew up on family estates in Poznan and Silesia and attended the Moravian High School in Niesky , where he passed his Abitur in 1930.

Schweinichen began studying in the 1930 summer semester. In the literature it is stated differently that he first studied in Vienna and from there moved to Berlin (Tilitzki) or that he began his studies in Berlin (Mehring). There are also deviating statements that he first studied history and then turned to philosophy and law or that he took up philosophy, classical philology and law at the same time . As early as 1930 he is said to have been active in the National Socialist German Student Union (NSDStB). On May 1, 1931, he was accepted into the NSDAP , where he took over functionary duties as a cell attendant. He was also a member of the SA , in which he did not do any active service due to a heart defect. During his studies, Schweinichen was financially secure through the co-ownership of an estate in Poland.

It is certain that Schweinichen moved to the University of Jena in the winter semester of 1931/1932 , where he entered Hans Leisegang's seminar. There he met Carl August Emge , a lawyer who was decisive for his further career . In Jena Schweinichen emerged as a leader in the Nazi student union, in which he took over tasks as a trainer in the legal cell and press attendant of the German student body.

In the winter semester of 1932/1933, Schweinichen returned to Berlin, where he studied Aristotle 's philosophy with Nicolai Hartmann and Werner Jaeger and passed his state examination in law in November 1933 .

The decisive factor for Schweinichen's views on legal philosophy was the endeavor to " overcome the fateful legal positivism through in-depth philosophical and methodical training". Emge wrote in an obituary from 1939 that Schweinichen's central scientific endeavor was to regain legal philosophy of its royal role, guided by the conviction that legal philosophy had to be anchored in history.

In the summer semester of 1934, Schweinichen entered Carl Schmitt's seminar .

With effect from October 1, 1934, Schweinichen was appointed scientific assistant at Emge.

In 1935 Schweinichen published the work Disputation über den Rechtsstaat , in which, as a rival of Günther Krauss , another student of Carl Schmitt, he advocates the continued use of the concept of the rule of law, whereby Schweinichen's concept of the rule of law clearly distanced itself from the bourgeois-liberal understanding of freedom and equality having. Together with Emge, Schweinichen also published the commemorative publication on Arthur Schopenhauer's 150th birthday.

From the February issue of 1936 Schweinichen became editor of the specialist journal Archive for Legal and Social Philosophy (ARSP). His successor in this function was Jürgen von Kempski . According to the assessment of later researchers, who carried out a cross-sectional analysis of its contents, the ARSP was characterized by an “astonishing degree of neutrality” in view of the fact that it appeared under the conditions of a dictatorship, with the attitude of the Editor Schweinichen or Kempski was viewed.

Schweinichen died in 1938 under circumstances that were not completely clarified: his death was officially considered a suicide . According to information provided by Jürgen von Kempski to Christian Tilitzki in 1993, there were also rumors that his death could have been a political murder. This fits the statement by Emges, who wrote about the end of his assistant that he had been found "terribly beaten up" in the Schorfheide, so that a femicide was close to being the cause of death. In contrast, the journalist Peter von Zahn noted in his memoirs that Schweinichen, to whom he attributes “enthusiastic idealism”, had committed suicide. As a motif he assumes “desperation over the [political] course of Hitler”, which had become apparent in 1938 through the aggressive military expansion policy emerging at that time.

From Schweinichen's estate, Emge edited parts of Schweinichen's dissertation on the concept of legal norms , which was published in 1939.

Fonts

  • Disputation on the rule of law , Hamburg 1935. (together with Günther Krauss)
  • The concept of legal norms in contemporary German philosophy , in: ARSP 33, 1940, pp. 253–342.

As editor:

  • Commemorative writing for Arthur Schopenhauer on the 150th anniversary of his birthday , 1938. (together with Carl August Emge)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norbert Achterberg / Werner Krawietz : Legitimation of the Modern State: Lectures of the Conference of the German Section of the International Association for Legal and Social Philosophy (IVR) in the Federal Republic of Germany from October 8 to 11, 1980 in Münster , 1981, p. 31.
  2. ↑ Peter von Zahn: Voice of the first hour: Memories 1913–1951. 1991, p. 89.
personal data
SURNAME Schweinichen, Otto von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Pawelwitz, Trebnitz district near Breslau
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1938