Paul Jorns

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Paul Jorns

Paul Jorns (born December 14, 1871 in Heinade , † February 5, 1942 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer and senior Reich attorney . As an examining magistrate, he covered up the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht . Later he was a public prosecutor at the Reichsgericht and at the People's Court .

Life

Empire

In 1896 he became a legal trainee, and in 1899 he was appointed court trainee. In 1900 he became a judge-martial in Karlsruhe with the 28th Division . In his capacity as a Prussian judge-martial in the army justice service, he came to China with the East Asian Brigade in 1902 and to Stettin in 1905 . In 1906 he was transferred to German South West Africa . There, Judge-Martial Jorns prepared the extradition of Abraham Rolf , a subordinate to Jakob Morengas , by the Cape Colony . In December 1909 Jorns was recalled and ordered to Strasbourg .

Weimar Republic

Case Luxemburg / Liebknecht

At the end of 1918 Jorns was judge-martial in the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division . From January 17, 1919, he dealt with the Luxembourg and Liebknecht murders after General Hoffmann, as the division's military judge, had removed another judge-martial, whom Hugo Haase had attested to be objective. Jorns first released Kurt Vogel and Horst von Pflugk-Harttung again. Hoffmann and Jorns, however, felt compelled to bring in two members each of the Central Council and two members of the Berlin Executive Council. Jorns himself rejected proposals from the civilian members of the investigative commission. After the front page of the Red Flag on February 12, the headline: “The murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg. The deed and the perpetrators ”brought by Leo Jogiches , Oskar Rusch , Paul Wegmann and Hugo Struve withdrew from participating in the investigation the next day. Was not resigned Hermann Wager , who on January 21 for Hermann Müller had stepped. The civilian members of the commission of inquiry found that Judge-Martial Jorns did nothing to prevent the facts from being covered up. Eduard Bernstein , however, was convinced of Jorns' impeccability in 1921:

"It can remain an open question whether the judge-martial Jörns intentionally worked to cover up certain details while leading the investigation, his energetic behavior as a prosecutor at the court hearing gives this assumption little leeway ... the great murder conspiracy, of which Spartakists and Spartakist patrons fabled at the time, even he could hardly have established that she belongs in the realm of fable. … Jörns also applied for the death penalty against the four officers who shot for an accomplished murder. "

This motion was part of the main hearing from May 8th to 14th, which the historian Wolfram Wette commented with the words "judicial farce, [...] one of the great judicial scandals of our century". The pawn victim of the process, Otto Wilhelm Runge , also declared the process in 1921:

“The investigation was a comedy. I spoke to Judge Martial Jörns repeatedly in private and he said to me: 'Take it all on yourself, it will only be four months and you can always turn to us if you are in need.' "

Runge was the only defendant who served his sentence, because Kurt Vogel, who was also convicted, was able to escape from prison with the help of Wilhelm Canaris five days after the verdict.

Further career

After that, Jorns' career took off. In 1920 he became a laborer at the Imperial Court . His further promotions to chief public prosecutor in 1923 and to Reich attorney in 1925 were each endorsed by Ludwig Ebermayer , who attributed to him "excellent understanding and the finest tact " for dealing with political matters .

In 1928 Jorns represented the indictment in the Ponton trial against Berthold Jacob and Fritz Küster : The system of so-called temporary volunteers was exposed in three articles in the newspaper “ Das Andere Deutschland ”. These soldiers, who were used for short-term military exercises, were kept secret in the statistics because they violated the Versailles Treaty . In March 1928 the Reichsgericht sentenced the defendants to nine months of imprisonment each for treason . Kurt Tucholsky commented:

"The little interlude in an otherwise decent and impeccable negotiation deserves to be emphasized because it is typical of the spirit of the Imperial Court ..... The former judge-martial knows nothing about the brother, except a little gossip. At first there is nothing to know: the man lives here in Paris, working on the old historical Naundorff case ; Incidentally, he lives as a private person, whose attitude is not at all up for discussion, Mr. Jörns is interested in him. The fact that a German lives with a hereditary enemy in France is enough for him to suspect him. His questions, which were not part of the business, were suspicions and should of course be understood as such. If the lawyer knew more and more details about the activity of this brother, he would have to intervene ex officio, and one can be sure that he would have done it. But he doesn't know anything. This ignorance is enough to insult a German who has nothing to do with the matter either as a defendant or as a witness. The accused alone is not enough prey for the judge-martial: everything that belongs to his family is suspect ...... There is no doubt that the Reich lawyer has insulted him: in his circles such "relationships" with the French General Staff are considered Espionage, viewed as treason, that is, a crime. The chairman tried to reassure Berthold Jacob by saying: 'The lawyer just asked ...' "

At the same time, on March 24, 1928, the magazine “ Das Tage-Buch ” found an article entitled “colleague Jorns”, written by the convicted Berthold Jacob-Salomon Jacob under the pseudonym “Public Prosecutor N.”. The article documented how Jorns had thwarted the prosecution of Luxemburg and Liebknecht's murderers - "a signal that good times had come for murderers" - and concluded from this that Jorns was a wrong choice as Reich attorney. Attorney General Karl August Werner (1876–1936) and his colleague Jorns filed a criminal complaint against the responsible editor-in-chief Joseph Bornstein for insulting and defamation . The Reich Minister of Justice, Erich Koch-Weser , approved the motion in the cabinet. On April 17, 1929, the main hearing began before the jury in Berlin-Mitte . Paul Levi took over the defense. Contrary to Jorn's expectations, the chairman allowed the evidence for a further detailed examination of the events in 1919. The process thus took a turn that Jorns had not expected. Because Levi was able to prove Jorns' cover-up actions and the favoring of the murderers in the judicial prosecution of the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919 from the files he had viewed. The plea Levis was of Carl von Ossietzky boasted:

“The terrible deed that was committed at that time was not good for anyone. ... Only one climbed up, Judge Jorns, and I think in ten years he has forgotten where his robe got the red color from. ... The dead letters, used to protect the guilty, and the rotten bones of the victims: they stand up here and complain to the prosecutor of that time. "

The trial and verdict made waves. In the first instance, the lay judge acquitted the defendant editor Bornstein because he had provided the necessary evidence of truth and the conclusion of the article was correct, namely that Paul Jorns was "unsuitable for an activity in the association of the Reich Attorney General". In particular, Jorns encouraged the murderers. The appeal hearing took place on January 27, 1930 before the 3rd Large Criminal Chamber of District Court I in Berlin . During the trial, defense attorney Paul Levi fell out of the window from unexplained circumstances. The joint plaintiff Jorns and the main plaintiff Oberreichsanwalt Werner fell out because the latter requested an acquittal and Jorns then insulted him. The court decided here on a fine of 100 marks, since the denial of legal qualifications did not apply to Jorns. Jorns now appealed to the Reichsgericht in Leipzig, his place of work. In its judgment of July 7, 1930, the Reichsgericht diverged from its previous jurisprudence and stated that proof of the awareness of the advancement is not sufficient, but that the intention must be proven. The Berlin district court, which was referred back, sentenced Bornstein to a fine of 500 marks on January 30, 1931. The process was debated in the Reichstag. Otto Landsberg , then People's Representative and later Minister of Justice, was angry that Jorns had asked him

"Whether my political friends and I were not delighted with the news of the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht."

With the consent of the Reich Minister of Justice Curt Joël , Jorns was appointed investigator on November 27, 1931 in the case of the Boxheim documents , which had been handed over to the police on November 25. But Jorns was withdrawn two days later. Afterwards he was employed in a revision senate.

National Socialism

In 1933 he joined the NSDAP . In 1934 he became responsible for the indictment at the People's Court in the branch of the Reichsgericht in Berlin , where he became the chief public prosecutor. He reached the peak of his career in 1936 when he was appointed senior Reich lawyer. In 1937, when he reached the age limit, he retired. At the beginning of the Second World War , Jorns was reactivated and again worked for the Reich Prosecutor at the People's Court. In 1941 he finally retired.

Movie

The murders have been filmed several times. Judge Jorns was represented by:

Works (selection)

  • "Treason", in: Deutsche Richterzeitung 1928, p. 105ff.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lüderitzbuchter Zeitung January 22, 1910
  2. ^ The red flag of February 12, 1919 , accessed April 25, 2011.
  3. ^ Source collection in the Rote Fahne from February 16, 1919 , accessed on April 25, 2011.
  4. ^ Eduard Bernstein: The German Revolution; their origin, their course and their work, 1st volume, Berlin-Fichtenau 1921, pp. 168f.
  5. ↑ Wolfram Wette: “Gustav Noske. A political biography ”, Düsseldorf 1987, p. 309.
  6. ↑ Husar Runge in " Freiheit ", the central organ of the USPD (1918-1923) of January 9, 1921, quoted from Emil Julius Gumbel : "Four years of political murder", Berlin 1922, p. 13.
  7. ↑ Ignaz Wrobel, Die Weltbühne, March 27, 1928, No. 13, p. 471.
  8. ↑ Das Tag-Buch, 9 (1928), Heft 12, p. 473.
  9. ↑ a b Malte Wilke, Stefan Segerling: "Politicized libel processes in the Weimar Republic", Journal on European History of Law 11/2019, pp. 31–39.
  10. ↑ Files of the Reich Chancellery 1918-1933: Das Kabinett Müller II, Volume 1, Document No. 82, Cabinet meeting of December 10, 1928, 7th personal matter of the Reich Ministry of Justice.
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Heine : "The meaning of the Jorns process" , Sozialistische Monatshefte 1929, p. 389ff.
  12. ↑ Carl von Ossietzky: “As a guest, Dr. Paul Levi “, Die Weltbühne, June 4, 1929, quoted in. after Carl von Ossietzky: Complete Writings 1929 - 1930, Volume V, 1st Edition, 1994, Chap. 31 online
  13. ^ Heinrich Hannover, Elisabeth Hannover-Drück: Political Justice 1918-1933 . Introduction Karl Dietrich Bracher , Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1966, p. 201.
  14. ↑ Klaus Gietinger: Past that does not pass. The murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht 90 years ago, Junge Welt , January 10, 2009, cited above. according to the website of Kerstin Köditz [1] , accessed on March 20, 2019
  15. ↑ Files of the Reich Chancellery 1918-1933: The Brüning Cabinets I / II, Volume 3, Document No. 574 Ministerial Meeting of November 28, 1931.
personal data
SURNAME Jorns, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jörns, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Senior Reich attorney and examining magistrate in the Luxemburg and Liebknecht murder case
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Heinade
DATE OF DEATH February 5, 1942
Place of death Berlin