Peter Alfons Steiniger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Alfons Steiniger (born December 4, 1904 in Berlin ; † May 27, 1980 in East Berlin ) was a German writer , lawyer , university professor and constitutional lawyer . He was instrumental in drafting the first constitution of the GDR .

Peter Alfons Steiniger (second from right front) at the 1975 award

Life

Youth and education

Peter Alfons Steiniger was the son of a Jewish merchant from Bohemia and a mother who converted to the Jewish faith. Despite the poor family situation after the First World War , he attended the Bismarck High School in Berlin-Wilmersdorf from 1910 to 1923 . From 1923 to 1927 he studied law , philosophy and economics at the universities of Berlin, Marburg , Bonn and finally in Halle . In 1928, Steiniger obtained his doctorate as Dr. jur. under assessment by Carl Schmitt .

After various legal activities, he passed the first state examination at the Naumburg Higher Regional Court in 1931 . This was possible because Steiniger, who had previously been a Czechoslovak citizen through his father, was naturalized in the German Reich in 1931 . In 1932 he began his legal clerkship at the Berlin-Wedding District Court , but was dismissed in 1933 because of his Jewish descent.

In 1932 his son Klaus Steiniger was born.

Career up to the end of the war

In June 1933 Steiniger resigned from the Jewish community . From then on he worked as a tutor , bank clerk and writer (under the pseudonym Peter A. Steinhoff ). In 1935 he was again expatriated from the German Reich and in 1936 he again obtained Czechoslovak citizenship. Steiniger wrote the historical novels "Heinrich the Lion" and "The Shadow of God" . In order to be able to continue working as a writer, Steiniger submitted an application to the Reichsschrifttumskammer in 1938 , which was refused. In 1939 he found employment as a syndic in the Jewish "Bankhaus AE Wassermann" , which was renamed "Bankhaus von Heinz, Tecklenburg and Co" after Aryanization . Steiniger later even became the managing director of the bank, which was significantly involved in the expropriation of the Jews. Steiniger was responsible for the sale of the assets of Jewish companies whose entrepreneurs had to give up or emigrated.

In 1944 Steiniger was to be drafted into the Todt Organization , but he escaped by fleeing. Until May 1945 he lived illegally in Krummhübel in Silesia .

Post-war activity

After Krummhübel was taken by the Red Army , Steiniger became second mayor, and he held this office until the summer of 1946. In June 1945 he was a co-founder of the KPD in Schmiedeberg i. Giant Mountains . In the summer of 1946, at the invitation of Johannes R. Becher , he came to Dresden with Gerhart Hauptmann's funeral procession from Agnetendorf , then to Berlin.

From the winter semester of 1946/1947 he was a lecturer in public law at the Humboldt University in Berlin , in 1947 he completed his habilitation with the essay Das Blocksystem and in November 1947 became professor of public law and legal philosophy with a full teaching assignment, and on October 20, 1948 full professor Professor of Public Law. As early as 1947 he had transferred to the German Central Administration for National Education , University and Science Department. Also in 1947 he was co-founder and president of the German Administration Academy, a cadre school for the training and further education of senior employees in the Soviet-controlled state apparatus.

In 1948 Steiniger's wife died of consumption and from then on he was the single father of his son Klaus Steiniger .

In 1949 Steiniger was a member of the constitutional committee of the German People's Council . Together with Karl Polak , Steiniger played a key role in the formulation of the first constitution of the GDR .

In 1950, Steiniger resigned from all offices after his application to the Reichsschrifttumskammer in 1938 was made public. Steiniger himself now described his behavior at the time as "weak servitude and mendacious love service" . At the same time he distanced himself from his habilitation thesis as a "formal unscientific view" .

Despite the attacks, this enabled him to continue a professorship with the chair of international law at Humboldt University until 1970, and from 1952 to 1954 he was even vice dean of the law faculty. From 1951 Steiniger was director of the newly founded Institute for State and Legal Theory, after which he built up the Institute for International Law. In 1970 Steiniger retired. From 1950 to 1974 Steiniger was a member of the World Peace Council .

tomb

His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

honors and awards

Fonts

  • Henry the Lion. Berlin 1936 (pseudonym: Peter A. Steinhoff)
  • The shadow of God. Berlin 1937 (pseudonym: Peter A. Steinhoff)
  • Poor Job. 1947 (pseudonym: Peter A. Steinhoff)
  • The block system. Contribution to a democratic constitutional theory. Berlin 1949
  • The Nuremberg Trial. Documentation. Berlin 1957
  • West Berlin. A handbook on the West Berlin question. Berlin 1959
  • Responsibility of states under international law. Berlin 1977. (together with Bernhard Graefrath and Edith Oeser )

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see New German Biography
personal data
SURNAME Steiniger, Peter Alfons
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Peter A. Steinhoff
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, lawyer, university professor and constitutional lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 27, 1980
Place of death East Berlin