Richard Schmid

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Richard Schmid (born March 31, 1899 in Sulz am Neckar ; † January 1, 1986 in Stuttgart ) was a German lawyer, politician ( SPD ) and resistance fighter against National Socialism . From 1945 to 1953 he was Attorney General of the State of Württemberg-Baden and from 1953 to 1964 President of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court .

Life

Richard Schmid was born in Sulz as the third of four brothers. The parents, Michael Schmid and Klara geb. Interpreter, owned a mill there. His oldest brother was the man of letters, local poet and honorary citizen of Sulz Paul Schmid . His second eldest brother Arthur fell in the First World War Battle of the Somme than 18-year-old volunteer . His youngest brother Walter studied law in Tübingen after the war and was mayor of Sulz. After graduating from high school and briefly participating in the war, Schmid studied law at the universities of Tübingen , Freiburg and Munich in 1918 and was awarded a Dr. jur. PhD . After a legal clerkship at the Stuttgart District Court, he worked as a lawyer from 1925.

After the "transfer of power" to the National Socialists, Schmid, who was previously left-wing liberal, cooperated with various socialist groups. As a lawyer, he defended members of the KPD and SAPD and also maintained contacts with the illegal organizations of the SPD, ISK and KPO in southwest Germany. Without being a formal member of the party himself, in 1934 he reorganized the SAPD structures in Württemberg that had remained after the first repression measures. His business trips between 1933 and 1938 took him mainly to Switzerland, but also to France, Denmark and the Soviet Union. These stays abroad were used by the under the code name Dr. Wägele traveled Schmid to meet, among others, with the SAPD politicians Walter Fabian and Jacob Walcher and the KPO chairman August Thalheimer and to deliver news. In November 1938, Schmid was arrested in connection with the destruction of the southwest German SAPD structures sat long in custody and was established in 1940 by the People's Court on charges of conspiracy to commit high treason to three years in prison convicted. After the end of his imprisonment in 1941 he worked as a farm worker.

After the Second World War , Schmid helped build the SPD in Württemberg. Professionally, he worked from 1945 to 1953 as attorney general for the state of Württemberg-Baden . In July 1953 it appointed Minister Reinhold Maier for Secretary of State , the Maier in the Ministry of Justice, after the resignation of Justice Minister Viktor Renner himself led. Schmid was therefore not a minister, but de facto head of the ministry. Schmid resigned from his office in September after he became President of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court and remained until his retirement in 1964. In 1968 Schmid resigned from the SPD after the emergency laws were passed .

Schmid was married to Trudel born in 1942. Banholzer and had a daughter.

He wrote numerous articles and treatises on legal subjects. Richard Schmid pointed out that the judge only has a chance of independence if he is aware of his dependency. If the judge does not see his true dependence on the people on whose behalf he decides, he becomes negligent and ultimately blind to his dependence on politics.

Richard Schmid Prize

In 2012, the Forum Justizgeschichte awarded the Richard Schmid Prize, endowed with 3,000 euros, for outstanding achievements in the field of contemporary legal history. The award ceremony takes place every two years. The 2012 prize winners were Christoph Jahr for his book Antisemitismus vorgericht and Hans-Christian Jasch for a study about the Nazi lawyer Wilhelm Stuckart . The 2014 prize winner is Maximilian Becker for his book Mitstreiter im Volkstumskampf. German justice in the incorporated eastern territories 1939–1945 . In 2016, Wolfgang Form, Theo Schiller and Lothar Seitz are in Hessen for the book NS-Justiz in Hessen. Persecution - Continuity - Heritage Awarded.

Quotes

“No profession should break away from class-based thinking as much as the judge; he must become internally independent of the group interests between which he often has to decide, and he must not lose the ability to put himself in the shoes of all people with whom he is dealing. "

- Richard Schmid : In: Objections .

Works

  • Objection. Criticism of laws and courts . Stuttgart 1965
  • Strike and Lockout . Frankfurt am Main 1965
  • Justice in the Federal Republic . Pfullingen 1967
  • Our basic law? Practice u. Criticism . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 3-10-070901-2 .
  • Lockout, right or wrong? Frankfurt am Main 1972
  • The discomfort with the judiciary . Beck, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-406-04923-0 .
  • Last reluctance . Edition Cordeliers, Stuttgart 1984 ISBN 3-922836-28-3 .

literature

  • Hans-Ernst Böttcher: Law, Justice, Criticism: Festschrift for Richard Schmid on his 85th birthday . Nomos, Baden-Baden 1985, ISBN 3-7890-1092-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Schmid Prize ( memento of September 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at the Justizgeschichte Forum (accessed on November 13, 2015).
  2. ↑ Richard Schmid: Objections. Criticism of laws and courts. Stuttgart 1965, p. 243.
personal data
SURNAME Schmid, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dr. Wägele (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, politician and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Sulz am Neckar
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1986
Place of death Stuttgart