Robert Servatius

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Robert Servatius during the Eichmann Trial (1961) in Jerusalem
Robert Servatius (front left) with prosecutor Gideon Hausner (standing) during the Eichmann trial (1961)

Robert Servatius (born October 31, 1894 in Cologne , † August 7, 1983 in Cologne ) was a German lawyer . He became known as a criminal defense attorney in the Nuremberg Trials and especially as the defender of Adolf Eichmann in the Jerusalem Eichmann Trial .

Servatius came from a family of entrepreneurs (FX Servatius, cigar factory) and farmers in Adenau in the Hocheifel. After graduating from the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne , he took part in the First World War as an artillery officer . From 1918 to 1922 he studied law in Marburg , Munich , Berlin and Bonn . After his legal clerkship and the second state examination , he was awarded a Dr. jur. did his doctorate and settled as a lawyer in Cologne. Apart from study trips to London and Paris, he learned Russian for a year in Berlin in 1929/30 and dealt with the conditions in the USSR, which he visited in 1932. During the Second World War he served again as a frontline officer from beginning to end and was promoted to major .

1945–1947 he took part in several of the Nuremberg trials as a defense lawyer. In the main war criminal trial he defended Fritz Sauckel and the NSDAP leadership corps accused as an organization , in the medical trial Karl Brandt , in the Wilhelmstrasse trial Paul Pleiger and in the Pohl trial Franz Eirenschmalz .

He then also became the defender of Adolf Eichmann after he was kidnapped to Israel on May 22, 1960. When public prosecutor Gabriel Bach handed Eichmann letters from three lawyers, one Chilean, one American and from Servatius, on June 14, 1960, and asked him to choose one of them as defense counsel, Eichmann immediately decided on Servatius. In a letter dated June 27, 1960, he declared his readiness to the Israeli Minister of Justice, in August brought a certificate stating that he had never belonged to the NSDAP, and was then appointed public defender. A change in the law was necessary to allow a foreign lawyer to appear in an Israeli court. Servatius' fee of $ 20,000 went to Israel; the Federal Republic of Germany rejected a corresponding application for reimbursement of costs. In addition, Servatius was involved in the income from the marketing of Eichmann's memoirs .

After Eichmann was sentenced to death in the first instance on December 15, 1961, Servatius also appeared as defense counsel in the appeal proceedings. Hannah Arendt calls his plea before the Supreme Court on March 22, 1962, in which he again asserted Israel's lack of jurisdiction and demanded that the Federal Republic of Germany be offered the extradition of Eichmann, "an unbelievable mess, teeming with errors". After a week the court adjourned and did not meet again to read its sentence until May 29, 1962: the death sentence was upheld. The request for clemency that Eichmann submitted to President Jizchak Ben Zwi on the same day - according to Arendt "four handwritten pages, made out 'according to instructions from my lawyer'" - was refused on May 31, 1962. A few hours later, at midnight, Eichmann was executed in Ramla prison. Neither Servatius nor his assistant Dieter Wechtenbruch were still in Israel at the time.

Servatius was also Friedrich Tillmann's defense counsel after he was arrested on July 15, 1960 on charges of aiding and abetting the killing of around 70,000 adult inmates of mental hospitals, from which he was spared on June 29, 1961. The main hearing, which was supposed to start on February 18, 1964, did not take place because Tillmann died on February 12, 1964 when he fell from the window of a high-rise building.

literature

  • Hubert Seliger: Political lawyers? The defenders of the Nuremberg trials. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2016, ISBN 978-3-8487-2360-7 , p. 553.

Web links

Commons : Robert Servatius  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Yeshayahu A. Jelinek : Germany and Israel 1945–1965. Oldenbourg, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56764-0 , p. 341. On: Books.Google.de.
  2. ^ Robert Pendorf: The defender of Eichmann. On: Zeit.de. May 5, 1961.
  3. ^ F. The Appointment of Defense Counsel, G. The Ben-Gurion Government and the Eichmann Affair. ( Memento of October 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) On: archives.gov.il.
  4. ↑ Werner Renz: NS crimes and justice. An introduction. In: Werner Renz (Ed.): Interests around Eichmann. Israeli justice, German law enforcement and old comradeships. Campus, Frankfurt a. M. 2012, p. 27 f. On: Books.Google.de.
  5. ^ Willi Winkler: Adolf Eichmann and his defenders. A small addendum on legal history. In: Adolf Eichmann in court. The Jerusalem Trial. Access to the 05th bulletin of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Frankfurt / M. 2011, p. 33 ff. PDF, accessed on February 21, 2015.
  6. ^ Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem. A report on the banality of evil. From the American by Brigitte Granzow. German edition reviewed and supplemented by the author. Munich Piper 1964. Chapter XV. Pp. 294-297.
personal data
SURNAME Servatius, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH August 7, 1983
Place of death Cologne